December 23, 2024 04:38 pm (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
Cylinder blast at a temple in Karnataka's Hubbali injures nine people | Kuwait PM personally sees off Modi at airport as Indian premier concludes two-day trip | Three pro-Khalistani terrorists, who attacked a police outpost in Gurdaspur, killed in an encounter | Who is Sriram Krishnan, an Indian-American picked by Donald Trump as US AI policy advisor? | Mohali building collapse: Death toll rises to 2, many feared trapped for 17 hours | 4-year-old killed after speeding car driven by a teen hits him in Mumbai | PM Modi attends opening ceremony of Arabian Gulf Cup in Kuwait | Jaipur gas tanker crash: Toll touches 14, 30 critical | Arrest warrant against former cricketer Robin Uthappa over 'PF fraud' | PM Modi emplanes for a visit to Kuwait
South Africa
Soufian Abdul-Mouty/UNFPA Sud

New partnership to boost maternal and newborn health in East and Southern Africa

| @indiablooms | Nov 18, 2020, at 03:27 pm

New York: Some 10,000 health workers will be trained to support mothers and newborns in Africa through a partnership between the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, and Laerdal Global Health, the non-profit arm of a Norwegian company that provides innovative training, educational and therapy solutions for emergency medical care and patient safety.

The five-year programme, announced on Tuesday, aims to improve maternal and newborn health in some of the communities with the highest mortality rates in Eastern and Southern Africa.

It will start in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya, and later expand to other countries in the region.

“Investing in the health of women and children is a smart investment”, said Mohamed M. Malick Fall, the Regional Director for UNICEF.

“Indeed, investing in the health of the poorest children and communities saves nearly twice as many lives as equivalent investments.”

‘Alarming’ mortality rates

Although the world has witnessed very promising progress in maternal and neonatal health over the past decades, maternal and newborn mortality rates in the Eastern and Southern Africa region remain alarming, according to UNICEF.

In 2017, roughly 70,000 women there died due to complications during pregnancy and birth, while in 2019, more than 440,000 newborns died in the first 28 days after birth.  

“Our new partnership with Laerdal Global Health will bring investment, research and innovation to help improve the delivery of quality health services”, said Mr. Fall.  

“Additionally, the partnership will seek new solutions to avert preventative maternal and newborn deaths.”

Scaling-up to save lives

Together with governments, UNICEF and Laerdal Global Health will provide training for 10,000 health workers, focusing on safe pregnancy and births, by 2025.  

The partners will implement the ‘Helping Mothers Survive and Helping Babies Survive’ training programmes, which are designed to reduce maternal and newborn mortality in low-resource settings.

The trainings are based on simulation methodology and will equip health professionals with the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to succeed, said UNICEF.  They also have a “refresher component”, thus ensuring long-term and sustainable capacity building.

UNICEF will contribute lifesaving equipment for newborns and training of health workers, while Laerdal Global Health will provide educational materials and simulators through the company’s ‘Buy One, Gift One’ scheme for customers in high-income countries.

In 2012, Laerdal Medical established a ‘Buy One, Gift One’ initiative, “where birth simulators sold in high-income countries support training programmes in low-resource settings”, said Tore Laerdal, Chairman for Laerdal.

“We look forward to our cooperation with UNICEF where we will use a combination of on-site and remote learning solutions to contribute to scaling-up more efficient training modules that can save lives.”

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.