UNICEF launches malgache translation of child survival manual

On the occasion of the Day of the African Child, UNICEF, in collaboration with its sister UN agencies, launched the first-ever malagasy translation of the famous Facts for Life child survival guide. This guide aims at providing parents, care givers, young people, health workers, teachers and communicators with information on how to save and improve children’s lives.

“Some sixty thousand children die each year in this country before their fifth birthday from preventable causes,” said UNICEF’s Representative Barbara Bentein during the launching ceremony. “Information contained in Facts for Life can help prevent those deaths. There is simply no reason why everyone should not have access to this information -- It is vital that every parent and everyone who works with parents around the country communicate these simple, easy to understand facts about child survival,” she added.

Facts for Life is a joint publication of UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNDP, UNAIDS, WFP and the World Bank. Over 15 million copies of the publication have been distributed around the world, in more than 219 different languages.

Some of the key messages included in the publication – all of which are based on the latest scientific research -- and particularly relevant to Madagascar, where the majority of children fall ill and die from diseases such as malaria, diarrhea and acute respiratory infections, are as follows:

Wherever malaria is common, mosquito nets treated with insecticide should be used and a child with a fever should be examined by a trained health worker
A child with diarrhea needs to drink plenty of the right liquids – breast milk, fruit juice or oral rehydration salts. If diarrhea is bloody, watery and frequent, the child is in danger and should be taken to a health facility
If a child with a cough is breathing rapidly, or with difficulty, the child is in danger and should be taken to a health center immediately
“I envision a future where every malagasy parent has access to this guide,” said the UN Resident Coordinator in Madagascar Bouri Sanhouidi. “But until we have the funds to make this possible, we count on all parents, care givers, teachers, media professionals, students, health care workers and anyone else who can read and has access to this guide to pass on the information to help save a child’s life,” he emphasized.

For more information, please contact:

Misbah M. Sheikh
Chief, Media and External Relations

UNICEF Madagascar
5 Rue Robert Ducroq, BP732 Antananarivo 101

Off : 261-20 22 626 45/46
Fax : 261-20 22 628 45
Mobile : 261-33 11 892 83
Email : msheikh@unicef.org


Madagascar, June 16, 2005

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IMF Executive Board Discusses the First Assessment of Eligible Countries under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative

On December 21, 2005 the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) established the list of countries that qualify for debt relief from the Fund under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). Debt relief delivery, which could start as soon as January 3, 2005, is now conditional on getting the consents of all the contributors to the Subsidy Account of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) Trust, whose contributions help finance the Initiative. The MDRI will deliver debt relief from the Fund to qualifying members countries with an annual per capita income at or below US$380, and to countries above the threshold that have reached the completion point under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The implementation of the MDRI will reduce the external debt burden of a number of the world's poorest countries and will provide additional resources to help them reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Background The Executive Board appro...
Read more

Oil’s chaotic collapse deepens; stocks drop worldwide

Image
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices crumpled even further Tuesday, and U.S. stocks sank to their worst loss in weeks as worries swept markets worldwide about the economic carnage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The market’s spotlight was again on oil, where prices have plummeted because very few people are flying or driving, and factories have shut amid widespread stay-at-home orders. Global demand is set to drop to levels last seen in the mid 1990s. At the same time, oil producers can’t slow their production fast enough, and all the extra crude means storage tanks are quickly running out of room. The cost for a barrel of U.S. oil to be delivered in June plunged 43% to $11.57. That’s the part of the market that oil traders are focused on and trading most actively. For oil to be delivered next month, which is when storage tanks could top out, the cost of a barrel stood at $10.01. A day earlier, it fell below zero for the first time, meaning traders paid others to take oil off their hand...
Read more

Mapping Extreme Poverty Around the World A new report from the

Image
A new report from the  World Bank  just landed, finding that a record low of 10% of humanity now live in extreme poverty, down from 11% in 2013. But poverty rates aren’t anywhere close to equal between continents or even countries, as our new series of maps clearly demonstrates. The World Bank provides an in-depth explanation for its methodology, which you can find in Appendix A of the full report  here . We focused on the percentage of people in each country living below what the World Bank defines as extreme poverty, or $1.90/day. We’ll let the researchers defend this definition on their own, but there is one caveat to keep in mind. It can be extraordinarily difficult to collect reliable data from so many countries on a regular basis, and in fact we used the latest year in which numbers were available whenever possible. For example, in some of these maps we compare 2011 figures against 2015. In short, our maps provide the clearest possible apples-to-apples compa...
Read more