Unit 2 Discussion: CDC – Children Health Initiatives

The health of children is vital to creating a healthy world. Despite great progress, there are still too many children dying—mostly from causes that could have been prevented. In 2012, 6.6 million children died before age 5—5 million of them in the first year of life. Newborn, or neonatal, deaths account for 40% of all deaths among children under five. Pneumonia kills an estimated 1.1 million children under the age of five years every year—more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Each year diarrhea kills around 760,000 children under five. CDC has been involved in a wide range of activities that address the major causes of perinatal, maternal, and under 5 morbidity and mortality. These include direct and indirect causes of maternal mortality, preterm birth complications, PMTCT, congenital syphilis, diarrheal diseases, vaccine preventable diseases, malaria, pneumonia, TB, nutrition, and injury and violence.

In this video, global health organizations works to combat pneumonia in children says the lung disease is the single leading killer of young children in the world, more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The Global Coalition against Child Pneumonia says pneumococcal pneumonia kills 4,000 children each month, mostly in developing countries.

For this unit discussion, please respond to the following:

• Define the role of the CDC in in the treatment, research, and control of infectious and emerging diseases in developing countries.
• Describe what steps are being taken to prevent or eradicate these diseases specific to diseases that are endemic to each country.
• What are some of the initiatives that the CDC has undertaken to combat infectious diseases?
• How do we determine the effectiveness of these initiatives in cross-cultural studies?