All Member States in the WHO South-East Asia (SEA) Region are low- and middle-income countries. In the SEA Region, the motorcycle is prevalently used as a family vehicle with children routinely transported as passengers. A motorcyclist is 26 times more likely to die in a crash per vehicle mile travelled in comparison with motorist. The increasing use of motorcycles and the injuries and deaths by its use in the South-East Asia Region is of great concern to Member States. This was also expressed by the delegates at the Sixty-third Session of the WHO Regional Committee for the South-East Asia (2010).
Children, since the age of less than one year old, are reported to be severely injured in motorcycle crashes in the Member States of the SEA Region. Hence, the problem is even more alarming. Prevention of motorcycle injuries among the children in the developing world, particularly in the SEA Region, is impeded by limitations of knowledge, absence of reliable estimates of the current level of injuries, and perceptions of the community about injuries.
WHO-SEARO in collaboration with the Trauma and Critical Care Centre, Khon Kaen Regional Hospital (a WHO Collaborating Centre on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion), Khon Kaen, Thailand, organized an “Expert Group Meeting on Preventing Motorcycle Injuries in Children” from 21 to 23 December 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand. Experts from different sectors in the SEA Region, including biomechanics, epidemiologists, policy and law-enforcement officers, orthopedists, traumatologists, psychosociologists, paediatricians, police and transport engineers, and others attended the meeting. Two among these are also members of the WHO Expert Advisory Panels and Committees. The experts made technical presentations, shared information and evidences on the problem.
The expert group reviewed all available evidences on motorcycle-related issues in children and road traffic injuries (epidemiology, biomechanics, child development, psychosocial aspects, legislations in the high-income countries that produce motorcycles) along with existing safety measures focusing on motorcycle use in the SEA Region. The group provided recommendations in preventing motorcycle injuries in children to the Member States as follows, enunciated through the Bangkok Call for Action.
For more information please check the Bangkok Call for Action on our web page http://www.rtirn.net/events.asp soon!!