In The Coming Months, Child Mortality Could Reach Up To Six Thousand Per Day Due To The Pandemic

Photo illustration (Rene Bernal / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The United Nations (UN) has warned that six thousand children around the world are in danger of dying every day due to the COVID-19 pandemic for the next six months. A study notes that Indonesia is included in the category of countries with the highest mortality rate in the worst-case scenario.

As is well known, the global impact of a pandemic can disrupt maternal and child health programs, such as family planning, childbirth care, and pre-natal programs, including vaccinations.

That could increase the under-five mortality rate by 1.2 million in just six months, according to an analysis by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published in the Lancet Global Journal of Health.

This projection could push back progress towards preventing child mortality over the past ten years, said the UN children's agency, UNICEF, quoted by The Guardian.

"This pandemic has a far-reaching impact. This is without a doubt the biggest and most pressing global crisis facing children since the second world war," said UNICEF UK executive director Sacha Deshmukh.

Deshmukh said that due to the pandemic, children's lives have become chaotic all over the world. Their support system is taken away, their education is delayed, so that their scope is limited.

This Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study underscores how the pandemic is disrupting medical supply chains in countries with weak health systems. Meanwhile visits to health centers have decreased due to lockdowns, curfews, transportation disruptions and fears of being infected with the virus.

This study looked at three scenario models that could occur in lower middle income countries. In the most optimistic scenario, a country where health services are reduced by 15 percent will see a 9.8 percent increase in under-five mortality - an estimated 1,400 children per day. Meanwhile, the maternal mortality rate could increase by 8.3 percent.

"Our estimates are based on tentative assumptions and represent a variety of results," reads the report.

Countries projected to have the highest death toll in the worst-case scenario are Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Uganda, including Indonesia. UNICEF has called on those affected by the pandemic.