The U.K. government has released its detailed strategies to help eradicate malaria and improve reproductive, maternal and newborn health in poor countries.
The two “frameworks for results” indicate the countries – all are in Africa and Asia - and types of interventions on which the U.K. will focus its anti-malaria and maternal and newborn health aid.
To boost the global malaria fight, the U.K. will increase funding for testing and treatment, bed nets, women’s protection, research and innovation, and quality health services in 18 hardest-hit countries, namely Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Under its campaign to help prevent deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, the U.K. will promote family planning, safer births and better health care, focus on adolescent girls and the poorest populations, and enable British health experts to share their skills with doctors and nurses in developing countries. The initiative will benefit Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“Every day over two thousand people die from malaria and almost a thousand women die during pregnancy or childbirth. These deaths are all the more tragic because the vast majority could have been prevented,” said U.K. Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell in a Dec. 31 press release. “We will be relentless in driving down this terrible loss of life by hugely increasing our efforts, basing our actions on evidence; reaching more people with the right interventions; and by putting girls and women front and centre of our development work.”
As reported by Devex in September, the U.K. had pledged to spend 500 million pounds (USD775 million) per year by 2014 to support the global anti-malaria drive and 740 million pounds per year through 2015 to improve women and children’s health in the developing world.
>> UK to Increase Aid for Malaria Fight in African Countries
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