The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Monday pledged 1,5 billion US dollar (9 milliarder DKR) during the next five years for improving maternal and child health, family planning and nutrition in developing countries, a pledge that signals a new focus for the foundation known for concentrating on vaccines and AIDS.
The donation is the second largest in the foundation’s history, after a 10 billion dollar, 10-year pledge in January for vaccine development and delivery. The foundation Monday announced initial grants of 94 million dollar in India and 60 million in Ethiopia.
Melinda Gates said the foundation was taking the lead to jumpstart a global effort. She urged world leaders in the developing and industrialized world to also do their part to prevent mothers and babies from dying.
– It is going to take government effort and investment, she said at a women’s health conference where she made the announcement.
The program aims to cut across the “silos” of health initiatives focused on one thing – AIDS, for example, or nutrition – and get broader initia-tives into place.
– That is in addition to grants that we already make in vaccines, diarrhea, malaria, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the foundation, said.
- It is not that the world doesn’t know how to save the 350.000 mothers and 3 million newborns who die each year – it is the disturbing fact that we have not tried hard enough, she stressed.
Family planning could reduce maternal deaths by 30 percent and newborn deaths by 20 percent, Gates noted. She plans to make mother and child health outcomes her personal priority.
80 percent of maternal deaths occurred in 21 countries, and six of those countries – India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and DR Congo – accounted for half of the deaths.
The number of women dying from pregnancy-related complications dropped from about 526.300 annually in 1980 to 342.900 in 2008.
But a study published in the medical journal “The Lancet” showed that a large number of pregnant women still die from AIDS-related complica-tions.
This could be remedied with better access to HIV treatment and care including prenatal care, nutrition and family planning.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
