A/HRC/33/23 reflects again the crisis of inequality between children born in some regions and others, and the huge difference within countries with poor and marginalized communities receiving the poorest quality of care. 63. Of particular concern is the situation of premature and severely ill newborns and children born with severe impairments and/or life-threating health conditions. While there is a paucity of data in that regard, a human rights-based approach must ensure that those newborn children have access to the quality care they need, including psychosocial support for the families and the full complement of medical services. 64. Training on newborn care is essential to improve the child’s chance of survival. In that context, enforcing laws and policies that promote access to newborn care is a key component of a human rights-based approach to preventing mortality of the newborn child. 65. In the context of the Zika virus outbreak, the situation of children affected by the virus merits special attention. The High Commissioner for Human Rights called for all public health responses to the Zika virus to fully integrate human rights, reiterating the importance of focusing on women’s right to health and sexual and reproductive rights and at the same time urging States to prepare to provide proper support and care for children with Zika-related impairments. Media attention on children affected by Zika has focused on images and at times descriptive language that is pejorative, treating them as an oddity and undermining their dignity. Such portrayals reinforce and may exacerbate stigma and discrimination against children with disabilities. Reports show that children with microcephaly are at higher risk of abandonment by their parents, and suggest that the rates of abandonment of children may rise rapidly over the next years. 18 It is essential that sufficient resources be allocated to programmes to empower families of children with Zikarelated impairments to care for the children and minimize risks of abandonment. C. Quality of care 66. All children’s health services and programmes must comply with the criteria of availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality, which are essential components of the right of the child to health. Quality requirements include skilled health professionals, scientifically approved and unexpired drugs and hospital equipment. 19 In the context of newborn, infant and under-5 health, that means that health professionals must be trained in obstetrics and newborn and paediatric care and that children have access to paediatric drugs and hospital equipment adapted to them. It also implies supportive supervision, monitoring and data analysis for quality improvement. 67. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has encouraged States to adopt childsensitive health approaches throughout different periods of childhood, such as the Expanded Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, which protects, promotes and supports rooming-in and breastfeeding, and child-friendly health policies focused on training health workers to provide quality services in a way that minimizes pain, fear, anxiety and suffering of children and their families.20 18 19 20 14 Women Enabled International, “Talking Points: Zika, Microcephaly, Women’s Rights, and Disability Rights”. Available from womenenabled.org/publications.html. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 14 (2000) on the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment No. 15 (2013) on the right of the child to the highest attainable standard of health. GE.16-11320