Africa has world’s highest mortality rate

Recent disclosures by the United Nations have revealed that Africa has the highest mortality rate in the world with 26.6 victims per 100,000 people (compared to 9.3 in Europe). The continent of Africa also accounts for 43 percent of road traffic injury victims.

Statistics also show that road crashes are the leading cause of death in young adults aged 15-29, while claiming the lives of 500 innocent children each day. In light of these figures and the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals, the international community has committed to halve the number of road traffic fatalities by 2020.

Furthermore, greater efforts from stakeholders and countries alike are needed to put in place legal instruments whose aim is to help them build safer roads and vehicles. According to the United Nations, developing world needs safer cars in the present dispensation.

With more than 1.25 million people dying each year in road crashes, United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety Jean Todt and UN Economic Commission for Europe head Christian Bach have called for the full implementation of UN road safety legal instruments to reduce traffic accidents worldwide.

The two officials urged all UN member States to take their responsibilities and to ratify and fully apply the UN road safety legal instruments,” the two officials declared on Wednesday. “’We also call on the motor industry as a whole to ensure that well-established safety standards are applied to all vehicles sold in developing countries,” they added.

Figures show 90 percent of total deaths take place in low and middle-income countries, even though, only slightly more than half (54 percent) of the world’s vehicles are in these regions.

Todt and Bach concluded: “We stand ready, with our partners in the road safety community, to help countries to accede and implement these agreements. We must work together to live up to the promise made by the international community to save millions of lives by 2020.”

MIKE OCHONMA