AsPNA

Abstract

Asia is the largest continent in the world with an estimated population approaching 4.165 billion in 2010, of which 34 % or approximately 1.433 billion are aged 19 years and under [1]. Moreover, the world’s most populous countries, China and India, are an integral part of this large continent. Unfortunately, health care delivery across the Asian continent is very uneven. Childhood mortality and morbidity are important indicators of the quality of health care delivery. Most childhood deaths occur in less developed countries and poorer sectors of the community in more developed countries, reflecting enormous disparities among different geographical areas and population groups. Despite improvement in child health in many of the emerging economies in Asia, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that childhood mortality rate is still more than twice the rate in Latin America and the Caribbean, though much lower than sub-Saharan Africa. In fact in South Asia, 1 in 16 children die before the age of 5 years. Thus the Millennium Development Goal is to reduce by two-thirds the under-five mortality rate of children between the years 1990 and 2015 [2]. To achieve this, health policy reform is needed to ensure that competent staff is available in rural health facilities and that services and transportation are made affordable for these rural communities. Therefore the major challenges in pediatric nephrology practice in many of the emerging economies in Asia still include the management of children with acute kidney injury due to diarrheal diseases with severe dehydration, sepsis, and toxins. On the other hand, the prevention and treatment of children with chronic kidney disease is also emerging as the new challenge for this millennium especially in the more urban communities.