Pneumonia Killing Children Around The World

Global health advocates are calling on leaders to scale up existing interventions and invest in new diagnostics and treatments to defeat pneumonia.

This was contained in a statement released by the Divine Mother and Child foundation (DMAC) to mark the sixth annual World Pneumonia Day held on 12th November, 2014.

Pneumonia is the single largest cause of death in children under five, killing more children than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

In 2012, 1.1 million children under five died from pneumonia, the bulk of who were less than 2 years old. 99% of these deaths are in developing countries, where access to healthcare facilities and treatment is out of reach for many children.

Many factors contribute to pneumonia, and no single intervention can effectively prevent, treat and control it.

Five simple but effective interventions, if implemented properly, will help reduce the burden of the disease that is responsible for almost one fifth of all child deaths around the world.

These are:

1. Exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months and continued breastfeeding complemented by nutritious solid foods up to age 2;

2. Vaccination against whooping cough (pertussis), measles, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and pneumococcus;

3. Safe drinking water, sanitation and hand-washing facilities;

4. Improved cooking stoves to reduce indoor air pollution;

5. Treatment, including amoxicillin dispersible tablets and oxygen;

Activities around the world will also focus on the clear link between pneumonia and diarrhea which together account for 26% of all child deaths globally, with calls for collaborative interventions to fight these two largely preventable diseases.

Advocates have renewed their call for governments to do more to meet child survival objectives of the fourth Millennium Development Goal by increasing political commitment to and investments in the development of new diagnostics and treatments for pneumonia.

Advocates have also called on manufacturers of medical devices to step up efforts to bring technologies to market, and on donors to strengthen their support for the development and distribution of new diagnostics technologies at affordable prices.

Events commemorating World Pneumonia Day are being held in countries throughout the world and various child survival events will be held throughout the month of November.

SUBJECT PENSION FUNDS TO FORENSIC AUDIT – FRANKLIN CUDJOE

By Inform Ghana

Government has been urged to subject the management of the Temporary Pension Fund Account (TPFA) by the National Pension Regulatory Authority (NPRA) to a forensic audit as part of efforts to solve the current impasse with organised labour.

The suggestion was made in a paper written by Kwamena Essilfie Adjaye, Theo Acheampong and Franklin Cudjoe all of the Ghana Growth and Development Platform (GGDP).

The paper also suggested that the spirit of the SSNIT Act appears to empower the contributors to choose who manages their funds. They also questioned the government’s insistence on Pension Alliance Trust (PAT) as the sole trustee for the worker’s funds and the keeping of the second-tier funds by the government in the TPFA all this while.

The full recommendations made in the paper are as follows:

The GGDP proposes the following towards resolution of the impasse:

a. The NPRA should immediately, without delay, be asked to produce an Investment report showing how much funds have been received, what it has been invested in, and what the return on investment over the period has been.

b. The stewardship of the NPRA over the TPFA and the investment activities of the NPRA with respect to same should be subjected to immediate forensic audit.

c. The NPRA should be ordered to announce a cut-off date for taking Tier 2 contributions into the TPFA by employers so that unified and proper accounting can be undertaken.

d. The NPRA should immediately publicize the list of trustees it has registered so far, and it should henceforth periodically update the populace on how these trustees are meeting the legal and regulatory provisions of the Act.

e. Trustees approved and registered by the NPRA should make presentations jointly to the Government (employer) and the Labour Unions (employees). Then the prospective trustees should be made to tender competitively.

f. Then the employees should choose the trustee, as this is our interpretation of the Act.

g. Thereafter, employers should be informed to make their mandatory Tier 2 (and voluntary Tier 3) contributions into schemes chosen by employees.

The paper also included recommendations to reduce the administrative costs of SSNIT from 18.5% of contributions to between 5 and 10 percent.