Vietnam looks to tackle injury, accidents
Hanoi (VNA) - As many as 3,600 injuries are reported every
day in Vietnam, killing about 90 people, said Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Truong Son at a national scientific conference on
injury prevention in Hanoi on November
12.
“Traffic accidents and drowning are the
leading causes of injuries. Drowning is the leading
cause of death for those under the age of 19, killing more than 3,000 children
and adolescents annually,” he said.
Besides traffic accidents and drowning,
falls, self-inflicted violence, burns and poisoning are the other top causes.
Pham Viet Cuong from Hanoi University
of Public Health said the number of suicides among those between 15 and 19 has increased, urging the necessity for psychological health care and
lifestyle education for adolescents, especially during puberty.
Vu Thị Kim Hoa, deputy
head of the Children’s Department under Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social
Affairs, said one of the targets in the national programme on children’s injury
prevention is to reduce the number of deaths by drowning.
To realise the target, the ministry has organised classes to teach children how to swim and equip them with safety
skills.
Anuradha Khanai, director of Global Health
Advocacy Incubator in Southeast Asia, said the percentage of children’s death
caused by drowning in Vietnam was 10 times higher than that of other developed
countries.
Since 2018, the organisation has helped Vietnam
implement a series of children’s drowning prevention programmes.
More than 6,100 children have been
equipped with swimming skills and some 550 swimming teachers have been trained
in 21 districts of eight provinces which have the highest percentage of child
drownings.
The classes teach children swimming skills
to survive, not just normal swimming skills, Khanai said.
By the end of this year, more than 16,000
children aged between six and 15 are expected to be trained with water safety
skills. The project will be implemented in other localities, aiming to reduce
injuries caused by drowning by 20 percent.
According to the World Health
Organisation, more than 5 million people die of injuries every year globally.
They account for 9 percent of global mortality and are a threat to health in
every country of the world.
Among those, more than 1.2 million died of
traffic accidents worldwide. More than 600,000 children under the age of 15
died of drowning. Two thirds of those cases are reported in low and middle
income countries./.