Overview
- The World Health Organization this week published its first global drowning-prevention strategy called Protect, offering concrete recommendations across seven intervention areas to reduce deaths in and around water.
- WHO says roughly 300,000 people drown each year worldwide and that drowning ranks among the ten leading causes of death for children aged 5 to 14.
- The Protect package includes steps such as making shores and beaches safer, expanding swim instruction for children, training rescuers and first responders, and improving community awareness and rescue equipment.
- The agency highlights climate change as a driving factor because more frequent floods, storms and heat events increase people’s exposure to water and raise drowning risk, citing studies that found drownings rise about 7.2% for each 1°C of warming.
- Implementation will depend on national resources, local training capacity and infrastructure improvements, so WHO is urging member states to use the Protect framework to plan funding, public campaigns and school-based swim programs.