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Injuries sustained in motor vehicle crashes, scalding burns, poisonings and the like kill more than 830,000 children a year worldwide - the equivalent of the city of Ottawa being wiped out - according to a grim new report.

And millions more children suffer non-fatal injuries that leave them physically and mentally disabled and saddle families with devastating treatment costs, says the study being released today by Unicef and the World Health Organization.

"More must be done to prevent such harm to children," said Ann Veneman, executive director of Unicef.

She noted that poor children are particularly vulnerable to a broad range of calamities because they live in precarious situations and do not benefit from prevention programs.

In fact, according to the 232-page World Report on Child Injury Prevention, at least half the childhood fatalities could be prevented with proven public-health measures such as the use of seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, childproof medicine bottles and regulating the temperature of hot-water heaters.

"We can save lives relatively easily and cheaply," said Etienne Krug, director of the department of injuries and violence prevention at the WHO.

He noted that, globally, injuries are the leading cause of death in children after age 9, and said injury prevention must become an integral part of childhood health programs, just like vaccination.

"It doesn't make sense to vaccinate kids and then let them die of injuries when they get a little older," Dr. Krug said.

The report features a stark catalogue of the devastating impact of injuries:

Motor-vehicle crashes kill 260,000 children a year and injure about 10 million more, making them the leading cause of child disability.

Drowning kills more than 175,000 children a year and leaves three million more seriously injured; non-fatal drowning, because it often causes brain damage, is the most costly injury.

Burns kill nearly 96,000 children a year; the death rate is 11 times higher in poor countries than wealthy ones.

Falls kill nearly 47,000 children every year and leave hundreds of thousands more with serious injuries.

Poisoning accounts for some 45,000 childhood deaths annually.

Other leading causes of injury, fatal and non-fatal, in children include homicide, war, animal bites, hypothermia and hyperthermia and natural disasters such as earthquakes.

The report notes that wealthy countries like Canada have been able to reduce child-injury deaths by about half over the past three decades, but unintentional injuries still remain a major problem, accounting for about 40 per cent of all child deaths.

In Canada, for example, about 390 children die each year of injuries; another 25,500 suffer injuries so serious that they need to be hospitalized.

"There's still a lot more we can do to protect children," said Pamela Fuselli, executive director of Safe Kids Canada.

She said that, in reading the report, she was struck by the "eerie similarities" between the threats faced by children in poor and wealthy countries.

"Road crashes, drowning, burns - the threats are the same to children in every country," Ms. Fuselli said.

She noted that while the scale is different in the developing world, among the 29 wealthy countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada ranked a dismal 22nd in the prevention of childhood injuries.

Tallying the toll

Causes of injury-related deaths of children from birth through age 17 worldwide in 2004

Road-traffic injuries: 22.3%

Drowning: 16.8%

Fire-related burns: 9.1%

Homicide: 5.8%

Self-inflicted injuries: 4.4%

Falls: 4.2%

Poisoning: 3.9%

War: 2.3%

Other unintentional*: 31.1%

*Includes categories such as smothering, asphyxiation, choking, animal and venomous bites, hypothermia and hyperthermia as well as natural disasters.

NOTE: Figures do not add up to 100 due to rounding.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

// SOURCE: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION