Issue, 21, Child Health: Improving Child Survival, published on Januaryl 2005.

Child Health: Improving Child Survival

From 31 May to 2 June last year, a team of senior representatives of the member organizations to the Global Child Survival Partnership visited Cambodia to discuss the current situation of child mortality. The Royal Government of Cambodia and other development partners pledged to reduce infant deaths from the current 95 to 50 per 1000 live births, and the under five mortality rate from 124 to 65 per 1000 live births by the year 2015.

To achieve this goal it was agreed that extra efforts and commitment is needed to improve the child health status in the country through improved nutritional status, active disease prevention and improved case management of sick children, and with more collaboration with local community.

In this issue of Health Messenger we look at how the health staff have contributed to improving child survival and what still needs to be done.

We examine providing good quality care at the health center, through integrated case management of sick children. We discuss how health staff and the community work together to improve child survival and we address some common problems health center staff face.

This issue offers you some important and practical information on good, quality pediatric care, especially on the two most common diseases in children: ARI and diarrhea. You will also see concrete examples on how to organize the health center for community participation, and how to counsel and communicate with mothers.