Africans up to 13 times more likely to drown than Europeans

GENEVA

 Africans — and young children especially — are up to 13 times more likely than Western Europeans to become one of the 372,000 people who drown each year, a study by the World Health Organisation said on Monday.

“Efforts to reduce child mortality have brought remarkable gains in recent decades, but they have also revealed otherwise hidden childhood killers,” said WHO director Margaret Chan. “Drowning is one”.

The UN agency’s Global Report on Drowning said most of the children who drown worldwide fall into water during a lapse in supervision. And young children, aged under five, have the highest rates of drowning of any group in the world.

People under the age of 25 accounted for more than half the overall deaths.

Drowning death rates are highest in Africa, and are 10 to 13 times those reported in the United Kingdom and Germany.

People of lower economic status, those who belong to an ethnic minority, lack higher education and live in rural areas all run a higher risk, though there was some variation of results across countries.