82,000 children in Ghana die before their 5th birthday

Madam Rushnan Murtaza, Deputy Country Director of UNICEF, has disclosed that out of every one million children born in Ghana, 82,000 of them die before their 5th birthday.

It is also estimated that less than half representing, 46 percent of the babies born in the country, are given only breast milk for the first six months of their lives.

Madam Murtaza, who was speaking during a workshop for the Council of Traditional Women Leaders (CTWL) over the weekend, said 23 percent of children in the country are suffering from stunted growth.

She called for an improvement in the consumption of iodised salt as only one -third of the nation’s population consume the product.

Madam Murtaza said out of every 100,000 pregnant women who go into labour, 350 of them lose their lives during children birth.

“Also more than 30 percent of women aged between 15 and 49... cannot make a decision concerning their health,” she said.

Madam Murtaza said one out of every five children die in the country due to diarrhoea and pneumonia.

She noted that although there has been a lot of education against open defecation, five million people in the country still do so in the open.

She called for the construction and use of latrines, washing of hands with soap after visiting the toilet, before consuming or preparing food and after cleaning a child’s buttocks.