JOHANNESBURG, Nov 22, 2006 (AFP) - A baby born in Africa faces a harrowing struggle to survive even a day due to a lack of basic ante-natal care, a report by a group of international health organisations said on Wednesday.
Around 500,000 children die on the world's poorest continent within the first 24 hours while an average of 1.1 million lose their fight for life within a month of their birth, said the report compiled by researchers from groups such as the World Health Organisation, Save the Children and USAID.
"There are many women and babies out there who don't have anybody to shout for them and are dying uncounted and unnamed but definitely not unmourned," said Joy Lawn of Save the Children at the report's launch in Johannesburg.
Aside from the strong links between HIV/AIDS and newborn deaths, babies are dying from tetanus, diarrhoea and infections rarely seen in industrialised countries, and that should be relatively easily and cheaply prevented.
Simple ante-natal care including tetanus immunisation and malaria control, clean and safe childbirth care with a skilled midwife, and breastfeeding support could save almost 800,000 babies.
"If these essential interventions reached 90 percent of women, 67 percent of these deaths could be prevented," said Lawn.
Each day alone, some 700 women will die of pregnancy-related causes and 2,400 babies will be stillborn.
Lawn said the key period of preventing mother to child transmission of HIV was the first week of the baby's life, the same as for the critical care a baby should receive that will ensure its survival.
"If the mother is HIV positive, it is more likely the baby will die, be stillborn, or be small (underweight)," Lawn said.
A baby whose mother has died of AIDS is also six times more likely to die.
The report detailed how the risk of infant mortality rate was highest in countries which have been blighted by conflict.
Topping the list was Liberia which has a mortality rate of 66 deaths per 1,000 births, closely followed by Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone.
Five countries, including those with large populations such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, account for half of all newborn deaths on the continent.
"Nigeria alone has more than a quarter million newborn deaths and is really not making a lot of progress," said Lawn.
While the infant mortality rate is closely linked to poverty levels, some of the most traditionally impoverished countries such as Eritrea and Malawi have managed to turn around mortality rates thanks to increased government spending.
The report was also presented at the Pan African parliament which is currently sitting just outside Johnnesburg.
"We all have a role to play as government to lead, as policymakers to guarantee essential interventions and equity, as partners and donors to support programmes," said the parliament's president Gertrude Mongella.
Francisco Songane, director of the Geneva-based Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, said countries had to make child health a bigger priority.
"We have to work in an integrated manner and avoid vertical programmes -- that is why the newborns fall through the cracks," said Songane who is a former health minister of Mozambique.
The infant mortality figures in Africa are currently what they were in England in the early 20th century, and Sweden in the early 19th century, he added.
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