Dr Malick Njie, the secretary of state for Health and Social Welfare has said that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on child mortality reduction will not be attained unless systematic policy and pragmatic attention is given to improving newborn health.

According to him, each year in Africa, at least 1.12 million babies die in the first month of their life, usually in the first week of life.

He went on to say that out of this figure two-third of these deaths during the first 24 hours of life, accounting for over one quarter of under-five mortality in the region.

SoS Njie made this called yesterday while officially declaring open a ten-day sub-regional Anglophone training-of-trainers workshop on community care of the new-born,  organised by the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) in collaboration with the WHO sub-regional office, Burkina Faso, yesterday, began at the Kairaba Beach Hotel in Senegambia.

Hosted in The Gambia and coordinated by the department of state for Health through its National Reproductive and Child Health Programme Unit, the sub-regional training brought together 20 participants from Nigeria, Ghana. Sierra-Leone, Liberia and The Gambia, aimed at training trainers for community home based care of the newborn within the context of improving the quality and access to maternal, newborn and child health services, towards the attainment of the MDGs four and five.

According to Sos Njie, between 40% and 50% of newborn deaths occur in the first day of life, while 75% of the deaths take place in the first week of life. “This, unfortunately, is the very period during which coverage of care is at its lowest.”

He further explained that global understanding of the issues related to newborn mortality and the best interventions to reduce it has increased tremendously in recent years. Child survival series 2003, the vision 2010 initiatives of first ladies in West and Central Africa of year 2001, the African Union Road Map 2004, the World Health Report 2005, and the Neonatal Survival Series 2005, published by the Lancet, have raised hopes about the possibility of a second child survival revolution.

These publications have not only provided guidance about medical interventions that are necessary for promoting child survival and health, but have also identified pertinent issues that programmers need to consider during implementation of interventions.

He added that most of these interventions can be delivered through programmes and strategies already established for maternal and child health in   the countries.  However, he said, regional coverage is low; inequality is rife and progress in scaling up the interventions extremely slow.

 It is imperative therefore, to implement a continuum of care since the health of mothers, newborns and children are closely interlinked.  Interventions at any one stage in the life cycle have beneficial effects in all the other stages.  A healthy baby has greater chances to survive and to grow into a healthy adolescent and adulthood, and consequently is more likely to deliver a healthy baby.

“In order to strengthen the newborn component in maternal and child health strategies, it is desirable to follow a step-by-step process that engages communities to generate ownership, coordination and concerted efforts, build partnership with all relevant stakeholders, and invest in training, research and supportive supervision”, he said.