No improvement has been made in the overall health condition of children in the country as the economic crisis has plunged most of the population into poverty, Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi said speaking at a press conference held on the Waorld Heath Day, April 7th this year. He said that the main reason for the stagnating health among children was mainly due to increasing poverty and the only way to remedy this would be by undertaking poverty alleviation programmes. Infant mortality rates in Indonesia have been fluctuating since the crisis battered the country in 1997. In 1998, the country succeeded in decreasing the mortality rate from 60 per 1,000 life babies in 1995 to 49. However, in 2001 the rate rose to 51. Children living in conflict-affected areas in Indonesia such as Poso and Aceh have been reduced to live as refugees in camps that do not have basic sanitation and drinking water facilities. Acute respiratory infections and diarrhoea caused by air pollution, unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation are already the main cause of death for children aged one to four years old. In 2001, acute respiratory infections mortality rate reached 23 percent, while diarrhea reached 13 percent. Considering this reality Indonesian children living as refugees face a much greater risk of disease and death. A situation that cannot remian ignored for much longer. [Jakarta Post]