5m babies expected in Pakistan during first nine months of COVID-19

Islamabad: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) has cautioned against a steep rise in Pakistan’s population — up to five million births — during the nine-month period of COVID-19 pandemic. The projection is from March-December 2020.

In a recent report, the United Nations’ fund, responsible for keeping an eye on children’s well-being, newborns and mothers’ health, their vaccination, learning and security issues, has projected a dismal picture of South Asia in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, estimating the births of 29 million babies in the region in the nine months after the COVID-19 outbreak.

Out of these, 20 million deliveries will take place in India alone. Pakistan comes second with five million, while for Bangladesh the figure is likely to be 2.4 million, the report says. Afghanistan will see an addition of one million newborns to its population during the same period.

The report released on May 6 predicted that an estimated 116 million babies will be born worldwide during the 40-week period between March 11 and December 16, with almost a quarter of these babies being born in South Asia.

On its twitter handle, Unicef South Asia has posted that almost a quarter of all babies born worldwide during the current pandemic will be in South Asia.

“With health systems under pressure, Unicef calls on governments and doctors to maintain life-saving services for pregnant women and newborns,” the global agency cautioned.

The Unicef report also suggests that a great measure of precaution and care must be taken by expecting mothers as well as their families because of the risk factor.

Unicef also appealed to the government and health-care providers to follow a certain set of instructions to ensure safety.

The highest number of births during these nine months are expected in India. Other countries with the expected highest numbers of births during this period are China (13.5 million), Nigeria (6.4 million) and Indonesia (four million) the report said. Most of these countries had high neonatal mortality rates even before the pandemic struck and may see these levels increase with the coronavirus crisis persisting, the Unicef report added.

Unicef has warned that COVID-19 containment measures could disrupt life-saving health services such as care during and after childbirth, putting millions of pregnant mothers and their babies at great risk.

Last month, the World Bank projected a decline in Pakistan’s national output in the range of 2.2 per cent to 1.3 per cent, which would also hit personal incomes badly.

“Pakistan, which has already experienced low growth rates in recent years, could fall into a recession”, the World Bank noted, adding that a 1.8 per cent growth in population in the country will imply a painful decline in per capita income and the country’s gross domestic product may fall from 2.2 per cent to 1.3 per cent during the fiscal year.