The preventable health burden: Investigating the opportunities for the health sector to prevent diarrhoea – a global killer - and other sanitation and water related illnesses.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012: 11:00-12:30
D: Dennis G. Carlson (Millennium Hall)
Moderators:
Tilahun Teshome, Addis Ababa University Law School, Ethiopia and Laura Taylor, Tearfund, United Kingdom
Death from diarrhoea is preventable yet still one child dies from diarrhoea about every 20 seconds. Diarrhoea is the biggest killer of children in SSA and the second biggest killer globally, killing around 4000 children under 5 each day. Diarrhoea is also a leading cause of malnutrition in children less than five years old. This session will investigate how to ensure that diarrhoea is no longer the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. It will examine the opportunities and challenges of effective diarrhoea control, with a focus on findings from a new PATH and Tearfund report, which will be officially launched during the session. This report investigates how three African countries are addressing diarrhoea: in Mali and Ethiopia, where diarrhoea is the leading cause of death in children less than five years old; and Zambia, where the burden is also high. It examines the policies and strategies that are in place to both prevent children getting diarrhoea and stop children from dying once they have it. As well as highlighting the challenges each country faces in implementing diarrhoea control, it also looks at the existing opportunities in each country that could be developed to improve its response. It concludes with broader lessons learnt and recommendations urging countries to undertake a comprehensive review of their existing policies relating to diarrhoea control and to develop a framework that will strengthen coordination. It will then explore what role governments, donors, civil society and NGOs should play in reducing diarrhoea control with representatives on the panel from the Federal Ministry of Health, DFID, and NGOs. A representative from the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health will then give their perspective on the role of the health sector in address diarrhoea and the progress made so far in Ethiopia and a representative from DFID will also share their view on the role of donors. We will encourage lively debate during this session – with the aim of discussing together what steps must be taken to ensure no child dies of diarrhoea.
Diarrhoea Dialogues: From policies to progress - a call for urgent action to prevent the biggest killer of children in Sub-Saharan Africa
Stephanie Gill, Tearfund, United Kingdom; Tesfaye Tesema Gintamo, Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church Development, Ethiopia
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