Brong Ahafo strengthens measures to reduce child mortality
Ghana has instituted a number of measures to reduce child mortality. This is in line with efforts to scale up priority interventions to reduce child morbidity and mortality to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for Child Survival (MDG4).
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Among them is the Child Health Promotion Week, which was instituted in 2004 to create awareness of infant deaths by providing an integrated package of services and to increase coverage for child protection measures.
Objective
The objective of the annual event held from May 2 to 8, focused attention on creating awareness and intensifying efforts to increase knowledge, as well as improving health coverage for children, especially those who would not usually be covered under routine outreach services.
Last year, Ghana launched the 10th anniversary of the Child Health Promotion Week (CHPW) on May 2, 2014, at the Jubilee Park in Bolgatanga, the regional capital of the Upper East Region, a week which was observed concurrently with the 4th African Vaccination Week.
Achievements
The child health promotion activities have contributed to the reduction of under-five mortality from 111 per 1,000 live births in 2003 to 60 per 1,000 live births in 2014, according to the Ghana Demographic Health Survey.
As Ghana marks this year’s event, the unfortunate report from the Brong Ahafo Region is that expectant mothers with HIV, who refused to take their HIV drugs, have been identified as one of the leading causes of infant mortality (IM) among under five-year-old children in the Regional Hospital in Sunyani.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic about the recorded cases of IM in the first quarter of this year, the acting Clinical Director of the hospital, Dr Emmanuel Kofi Amponsah, said most of the IM deaths were due to HIV infections passed on from mothers to their babies.
Statistics
He said the hospital recorded 31 cases of under-five mortality out of which 16 cases were found to be children born to known HIV mothers.
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He added that 21 of the deaths were babies under 29 days old while four babies died between one and 11 months. Six of the deaths were children between one and four years.
Dr Amponsah said last year, 13 babies under 29 days old died while between one and 11 month group, 18 died. Six of the ages one to four-year group also died.
He said although the figure had declined by 16. 2 per cent as compared to the 37 cases of IM in 2014, it was still not encouraging and that the hospital had put some measures in place to curb the downward trend.
The statistics indicate an average of 10 deaths per month in the first quarter.
Infant mortality
The measures the Brong Ahafo Regional hospital and Ghana Health Service (GHS) have put in place as Dr Amponsah explained included what they called “Making every baby count initiative” (MEBCI).
He said: “Whenever a child is delivered, we make sure that we examine them critically to ensure that they breathe properly”, indicating that since “we introduced the initiative, we have reduced infant mortality by 16. 2 per cent compared to the same period in 2014 where we recorded 37 deaths in the first quarter.”
“This is because what we have identified is that most of those who we diagnosed with HIV refused to take their HIV drugs to enable us to avoid mother-to-child transmission”, he stated.
Dr Amponsah said some of the HIV positive expectant mothers believed that the disease was spiritual and that “they go to prayer camps for cure without taking their drugs”.
He explained that some of the expectant mothers who adhered to doctors’ advice and took their drugs after testing positive, had given birth to children who all tested negative and were doing well.
Mother-to-child transmission
“If you are HIV positive and you take your drugs well, we can prevent mother-to-child transmission of the disease”, he explained.
He, however, expressed worry over expectant mothers who did not attend antenatal clinics adding that “some of the mothers do not attend antenatal care for us to detect some of these factors that cause the mortalities”.
Dr Amponsah, therefore, called on the government to look at prayer camps that admit HIV positive expectant mothers, in order to reduce the incidence of mother-to-child transmission of the disease in the fight against infant mortality in the country.
Writer’s email: zadokgee89@yahoo.com
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