As restrictions in Victoria, Australia, are reintroduced the frustration is tangible. No doubt more people will lose their jobs and the economy will take another hit, as the vision of the lives we lived in 2019 fades further into the future.
I find in times like these, a little perspective can help and three reports that I’ve read over the last week, have given me so much perspective that I now feel guilty for being fed up.
Post Natal Care, The Ruben Center, Mukuru Slum, Nairobi, Kenya
Immunisation
According to data collected by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Gavi and the Sabin Vaccine Institute, provision of routine immunization services since March has been substantially hindered in at least 68 countries and is likely to affect approximately 80 million children under the age of one living in these countries.
Routine childhood immunization services have been disrupted on a global scale that may be unprecedented since the inception of expanded programs on immunization in the 1970s.
Scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have weighed up the health benefits of continued routine infant immunisation delivery against the risk of COVID-19 infections in Africa.
Funded by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, they estimated the impact of continued routine immunisation in comparison to the associated excess risk of coronavirus infection and further COVID-19 deaths in the household of the vaccinated child. Their results are preliminary but striking: if routine immunisation was continued, for each excess COVID-19 death due to an infection acquired during the vaccination visit (predominantly among elderly household members), they forecast around 29 to 347 future child deaths could be prevented. Without vaccination these deaths could result from a range of diseases including measles, yellow fever, pertussis, meningitis, pneumonia and diarrhoea.
So, to put that bluntly, for every older person’s life saved, between 29 and 347 infants will die.
Vaccination Program, Kalkaji Slum, New Delhi, India
Pregnancy
Across Africa the rates of adolescent pregnancy have spiked in the last two months. Although many reports are anecdotal, there is a consistent picture that is as ugly as it is distressing. This issue has been reported in West Africa, South Africa and Kenya where an article in the Nairobi News makes harrowing reading.
“Machakos County has reported an increase in teenage pregnancy since the outbreak of Covid-19. According to Machakos children’s officer Salome Muthama, 4,000 schoolgirls have been impregnated in the county since March. Salome further revealed that most of the pregnancies are as a result of defilement by close family members. About 200 of the affected girls are below the age of 14 years.”
So again, to be blunt we are talking rape, incest and unwanted underage pregnancy. And Machakos is one county, in one medium sized country, in a continent of 1.2 billion people.
Early Childcare, The Ruben Center, Mukuru Slum Nairobi, Kenya.
Education
The most obvious impact of school closures has been on student learning. Unfortunately, even before this public health crisis, the developing world was already experiencing a learning crisis. Fifty-three percent of children in low and middle income countries cannot read and understand a basic text at age 10. Now, as learning switches to remote platforms, this crisis is not only likely to exacerbate but also deepen along the divides between those advantaged to access them and those disadvantaged who cannot.
In 2019, the World Food Programme estimated that at least 310 million children in low and middle income countries were fed at school. Midday meals have boosted enrolment (especially among girls), improved nutritional profiles of children, and alleviated the financial strain on poor families. With the schools now closed these children face increased malnourishment and hunger. Along with the midday meals, children are also missing out on the company of friends, which is essential for their mental wellbeing.
The Playground, The Ruben Center, Mukuru Slum Nairobi, Kenya.
Parents have invariably become the primary responders to the needs of their children. At best, they are juggling full-time jobs and home schooling their children. But mostly, they are struggling to make ends meet. Large parts of the population in low and lower-middle income countries are employed in the informal sector and they are now estimated to have seen an 82% decline in earnings in the first month of the crisis alone. With little or no safety net, they have had to make heart-wrenching journeys from cities to their rural homes, often with their children in tow. These parents have more pressing concerns than the continuation of their children’s education and understandably so.
St John’s School, Kibera Slum, Nairobi, Kenya
Not for one moment would I want to trivialise the difficulties faced by many people here in Australia. Job losses, mortgage defaults, bankruptcies are traumatic events wherever they happen. But a bit of perspective is a useful tool.
Here are some links if you would like to know more
https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/vaccine-hesitancy-escalating-danger-africa
https://populationmatters.org/news/2019/01/25/stigma-and-fears-barriers-family-planning-africa
https://esaro.unfpa.org/en/topics/family-planning
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