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Over two million children denied healthcare

06/05/2008

More than two million children under the age of five across the world do not have access to healthcare when they need it, Save the Children has revealed.

The charity says these children are missing out on life-saving interventions including pre-natal care, immunisations and diarrhoea treatment.

Its report, State of the World's Mothers 2008, places Ethiopia as the worst developing country for children's access to healthcare.

Just 16 per cent of children in the African country have access to treatment when they need it.

This compares to 69 per cent of children in the Philippines, which tops the Save the Children list for providing healthcare to children under five.

However the charity warns that the poorest Filipino children are 3.2 times more likely to go without basic health measures than the richest.

The largest 'survival gap' is in Peru, where poor children are 7.4 times more likely to die before the age of five than the richest.

Save the Children says a coordinated global effort is needed to close this gap worldwide.

It wants more community health workers who are employed to reach the poorest, most marginalised communities.

"A child's chance of reaching its fifth birthday should not depend on the country or community where it is born," said Save the Children chief executive Jasmine Whitbread.

"We need to do a better job of reaching the poorest children with basic health measures like vaccines, antibiotics and skilled care at childbirth.

"These simple measures are taken for granted in the UK but are not reaching millions of children, and can determine whether a child lives or dies in poor countries and communities."