HARIPUR, March 23: Children under five years of age constitute 60 per cent of the victims of Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) in Haripur district. This has been claimed in a ‘social audit report on governance and delivery of public services in district Haripur’ prepared by an Islamabad-based consortium of non-governmental organisations.

The report was launched at a function here on Wednesday.

The document is based on a study which covered a population of 14,239 in 2,017 households at 14 rural and two urban union councils of Haripur and Ghazi tehsils.

ARI and cholera have been found as the most common diseases among children.

According to the finding, 92 per cent of the population use piped water and the rest has access to groundwater; only 88 per cent of the population has latrine facility.

Forty-four per cent of the mothers preferred to treat the children affected by diarrhoea at home, 13 per cent took their children to unqualified practitioners, 25 per cent to private facilities, 15 per cent to government hospitals, two per cent to NGO services and only one per cent of the mothers took ailing children to Lady Health Workers.

The report suggests that 8 per cent of the children could be protected from ARI if there are ventilation arrangements in every household.

Of the children who suffered from ARI 31 per cent were not taken for treatment, 17 per cent were taken to unqualified health practitioners, 35 per cent to qualified private practitioner, 14 per cent to government hospital and only 3 per cent to a facility run by some NGO.

A survey about immunisation indicated that 90 per cent of the children aged 12-23 months had received BCG vaccine, 85 per cent of them had full course of DPT injection, 80 per cent had been administered measles vaccine and all children under five years had received anti-polio drops at least once in the last year. District nazim Yousaf Ayub Khan, tehsil nazim Haripur Iftekhar Ahmed Khan and tehsil nazim Ghazi attended the function.