WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-04-20 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[That dear lying beet-root & garlic AIDS liar who runs our Ministry of Health will of course dispute the facts. But we all know that she and her boss, Thabo Mbeki have totally brought South Africa’s medical institutions to their knees. Jan]
South Africa is ranked among the 10 worst countries when it comes to ensuring that children survive beyond the age of five, but Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang says it all comes down to how you tally the numbers.
Child mortality is number four among the set of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations.
Data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that in 1990, 60 out of 100 000 children younger than five died in South Africa, whereas this figure increased to 69 by 2006.
The report refers to contextual factors which contribute to the deteriorating health situation, with the high HIV prevalence in South Africa seen as the biggest reason for the low child survival rate.
| ‘The WHO has changed the formula they used before’ |
On Wednesday, Tshabalala-Msimang was elected to represent a group of health officials brainstorming at the Turffontein racecourse in Joburg on ways of addressing maternal, newborn and child mortality.
She dismissed the WHO’s report, saying: “Because of challenges in data and stats we cannot sit here and say South Africa is slipping badly. The WHO has changed the formula they used before, which skews the picture.”
Tshabalala-Msimang said she believed the MDGs were still attainable, and large-scale progress had been made by African countries since 1990.
On Thursday, parliamentarians and health experts were due to gather in Cape Town for the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) to discuss progress towards MDG four and five (which aim to reduce global child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 and improve maternal health, respectively) and ways of accelerating progress towards achieving these goals.
The minister was expected to address the IPU during the opening address this morning.
The WHO report said nearly 50 percent of all child and maternal deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. The countries performing worse than SA were Equatorial Guinea, the Republic of Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Botswana. Only Mozambique was on track to reach the goals set for maternal mortality.
The Turffontein meeting made recommendations to be presented to African Union health ministers, which include gender equality for women; policies for implementation of maternal, newborn and child programmes; increased access to maternal, neonatal and child health services; and the strengthening of health systems.