Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Death of one in every four children (1-4 years) in Bangladesh occurs due to drowning, a survey by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says on Wednesday.
The survey was conducted in four countries. Three other surveyed countries are Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Two provinces of China, Beijing and Jiangxi, were also brought under the survey.
The Alliance for Safe Children (TASC) in collaboration with the UNICEF conducted the survey titled "Child Drowning - Evidence for a newly recognized epidemic and its prevention".
"For too long drowning has been a hidden epidemic," said the Director of UNICEF's Office of Research Gordon Alexander, "Countries have made strong and continuous progress on infectious diseases reduction over the past three decades, but no impact has been made on drowning deaths".
"As a result, drowning is emerging as a leading cause of death for children after infancy (1year) in the countries," he noted.
The report stated, although drowning is a leading killer of children across the parts of Asia, highly effective and cost- efficient programs to reduce such drowning deaths are not being sufficiently embraced.
It also stated that the cost of drowning prevention among children is no more expensive than interventions for these diseases and the vast majority of the drowning deaths are preventable.
Another report titled 'Child drowning - evidence for a newly recognized epidemic and its prevention' stated that drowning is not a new killer, but has remained undetected as a significant health issue due to counting methods. Because most children who drown never taken to health facility because their deaths are immediate.
"To further improve child survival, it is imperative that we take action to address drowning which is easily preventable," said UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh Pascal Villeneuve."
UNICEF called upon and suggested government and developmental agencies for more support to prevent drowning through scaling up early childhood education programs and proper guidance because prevention can save hundreds of thousands of children's lives.
BBN/SSR/AD-23May12-9:19 pm (BST)
