Each year Pakistan registers preventable deaths of 432,000 children under-five and 20,000 mothers due to causes related to pregnancy and child birth. Among the under-five deaths, two-thirds are in the new-born period (first 28 days of life) and the remaining is largely due to pneumonia (13 percent) and diarrhea (11 percent).
In FATA 104 of every 1000 children born did not reach their fifth birthday. Of these, the majority (86) die in the first year of life due to preventable diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia. Diarrhea and pneumonia are seasonal calamities and preventable. Most of these precious lives can be saved by simple knowledge about prevention and promotion of some key measures at home and health care seeking practices relating to these diseases.
Pakistan has committed to a Millennium Development Goal of reducing under-five deaths to 52 per 1,000 births, and under-one deaths to 40 per 1,000 by 2015. In an effort to achieve this goal, Mother and Child weeks are held twice a year with focused messages on pneumonia or diarrhea according to the seasonality of these diseases.
National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health Care, Ministry of Health in collaboration of UNICEF is launching the Mother & Child Week, from November 5 to 10, 2012 in all the Agencies, including New Durrani IDP camp of Kurram Agency. The partners include National Programmes on EPI, Maternal, New-born and Child Health and UNICEF, population welfare department and Non-governmental organisations. This is one of the key initiatives by the Department of Health FATA. The formal launching ceremony of the Mother Child Health Week was held in Peshawar on 5th November 2012 at LHWs programme office. Dr Pervaiz Kamal FATA Director MNCH Programme was the chief guest on the occasion.