UNICEF Chief Says Burmese Newspapers Misstated Facts

By THE IRRAWADDY
www.irrawaddy.org

February 7, 2008 - The Burmese Minister of Health, Dr Kyaw Myint, said UNICEF’s chief health officer in Burma has explained in a letter that international newspapers misstated facts about the child morality rate in Burma, according to a report in The New Light of Myanmar.

Dr Osamu Kunii, the chief of UNICEF’s heath and nutrition section in Burma, sent a letter to Dr Kyaw Myint on Wednesday saying that some newspapers had misstated facts in the annual report and misquoted him.

“He [Osamu Kunii] said he was sorry for the misunderstanding if had adverse effects on the hard work of the ministry of health and government,” The New Light of Myanmar reported.

The UNICEF annual report stated that there was a child death rate of 104 deaths for each 1,000 children in Burma. The World Health Organization has said the Burmese child mortality rate was 66 deaths for every 1,000, according to the state-run newspaper.

A spokesperson in the UNICEF office in Rangoon was not available when The Irrawaddy contacted it for comment.

Osamu Knnii, quoted in a The Associated Press story in late January, said that between 100,000 to 150,000 children under five years of age die every year in Burma, many from preventable diseases.

The UNICEF annual report, "The State of the World's Children," rated Burma as having the 4th highest child mortality rate in the world, surpassed in Asia only by Afghanistan which has the third-worst record after Sierra Leone and Angola.

Most of Burma's health care is funded through international groups.

The military government spends about 3 percent of its annual budget on health care annually, compared with 40 percent on the military, according to a report published this year by researchers from the University of California (Berkeley) and Johns Hopkins University in the United States.

Source: The Irrawaddy News