Initiative Aims to Upturn the Status Quo in Health Care
The Global Health Initiative (GHI) starts with a woman. Women, who face myriad responsibilities, must choose which services her family will get and who will go without. The fragmented and poorly coordinated health system in her country forces her to make difficult tradeoffs about her family's health. GHI, the Obama administration's multiyear interagency effort aimed at improving and saving lives by strengthening health systems, is designed with women in mind. USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah calls GHI a fundamentally different way of doing business – a push to think holistically about how to reach beneficiaries. And it builds on the foundation of the U.S. Government's HIV/AIDS and malaria programs, which have been successful due largely to strong coordination across U.S. agencies as well as to experts working in the field.
Read the full article. Visit the new GHI.gov web site at http://www.ghi.gov.
Building on Vaccine Achievements, Agency and Partners Ramp Up to Immunize 4 Million
Decades ago, USAID and other U.S. Government health agencies and international health organizations were behind the global program to eliminate smallpox and bring the power of lifesaving vaccines to millions of the world's poor. Today, the Agency is continuing to strengthen vaccination programs and is supporting scientists and researchers who are trying to find the latest miracle shot that will eradicate today's most burdensome diseases.
Read the full article. Learn more about USAID work with HIV vaccines in Pathways of Discovery: HIV Vaccine Research and Development.
Battle to End Malaria Counts Community Health Workers as Foot Soldiers
In more than 40 countries worldwide, the President's Malaria Initiative and other global efforts have helped cut malaria cases in half. Meanwhile, the quest for a vaccine to help eradicate the disease continues.
Read the full article. Learn more about USAID's work with malaria through the President's Malaria Initiative.
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Mayan women and a husband receive family planning counseling at the health center in Chimaltenango, southern Guatemala. Source: USAID. |
Nutrition and Family Planning Intersect for a Healthier Guatemala
Guatemala is one of the most inequitable countries in the world. It also faces high malnutrition. Despite rising food prices and other factors, there is at least one factor that the average Guatemalan can control – family size. In the poor Western Highlands of Guatemala, the U.S. Government’s Global Health Initiative is working to make family planning more accessible by educating men and women about contraceptive choices and birth spacing, while also working to combat malnutrition.
Read the full article. Learn more about USAID's nutrition program.
Bangladesh a Safer Place for Mothers
Across the developing world, the first 48 hours after birth are an extremely dangerous time, and as many as 150,000 mothers and 1.6 million newborns will die during that time because they do not have access to quality care. But, in a rare bright spot, a new survey shows that maternal deaths in Bangladesh have decreased by about 40 percent in the past 10 years, putting the country on the right track to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goal target of cutting maternal mortality n half. While further studies are needed to accurately determine the cause of this sharp decline, a wide array of USAID health and family programs have contributed to this win for the global health community.
Read the full article. Learn more aboutUSAID's maternal and child health programs.
Tempering Fear When the Winds Blow
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Mass vaccination campaigns using the new vaccine reached nearly 20 million people in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Source: Gabe Bienczycki, PATH. |
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In 25 "meningitis belt" countries, as many as 450 million people are at risk of brain damage, profound hearing loss, learning problems, or death from the deadly disease. But 10 years ago, after a serious epidemic sparked a wake-up call, health leaders, vaccine manufacturers and scientists brought together by the World Health Organization (WHO) determined it was a priority to develop a new conjugate vaccine to fight epidemic meningitis in Africa. This story shows how the global health community united on a decade-long quest to find an affordable, effective vaccine. Last December, people in three meningitis-prone countries began receiving the vaccine. Early results look very promising.
Read the full article.
Exclusive Interview with Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General WHO Health
Dr. Margaret Chan talks with FrontLines about why the world needs global health initiatives and how the WHO and the United States are working together to achieve common goals. "Countries want capacity, not charity," Chan says. Development programs should be focused on building self-reliance, not dependency. There is much work to be done; we need to stay focused on reaching those who do not have access to health care facilities and find ways to adapt existing technical interventions to meet the realities of their implementation in the field.
Read the full interview.
Services on Wheels: A One-Stop Shop
In Kenya’s poor Eastern province, trained health workers are in short supply and poor road networks are plentiful. To help maximize effectiveness, USAID and partners have strived to deliver health care in a different way – by going door-to-door. The health wagon was designed to attract and retain as many clients as possible by meeting a range of their health needs in a single visit.
Read the full article.
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