Millions of deaths avoidable

WASHINGTON - THE deaths of millions of women and infants could easily be prevented by more widely adopting simple practices like handwashing and immunisations, a World Health Organization report said on Tuesday.

The study estimated that 300,000 to 500,000 women die in childbirth each year, while 3.6 million newborns do not survive their first month and an additional 5.2 million children die before their fifth birthday.

Some 82 per cent of those deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, according to the report published by the WHO's Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health. The study was released ahead of a meeting Wednesday at the United Nations to develop an action plan to reduce maternal and child deaths.

'This is not high tech,' said Joy Lawn of Save the Children's Saving Newborn Lives programme and a member of the scientific and advocacy group Countdown to 2015, which helped prepare the report. 'Up to three million newborns each year can be saved with simple approaches, like cutting the (umbilical) cord with a clean blade... or antibiotics to treat infections.'

The study called for an additional US$16 billion (S$22.4 billion) to help expand global access to family planning methods and pre- and post-natal care, as well as to hire millions of health care and community workers. The investment would save the lives of up to a million women, 4.5 million newborns and 6.5 million children by 2015, the study found.

'This is a multi-layered problem that can be addressed with a combination of many, very simple interventions,' said Flavia Bustreo, director of The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health.