Around 270,000 children under 16 years of age are being hospitalized and 2600 die annually in Sri Lanka due to accidents according to the Consultant Community Physician attached to Family Health Bureau Dr.Kapila Jayaratne.
The majority of the child deaths reported from Sri Lanka annually have occurred before admission to hospital and only 150 deaths have been reported after admission to hospitals he has stressed.
Addressing a media seminar on "Prevention of Child Accidents" held at Health Education Bureau in Colombo yesterday (30) Dr.Jayaratne has stated that the main reasons behind child deaths occur in Sri Lanka are being identified as murders,motor car accidents,drowning,falling,burns and poisioning.
According to the Police reports in 2015 around 4012 children had been injured due to motor car accidents and 1087 of them had received serious injuries he said.152 children died due to accidents that year it has been reported.
In Sri Lanka every seven hours a child dies due to an injury and every two minutes a child admitted to a hospital due to injuries it has been revealed.
A special programme has been launched since yesterday (30)in all MOH areas in the country to make parents and authorities aware on accidents faced by children and the ways of preventing such accidents Dr.Jayaratne has further added.
