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Curse for kids -- water and traffic

By Wang Zhuoqiong (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-06-04 00:39

Drowning and traffic accidents top the list of causes for deaths and injuries among children and adolescents, even as the "injury death rate among kids has seen a significant decline" in recent years, a senior health official said Wednesday.

"The rate of injuries and deaths among children continues to decrease," Yang Gonghuan, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a press conference in Beijing Wednesday.

"But drowning and traffic accidents are responsible for 66 percent of injuries and deaths among children and adolescents," she said.

Other common reasons also include "falling, poisoning and animal bites".

A joint survey done by Safe Kids Worldwide -- a network of organizations to prevent unintentional childhood injuries -- and Shanghai Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals Ltd, between 2000 and 2007 shows that "injuries caused 25 percent of the deaths" among children during the period.

"Unintentional childhood injury death rate dropped by 6.6 by 2007 as a result of improved living conditions in the country over the past decade," the survey said.

According to other China CDC surveys between 2002 and 2005, death by drowning was most common among rural children.

The CDC said, citing their survey, "44 percent of injury deaths among children aged between 1 and 14 were caused by drowning".

The survey also found that more children drowned in the countryside than in the cities, and "most of the victims were boys".

Injuries and deaths caused by traffic accidents have increased "as the number of vehicles in the country has tripled since the 1990s", the survey said.

"Economically weaker regions, including Tibet, Ningxia, Xinjiang and Qinghai, have the highest traffic injury death rates," it said.

Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson launched the Chinese version of the "Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention", a World Health Organization (WHO) plan designed for 2006 to 2015.

The launch will introduce advanced and effective child injury prevention models and methods to China, and provide valuable guidance, said Mitch Stoller, President of Safe Kids Worldwide.

About 875,000 children below the age of 18 die every year as a result of unintentional injuries, said Cris Tunon of the WHO in China.