Decreasing the Burden of Childhood Disease - Western Cape ...

As can be seen from the above bar chart the great majority of child
deaths occur in infancy (under one year of age) and in the young child (1-
4 years of age) age group. Moreover under five deaths account for a
significant percentage of all deaths. They are due mainly to communicable
diseases and malnutrition.
HIV/AIDS, diarrhoea, lower respiratory infections, under nutrition and
perinatal problems (low birth weight, neonatal infections, perinatal
asphyxia and birth trauma) account for more than 3 quarters of under-5
deaths in South Africa, as shown in Table 1 below. In addition to deaths
directly attributable to under nutrition, malnutrition plays an important
synergistic role in diarrhoea and respiratory infections.
Table 1: The top 20 causes of death in South African children
under 5 years old in 2000 iv
Rank Cause of death
No. of Percentage of
Deaths total
1 HIV/AIDS 42749 40.3
2 Low birth weight 11876 11.2
3 Diarrhoeal diseases 10786 10.2
4
Lower respiratory
infections
6110 5.8
5
Protein-energy
malnutrition
4564 4.3
6 Neonatal infections 2920 2.8
7 Birth asphyxia & trauma 2584 2.4
8
Congenital heart
disease
1238 1.2
9 Road carnage 1219 1.1
10 Bacterial meningitis 1141 1.1
11 Fires 1102 1.0
12 Neural tube defects 1019 1.0
13 Septicaemia 980 0.9
14 Tuberculosis 743 0.7
15 Homicide violence 654 0.6
16 Drowning 532 0.5
17 Cot death 491 0.5
18 Chromosomal disorders 445 0.4
19
Congenital GIT
disorders
379 0.4
20 Congenital syphilis 257 0.2
Most of these conditions are preventable or, when prevention fails,
treatable. Overwhelmingly they affect children living in conditions of
poverty and social and economic exclusion.
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