PERSPECTIVE

International Perspectives on Childhood and Children's Health



International Perspectives on Childhood and Children's Health

Introduction

The burden of diseases in developing countries is extremely high due to the low income and the insufficient facilities of the fundamentals needs of life. The life threatening diseases in these areas encompass AIDS, diarrhoea, respiratory infections, malaria and other infectious diseases. The major portion of the death population is comprised of children due to such diseases. However, the great part of such diseases is curable. As the developing countries possess the issue of multiple and contagious diseases and the insufficient sources and facilities of food, shelter, water and other necessities of life.

There are many reasons of prevalence of such diseases including the political, cultural and economic factors along with the problems of pollution. One of the highest prevailing diseases in developing countries is HIV/AIDS. This disease greatly influences health of mother and her baby during and after the pregnancy. Luckily, the prevention protocol regarding transmission of HIV from mother to child can be attained via scalable, accessible and effective interventions in the current child and maternal well-being services. This paper aims to develop the intervention program for the HIV AIDS for the children during childbirth and breastfeeding in Nigeria. The developed program of such interventions depends on the environmental, economical and political situation of the country, which has not been advantageous to the health of the child.

Discussion

According to the report of UNICEF, the prevalence of AIDS was 3.6 percent in the year of 2009. The large portion of this percentage comprised of pregnant women. Therefore, maternal mortality rate was 630 per hundred thousand. In 2010, about 360,000 children and 230,000 pregnant women were living with HIV AIDS (UNICEF, 2012).

Country Situation

The rate of HIV AIDS is increasing with passage of time. In 2009, about 84,200 children infected with the disease. UNAIDS indicates that the modelling data with the achievement of the targets of international plan and other interventions would cause HIV AIDS in 17,100 children by the year of 2015. It would indicate the eighty percent decrease in new cases of HIV AIDS incidence in the duration from 2009 to 2015.

Overview of the Child Health

In Nigeria, HIV AIDS is the general public problem of health. According to the Ministry of Health of Nigeria (2011), children, newborns and mothers in large number, about three thousand are dying per day. The main reason of this large number of deaths is the absence of required interventions (UNICEF, 2008). However, there are certain interventions to protect the lives of newborns and to prevent the deaths of older children and mother, but with very low coverage. Under nutrition is the reason of more than third of the total deaths of children and maternal in Nigeria (Decade Report, 2010).

Intervention Program for Reducing HIV AIDS

The intervention, with respect to the increased incidence of the HIV AIDS in Nigeria, is to prevent the transmission of the disease from mother to child. Many organizations and agencies are working for the improvement of well-being ...