1.What is the goal?

I will discuss the 3th one of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals [1]: ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Since it is a big plan which contains many specific goals for people on different age levels, I will focus on ensuring children’s healthy lives in this blog. I will firstly list some representative goals for reader to better understand the theme.

Fig 1 (source: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/)

By 2030, reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births;
By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being;
By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination.

2.What has been achieved

During these years, more and more countries have paid attention to children’s health and have made great progress.

Since 2000, measles vaccines have averted nearly 15.6 million deaths.
Over 6.2 million malaria deaths have been averted between 2000 and 2015, primarily of children under five years of age in sub-Saharan Africa. The global malaria incidence rate has fallen by an estimated 37 percent and the mortality rates by 58 percent.
The total number of deaths of children under 5 years of age dropped from 9.8 million in 2000 to 5.4 million in 2017.
In the past, diphtheria can cause hundreds of thousands of children’s diseases every year. After 2006, no cases of diphtheria have been reported in China.

Fig 2 (source: https://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/topics/child/zh/)

3.How to ensure children’s health?

There are many methods to improve children’s health condition. In my opinion, the public should at least focus on the following two aspects: vaccination and safety education.

The first one is ensuring all the children have access to some necessary vaccines to strengthen their health. A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular disease [2]. The biological agent in vaccine can stimulate the body’s immune system to recognize the agent as a threat, destroy it. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases [3]. For instance, severe poliomyelitis patients will have muscle atrophy, dyskinesia, and even paralysis, which will bring great grief to children [4]. Since 1995, China has blocked the spread of indigenous poliovirus through oral sugar pill vaccine, which has enabled thousands of children to avoid physical disability [5]. According to national immunization program in China, by 2010, the vaccination rate of hepatitis B vaccine, BCG vaccine, polio vaccine, DPT vaccine and measles vaccine for school-age children have reached more than 90% in rural areas [6]. And we can see that growing number of children are free from infectious diseases and its sequelae. Therefore, it is necessary to provide free and high-quality vaccine for children all over the world. At the same time, the government in all the countries should work with organizations like WHO to expand the vaccine popularization. Making sure that children even in remote villages can have access to basic healthcare such as vaccine, which could save their lives and prevent them from infectious diseases.

Fig 3 (source: http://www.sohu.com/a/191595228_785805)

The other one is enlarging the safety education about children. Sometimes, parents’ unsuitable behaviors might cause big mistakes and even disaster for children’s growth. For example, once a report showed that 90% of children once lived in house which had been decorated within half a year before they were diagnosed with leukemia [7, 8]. The indoor environmental pollution caused by decoration has become an important factor that endangers the health of infants and young children. Here, I will list some common sense about children healthcare. By teaching these knowledge to parents, children can be kept away from these hurts caused by misbehavior.

Any medication for infants must follow the doctor’s advice. Many adult drugs can cause infant disability or even death;
The babies within 10 months old is forbidden to be shaken their brain, which may cause cerebral hemorrhage and slight concussion;
At any time, avoid facial mask to prevent asphyxia of newborn;
When children encounter airway obstruction, do not drink water or eat food. These behaviors will make children’s situation worse;
If the child is unconscious and vomiting, turning him sideways to avoid suffocation;
After children being scratched by a dog, going to hospital in time and vaccinate against rabies.

4.What can we do?

Maintain your battling spirit at times of hardship, spread your words when success strolls. –Meng zi

Fig 4 (source: https://new.qq.com/omn/20180505/20180505A0KK3F.html)

During the time when we are not so rich, we could keep our own child or children around us free from potential dangers. Paying attention to their physical and mental health. For example, ensuring them all have access to necessary vaccines. Providing a suitable environment for them, including living condition, healthcare, education, balanced diet and so on. Besides, we can share our knowledge about healthcare with other people, which might prevent more children from mistakenly being hurt. Moreover, we can take donation to some charities, such as One Foundation, Han Hong Love Charity Foundation, and some international organizations.

During the time when you are wealthy and influential, it is possible to make contribution to the society. For instance, Bill Gates established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and spent more than one billion dollars on charity events. In 2005, he donated about 750 million dollars to International Finance Facility for Immunization for vaccine research and spreading [9].

In a word, everyone can do his own contribution to achieve this goal.

References

《Goal 3: ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being》有9个想法

樊樊琦说道：

2020年2月17日下午1:26

Your suggestion mentioned in the blog is so logical and practical, aimed at the rich and common people, so that every people could make their contribution. It sounds gorgeous, right?
Besides that, the data listed is promising, which means that our government really puts responsibilities on his shoulder. It is an enormous progress!

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1. luckyzhou126说道：
  
  2020年2月20日下午12:02
  
  Thanks for your reply. Some wealthy people might do great contribution to the world, like Gates and Hong Han. On top of their own wealth, they have great social resource and public influence, so that they might group more people to help people in need. The government should always be the main power for public health. Perhaps, in the future, majority of people would get rid of infectious disease and starvation.
  
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EmilySuou说道：

2020年2月17日下午4:33

Thank you for your sharing! Your blog is well-structured and in-detailed. You list out the sub-goals, so the original goal would be more clear to the public. Also, you mentioned two aspects that the public should pay attention to for children’s health, and I think these two aspects are vital for children’s health, compared to other kinds of people, because children are more vulnerable and need more care.

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1. luckyzhou126说道：
  
  2020年2月20日下午12:09
  
  Yes, I support your opinion “children are more vulnerable and need more care”. As I said in this blog, the goal is really a big topic, which is hard for me to cover every aspect. Since children are vulnerable, they need more help. Recent year, some personal supported organizations have done great jobs to children healthcare. You might turn to the Bilibili to find 李一诺’s speech, if you are interested in this topic.
  
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SekiroNan说道：

2020年2月18日下午11:33

The article structure is completely clear and all the points are easy to understand. In fact, regarding the health of children, I think diet and food is also very important. In some poor and backward regions, such as the African region, many children are poorly immune due to poverty and lack adequate nutrition, so they are susceptible to many viral bacteria. Even with the vaccine, if you don’t have a healthy immune system and the necessary nutrients in your body, it will be difficult to resist the invasion of the virus. So I completely agree that when we are relatively wealthy, charitable donations are very important to help these children ensure nutrition in daily food and their health.

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1. luckyzhou126说道：
  
  2020年2月20日下午12:13
  
  Yes. Except vaccine, food and nutrition are also necessary for children. Everyone can make some contribution. When people become billionaire, they might feel “the greater power, the larger responsibility”.
  
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Raymond说道：

2020年2月19日下午12:38

So many professional vocabularies lol. Health and education are the most heated topic in China at present in my opinion. Yet the medical system in mainland of China still needs promotion. A little suggestion, you can put the part of ‘how….’ into your next post, but never mind. This post is well written! Looking forward to seeing your next blog!

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1. luckyzhou126说道：
  
  2020年2月20日下午2:45
  
  Thanks for your advice. Later, by reading other classmates blogs, I found that many people place weights on the problem (goal) itself. In my blog, I just show some example to better achieve the goal. At the meantime, talking about the problem from my interested perspective. You are right. When writing the 3th blog, I realized that I have covered it… Anyway, I support your idea that “medical system in mainland of China still needs promotion”, especially for remote cities and villages.
  
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taujiang说道：

2020年2月20日下午8:15

For children’s health, you conducted a very in-depth analysis and listed specific suggestions. Your article helped me expand my horizons, thank you very much!

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