UN: Accidents Kill 800,000 Kids A Year

POSTED: 5:30 am HST December 10, 2008
U.N. officials said simple things like seat belts, childproof medicine caps and fences around pools could save hundreds of thousands of children's lives every year.

A report released Wednesday by the World Health Organization and UNICEF at a conference in Vietnam counts more than 800,000 children who die each year from burns, drowning, car crashes and other accidents. Most of those deaths occur in developing countries.

"Child injuries are an important public health and development issue. In addition to the 830,000 deaths every year, millions of children suffer non-fatal injuries that often require long-term hospitalization and rehabilitation," WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said in a news release.

Chan said the costs to treat such injuries can throw a family into poverty.

"Children in poorer families and communities are at increased risk of injury because they are less likely to benefit from prevention programs and high-quality health services," she said.

The report said with more safety measures in place, countries could prevent half of those deaths. Suggestions include seatbelt and helmet laws, water heater controls and safer designs for nursery furniture and toys. The report also recommends various traffic safety improvements.

The report said such steps have been taken in many high-income countries and have reduced child injury deaths by up to 50 percent over the last 30 years.

The report found that the top five causes of injury deaths are:
Road crashes: They kill 260,000 children a year and injure about 10 million. They are the leading cause of death among 10- to 19-year-olds and a leading cause of child disability.

Drowning: It kills more than 175,000 children a year. Every year, up to 3 million children survive a drowning incident. Due to brain damage in some survivors, non-fatal drowning has the highest average lifetime health and economic impact of any injury type.

Burns: Fire-related burns kill nearly 96,000 children a year and the death rate is 11 times higher in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.

Falls: Nearly 47,000 children fall to their deaths every year, but hundreds of thousands more sustain less serious injuries from a fall.

Poisoning: More than 45,000 children die each year from unintended poisoning.

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