Over 34, 000 children in the country die annually as a result of environmental pollution, according to the \u201cInheriting a Sustainable World: Atlas on the Children\u2019s Health and the Environment\u201d report by the World Health Organisation (WHO).<\/p>\n
The report indicates that 205.71 under-5 children per 100, 000 people in the country die as a result of environmental pollution annually. The figures mean that out of Malawi\u2019s population of 17 million, 34,971 deaths of Under-5 children occur per year.<\/p>\n
The report indicates that one in four deaths of children under the age of five years, is attributed to unhealthy environments such as indoor and outdoor air pollution, second hand smoke, unsafe water, poor sanitation and inadequate hygiene.<\/p>\n
This according to the report is despite major causes of children\u2019s deaths globally such as pneumonia, prematurity, intrapartum-related complications, diarrhoea, injuries and malaria, among others.<\/p>\n
Environmental expert, Godfrey Mfiti said environmental pollution in the country has reached critical levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the case due to the growing number of companies and factories that are not taking responsibility of their waste. Companies are releasing hazardous chemicals that are affecting the communities; some of these chemicals are lead and mercury which are banned but they are still being released. We need to enforce our laws to help improve inspections on the control of the flow of hazardous chemicals which are affecting community members especially children who consume unsafe water and other contaminated foods,\u201d Mfiti said.<\/p>\n
Ministry of Health spokesperson, Adrian Chikumbe said the ministry has not carried out any study on the impact of environmental pollution on children\u2019s health.<\/p>\n
Director General of the World Health Organisation, Margaret Chan is quoted on the organisation\u2019s website as saying, \u201ca polluted environment is a deadly one, particularly for young children\u201d.<\/p>\n
The report says environmental pollution related diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia are preventable by interventions such as access to safe water and clean cooking fuels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over 34, 000 children in the country die annually as a result of environmental pollution, according to the \u201cInheriting a Sustainable World: Atlas on the Children\u2019s Health and the Environment\u201d report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The report indicates that 205.71 under-5 children per 100, 000 people in the country die as a result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42090,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42085\/revisions\/42090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}