80,000 Kenyan Kids Face Death Due to DroughtAbout 80,000 Kenyan children are facing death from malnutrition and other infections due to prolonged drought, the East African Standard newspaper reported on Monday.A joint government-UN appeal to combat the drought, made public here at the weekend, showed that to avert the deaths, there is urgent need for immunization campaigns and Vitamin A supplementation program. According to the appeal, frequent drought in the country has increased poverty level to over 47 percent in rural areas, and seriously aggravated the situation by rising malnutrition and disease prevalence levels. The mortality rate had also risen in the country from 62.5 per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 70.7 in 1998. The Kenyan government, in conjunction with the UN Children's Fund, the World Health Organization and UN Family Planning Association, plans to spend 443.8 million shillings (about US$5.68 million) in efforts aimed at reducing the impact of the drought. The objectives of the operation will include reduction of prevalence of malnutrition among children under 5 and strengthening of the surveillance of communicable diseases in drought-hit areas. |
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