The New Nation - Internet Edition

ACCORDING to a UNICEF report, the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Asia's booming economies like India and China is leaving many mothers and children behind and putting youngsters' lives at risk. More than 40 per cent of the world's children who died before their fifth birthdays in 2006 lived in the Asia Pacific region. 'The divide between rich and poor is rising at a troubling rate within sub-regions of the Asia Pacific, leaving vast numbers of mothers and children at risk', the State of Asia Pacific's Children 2008 Report says.

South Asia is lagging on public spending with only 1.1 per cent of gross domestic product allocated to health care. With half of the world's kids living in the Asia Pacific, the report said, extending health services to the poorest was key to achieving the 2015 global goal of reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds of 1990 levels. Within the region, Southeast Asia made the largest strides in combating child deaths, with mortality for under-fives now half than what it was in 1990. In China, the report says, child mortality dropped between 1970 and 1990, but the decrease had since slowed and the country needs to take big strides to regain early progress. China's overall disease profile now resembles that of an industrialised country, but inequities in access to quality health care and huge disparities in health outcomes remain prevalent and entrenched.

The Asia Pacific as a whole has seen a 34 per cent reduction in the under-five mortality rate since 1990. Out of every 1,000 births in the region in 2006, 59 infants died before their fifth birthday. The 2015 target is 30 deaths per 1,000 births. Pneumonia, diarrhoea and malnutrition are the main killers. Vast inequalities in income stand in the way of child survival and should be remedied.