Kenya off track towards achieving 2030 child mortality target
Countries should aim to have a neonatal mortality rate of 12 or fewer deaths per 1,000 live births and an under-five mortality rate of 25 or fewer deaths per 1,000 live births by 2030.
What you need to know:
- Kenya's under-five mortality rate currently stands at 34.8 per 1,000. The slow progress is attributed to a high number of neonatal deaths and the prevalence of malaria among children under five.
Kenya is unlikely to meet its target for reducing under-five mortality, according to a USAID report.
Under-five mortality refers to the likelihood that a live-born child will die before the age of five.
The report, 'Preventing Child and Maternal Deaths 2024', says that while Kenya has made significant progress in reducing under-five mortality, from 115 per 1,000 in 2003 to 41 per 1,000 in 2022, it still falls short of the World Health Organization (WHO) target.
As part of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, WHO aims to reduce the under-five mortality rate to 25 per 1,000 by 2030. According to the USAID report, Kenya's under-five mortality rate currently stands at 34.8 per 1,000, putting the country off track to meet the SDG target by 2030. The slow progress is attributed to a high number of neonatal deaths and the prevalence of malaria among children under five.
"Since 2000, we have seen a 55 per cent reduction in under-five mortality and a 42 per cent reduction in maternal deaths in USAID's 25 priority countries. USAID's programmes have driven these reductions, saving the lives of more than 7.4 million women and children over the past decade. This success has been made possible by USAID's stewardship, the generosity of the American people, and bipartisan support from Congress," the report reads in part.
The latest Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS 2022) shows that of the 41 children who died before the age of five in 2022, 51 per cent died in the neonatal period.
Vincent Momanyi, a private consultant paediatrician in Nairobi, noted that a lot of child deaths occur as a result of lack of awareness among mothers on how to respond to some ailments that affect their children, leading them to delay in taking the children to hospital, resulting in some dying.
"As a country, we need to promote policies that lead to high levels of literacy among women and girls, which will lead to improved maternal and child health and consequently reduced mortality. This is because educated mothers are more likely to make better decisions about child care," said Dr Momanyi.
He added that improvements in health, sanitation, nutrition and socio-economic conditions can simultaneously reduce under-five mortality.
"Some of the interventions to reduce child mortality are antenatal care for pregnant women, delivery of babies in health facilities and vaccination of newborns," he said.
Similarly, some of the key interventions for reducing child mortality are antenatal care for pregnant women, delivery of babies in health facilities and vaccination of newborns. Vaccination is considered one of the most cost-effective interventions for disease prevention, especially among children.
Although immunisation is one of the most successful public health interventions, WHO noted that coverage plateaued in the decade before Covid-19. The pandemic, associated disruptions and vaccination efforts, strained health systems in 2020 and 2021, resulting in dramatic setbacks. Data from 2023 show that performance has not yet returned to 2019 levels.
In recent months, Kenya has faced a severe shortage of vaccines for vaccine-preventable childhood diseases (VPDs), further endangering the lives of vulnerable children.
Under-five mortality is a closely watched indicator because it reflects children's and communities' access to basic health interventions, including immunisation and adequate nutrition.
