‘Africa a dangerous place to be a child’
Africa has the label of being the most dangerous place in the world for a child, according to the SA Medical Journal.
|||Cape Town - Africa has the dubious label of being the most dangerous place in the world for a child, according to the South African Medical Journal.
This month’s journal reports on South Africa’s burden of trauma and violence, including interpersonal violence, burns, motor vehicle crashes and pedestrian injury - particularly of children.
An analysis of 777 major incidents registered in the Western Cape Major Incident database for the period 2008 to 2014 showed that road traffic crashes were the biggest contributor at 94 percent. Minibus taxis were involved in 40 percent of crashes.
A major incident can be defined as any incident where the location, number, severity or type of casualties requires extraordinary resources.
This includes large accidents and incidents of mass food poisoning.
It found that 20 percent of victims of major incidents in the province were children.
Most major incidents occurred in the City of Cape Town, with 449 recorded, a total of 8 732 patients injured, and 10 incidents involved 50 or more victims.
Research done by Natasha Naidoo and David Muckart at the University of KwaZulu-Natal found that motor vehicle collisions accounted for over 88 percent of deaths of children admitted to a level 1 trauma intensive-care unit at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in Durban.
Of 181 injured children, 112 had traumatic brain injury. Of the 26 children who died, 23 had associated head trauma, and in 18 deaths severe traumatic brain injury was the primary cause.
“There is a drastic need for improved safety measures, road traffic education and stringent legislation. The single most important factor, however, is the political will to enforce such policies. Few areas can be more relevant to the adage ‘prevention is better than cure’,” their study said.
They said in addition to the burden of motor vehicle-related injuries, studies from Nigeria and South Africa have shown that gunshot wounds (GSWs) in infants and children are a tragic emerging mechanism of injury.
Although the number of hospital admissions following GSWs in Cape Town decreased between 2000 and 2007, the vast majority of deaths occurred before treatment could be instituted and a steady increase in admissions had been seen in the subsequent three years.
“Although motor vehicle-related paediatric trauma is quite correctly an international cause for concern, GSWs to children are equally if not more distressing, given that the majority of patients in our database were in the first five years of life.
“The youngest are injured while being carried by their mothers, typically when caught in crossfire. Tragically, similar findings have been reported from other South African studies over the past two decades,” the study said.
Road Traffic Management Corporation spokesperson Simon Zwane had not seen the study, but said although the Western Cape was one of the provinces with the highest concentration of vehicles, it recorded the lowest number of fatalities per 10 000 motorised vehicles.
“Its fatalities per 100 000 human population is also one of the lowest in the country,” he added.
lisa.isaacs@inl.co.za
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Cape Times