50 BD children drown every day
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Leading global experts on child drowning will sit together in the city today (Saturday) for a three-day congress to discuss and develop strategies to reduce the horrific toll of child drowning in Asia, reports BSS.
Drowning is the largest killer of Bangladeshi children aged 1-18 years, with around 50 children drowning each day. It is also a public health problem in other countries in Asia as well as in other parts of the world, organisers of the congress said Friday.
The three-day workshop is the first of its kind and public health experts are expected to discuss issues specific to Asia as well as find strategies to keep children safe from open water bodies such as ditches, ponds, swimming pools and rivers.
Experts and policymakers in the fields of public health and injury prevention are from Malaysia, the Phili-ppines, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, Denmark and host Bangladesh.
International Drowning Research Centre - Bangladesh (IDRC-B) in association with the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), The Alliance for Safe Children (TASC) and Royal Life Saving Society Australia (RLSSA) is hosting the event at a city hotel.
Director of IDRC-B Dr Aminur Rahman, who led some ground breaking research assignments on child drowning in Asia, said the issue of drowning goes largely underreported in Bangladesh.
"Child drowning is a hidden epidemic in Bangladesh. It's the leading killer of our children aged above one year. The rate of drowning in Asia is around 20 times higher than in developed countries," he said.
"We know from our research and pilot programme that low cost preventive measures are effective against drowning, like teaching older children how to swim and supervising movement of younger children", he added.
Dr Rahman said the focus should now be put on all children across Bangladesh and Asia. He said it was also important to learn from each other and scale up the effective interventions all over the world.
He said the meeting in Dhaka was bringing together the best researchers and policymakers in the child health field to discuss the problem of child survival in the region and beyond.
Participants are scheduled to discuss the current drowning interventions that are in place, visit a project site to see some interventions in action, and develop a set of guidelines to reduce child mortality from drowning in Asia.
Drowning is the largest killer of Bangladeshi children aged 1-18 years, with around 50 children drowning each day. It is also a public health problem in other countries in Asia as well as in other parts of the world, organisers of the congress said Friday.
The three-day workshop is the first of its kind and public health experts are expected to discuss issues specific to Asia as well as find strategies to keep children safe from open water bodies such as ditches, ponds, swimming pools and rivers.
Experts and policymakers in the fields of public health and injury prevention are from Malaysia, the Phili-ppines, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, Denmark and host Bangladesh.
International Drowning Research Centre - Bangladesh (IDRC-B) in association with the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), The Alliance for Safe Children (TASC) and Royal Life Saving Society Australia (RLSSA) is hosting the event at a city hotel.
Director of IDRC-B Dr Aminur Rahman, who led some ground breaking research assignments on child drowning in Asia, said the issue of drowning goes largely underreported in Bangladesh.
"Child drowning is a hidden epidemic in Bangladesh. It's the leading killer of our children aged above one year. The rate of drowning in Asia is around 20 times higher than in developed countries," he said.
"We know from our research and pilot programme that low cost preventive measures are effective against drowning, like teaching older children how to swim and supervising movement of younger children", he added.
Dr Rahman said the focus should now be put on all children across Bangladesh and Asia. He said it was also important to learn from each other and scale up the effective interventions all over the world.
He said the meeting in Dhaka was bringing together the best researchers and policymakers in the child health field to discuss the problem of child survival in the region and beyond.
Participants are scheduled to discuss the current drowning interventions that are in place, visit a project site to see some interventions in action, and develop a set of guidelines to reduce child mortality from drowning in Asia.