The tide is turning on child mortality. For the first time, infectious diseases like measles, malaria and diarrhoea are no longer the leading killers of young children around the world. That position is now taken by complications resulting from premature birth, a problem for both wealthy and low-income countries.
While deaths from infectious diseases have been steadily declining as a result of research and medical intervention, preterm birth has remained a much more difficult problem, say the authors of a recent study that collated
child mortality rates and their associated causes between 2000 and 2013. For the purposes of their research, preterm birth was defined as any child born at less than 32 weeks。
Of the 6.3 million children around the world who died before the age of 5 last year, 1.1 million died from complications associated with being born early. This was more than those who lost their lives to any single infectious disease. The next biggest killers were pneumonia, complications during delivery such as a lack of oxygen and congenital abnormalities. Taken together, the number of deaths from all infections is still higher than the combined number of neonatal problems, but only by 6 per cent. "This really marks a tipping point," says Joy Lawn, a perinatal epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who was part of the team that collated the data. "It shows where people have invested."
導致兒童死亡率的原因和以往不同了。比如像麻疹、瘧疾和痢疾等傳染病不再是世界上導致兒童死亡率最高的頭號殺手病了。早產引發的併發症是目前導致兒童死亡的主要原因，這個問題不論是在富有還是貧窮的地方都有。
最近研究2000年至2003年導致兒童死亡的原因以及兒童死亡率的人員稱，因為醫學的發展以及藥物的干預，由傳染病導致的死亡率正在穩步下降，而早產相對來說是一個更難的難題。根據他們的研究目的，早產兒被定義為少於32周就降生的孩子。
去年有630萬五歲以下的兒童死亡，其中110萬死於早產併發症。這個數字比任何一個傳染病導致的兒童死亡人數都要多。導致兒童死亡的第二大殺手是肺炎，產中由於缺氧和先天畸形導致的併發症。總的來說，由感染導致的死亡兒童數還是要高於新生兒問題而導致的兒童死亡數，但是僅僅只超過6%。根據倫敦衛生和熱帶醫學院的生產前後流行病學家喬伊·勞恩(也是該數據整理小組的成員之一)的研究，「這個百分之六是個臨界點，督促我們在新的領域加緊投入研究。」
(滬江英語)
留言列表
留言列表
