Category Archives: Health
Caryl Stern: Join us to help every child achieve a fifth birthday
This originally appeared on UNICEF’s Field Notes A child’s fifth birthday is a joyful moment for most parents, a milestone marking the passage out of early childhood into the world of pre-K and grade school and upward and onward. It signifies the end of a wonderful period, though sometimes a tough one. After the candles [...]
Saving Children’s Lives, Closer to the Home
My most vivid early childhood memory is waking up to excruciating pain in my throat, and seeing the goldfish swimming in the aquarium of the pediatric surgical ward. Although penicillin had been discovered 30 years earlier, doctors had not learned yet that treating “strep throats” with penicillin was better than operating. I didn’t need the [...]
A Mother’s Fight
The following is a guest blog post from Florence-Ngobeni Allen. She is an HIV/AIDS educator and counselor, and a long-time Ambassador for The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation. She lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. Fighting a mother’s fight against HIV has been a very significant part of my life. I have worked as an HIV educator [...]
Putting Orphans and Vulnerable Children First on the Path to an AIDS-Free Generation
Today marks the 10th anniversary of World AIDS Orphan Day – and an important opportunity to highlight stories of children affected by HIV and AIDS. Despite many gains in the fight against AIDS, children still lag far behind adults in access to important medical services, including HIV prevention, care, and treatment. At the end of [...]
Every Birthday Starts with the Golden Minute
Members of the Helping Babies Breathe Global Development Alliance Every child deserves a fifth birthday. To reach five years, though, a child must take his or her first breath of life in the first minute following birth. The World Health Organization estimates approximately one million babies die each year from birth asphyxia, a condition in [...]
Celebrating Success in Saving the Lives of Mothers
Ordinary women make extraordinary contributions as caregivers and caretakers, as breadwinners and bread-makers to families and societies. And even so, we know that women will not be able to thrive, unless they survive. On Tuesday, the U.S. Government celebrated remarkable country-level success in saving the lives of women during pregnancy and childbirth. Health ministers from [...]
Global Motherhood: Perils And Promise In Ghana
Guest Blogger: Dr. Orin Levine, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Executive Director, International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC). Originally published to the Huffington Post. Today in Ghana, I had a personal reminder as to why our work to prevent disease is so perilous, and why disease control so promising in [...]
Something to Celebrate in Ghana
Jeffrey Rowland is the Director of Media and Communications at GAVI alliance. This piece originally appeared in the GAVI Alliance blog. Under the sweltering sun in Accra’s immense Independence Square, hundreds of Ghanaian mothers and their newborn babies gathered this morning with the country’s First Lady, Ministry of Health officials, my boss GAVI Alliance CEO [...]
USAID in the News
Weekly Briefing (4/23/2012 – 4/27/2012) April 22: In the Huffington Post, USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah previewed a new global campaign to end preventable child deaths.“Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday” will focus on raising awareness ahead of the Child Survival Call to Action event in June, when the governments of the United States, India, and Ethiopia will join together with UNICEF [...]
New Facility Ensures Better Health for Filipino Children
One of the leading causes of illness in the Philippines is diarrhea. It kills more than 27 Filipino children under 5 each day, and poor sanitation costs the Philippine economy nearly $2 billion each year. I was reminded of these staggering figures as I journeyed six hours north of Manila to San Fernando City, La [...]
