Health
Drowning Claims 9 lives per day, Activists call for action
Activists have raised alarm over the rising drowning-related deaths in Uganda, urging the government and individuals to enhance prevention efforts. Research by the School of Public Health shows that over nine people die daily from drowning,
placing Uganda among the countries with the highest drowning rates.
In a training session for journalists on drowning organised by the Justice and Development Centre, Charles Onyum, the media coordinator at Global Health Advocacy Incubator, said that drowning is a serious public health threat that needs urgent attention to reverse the high death rates. Onyum says that the rate of 502 people per 100,000 dying per year due to drowning in Uganda puts drowning at the 12th position among the leading causes of death in the Country.
“More than 3,000 people die annually due to drowning. This is preventable. Now, what does this mean? Is that, on average,e as many as 12 people per day can be seen to be lost due to drowning. This is alarming. This makes drowning very close to or more than the impact of road crashes in Uganda. If you look at unintentional death and injury, road crashes and drowning come up to number one and two, respectively, depending on which statistics you’re using,” Onyum noted.
Emmanuel Balinda, a Water Safety and Drowning Prevention Manager at Reach a Hand, revealed that the organisation has embarked on designing swimming guidelines that will be forwarded to the Ministry of Education for consideration to ensure children are empowered with survival swimming skills to curb drowning incidents.
We would want to ensure that we have swimming lessons really from a young age. Currently we are trying to work on the survival swimming programme guide and this is going to be a framework or it is a document that is going to provide guidance to the national document and we hope to have this taken up by the Ministry of Education and Sport to support us in integrating some of these activities into the normal physical education activities we have in the schools-Balinda says.
Charles Rweziye, the Assistant Commissioner of Safety and Navigation at the Ministry of Works, is optimistic that the National Drowning Prevention Strategy currently under review will go a long way in addressing the drowning incidents. The strategy that is expected to be launched during the International Drowning Week next month is expected to contribute to awareness creation, ensuring safety measures on water transport, among other efforts to address drowning cases.
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