Poor countries lack child-disease info

EDINBURGH, England, Jun 09, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- British researchers found the poorest countries with the highest child-mortality rates lack disease-burden information that could guide health policy.

In a review of 232 studies conducted between 1980 and 2001 researchers from the University of Edinburgh Medical School found childhood-disease information lacking in southern and central Africa, regions of southeast Asia and eastern Mediterranean countries.

More than 10 million children die worldwide annually, and estimates of disease burden are required to develop health policies to prevent such deaths, the researchers wrote in The Lancet.

In an accompanying editorial, The Lancet editors stated that the information is essential to improving the health of people in developing countries.

"Without such data, we will continue to stumble around in the dark, making bad decisions on the basis of bad information," the editors wrote.

The Edinburgh researchers also found evidence research in this area has been diminishing over the past decade. If this does not change, "One is forced to pose the question -- do poor children count?" principal study author Harry Campbell said.