On 3 March 2016, we join the world in observing World Hearing Day to raise awareness about the need to prevent and control hearing loss particularly among children. The theme for this year’s commemoration is: “Childhood hearing loss: act now; here is how!”.
Around 360 million people – 5% of the world’s population – live with disabling hearing loss, and nearly 32 million of them are children. The vast majority of the affected children live in low- and middle-income countries around the world.
In the African Region, it is estimated that 4.5% of the entire population and 1.9% of the African children live with this disability. Indeed, Hearing loss is a barrier to education and social integration. In low-resource settings in which a child would already be at risk of injury, hearing loss can also represent an additional and crucial element of vulnerability. Furthermore, in a broader context, untreated hearing loss can affect the social and economic development of entire communities and countries.