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Messages for World Health Day 2005

Message 3

Millions of lives could be saved using knowledge we have today. The challenge is to transform this knowledge into action.

Effective knowledge and tools exist to reduce suffering and death. However, to make a real difference they must reach all mothers and children who need them. Experience has shown that known interventions are affordable and can be delivered, even in the poorest countries. At the same time, international agreements such as the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, have paved the way for removing important obstacles to the widespread delivery of life-saving knowledge and tools.

• Not enough mothers and children are receiving existing and affordable life-saving interventions. For example, globally, just 61% of births are assisted by a skilled attendant, while in some low income countries the average is as low as 34% (WHO, 2004c). Furthermore, only 4 out of 10 children with pneumonia, worldwide, are treated with antibiotics (Gareth et al., 2003).
  
• To reduce maternal deaths dramatically, all women need access to high-quality delivery care with at least three key elements: skilled care at birth, emergency obstetric care in case of complications, and a functioning referral system which ensures access to emergency care if needed. Another key solution is helping women to avoid unwanted pregnancies and births.

• More than 6 million children could be saved each year if they were reached by a small set of preventive and curative interventions (e.g. vaccines and simple treatments for common serious illnesses) and appropriate home care (Gareth et al., 2003). Appropriate home care includes optimal feeding practices, such as breastfeeding infants exclusively for the first six months of life, introducing adequate complementary foods at six months of age, and continuing to breastfeed up to two years or longer. Appropriate home care also involves key health practices such as using insecticide-treated materials to prevent the transmission of malaria, and giving appropriate home treatment for infections. (WHO, 2004d)

• Special efforts, including intensified coordination between safe motherhood initiatives and child survival programmes, are needed to increase the number of newborn babies (0 to 28 days) who receive critical, life-saving care.
• Schooling for girls results in healthier, better-educated children, fewer maternal and child deaths, greater economic opportunities, and enhanced well-being of families. Nevertheless, two out of every three children not in school are girls; and two out of every three illiterate adults are women (UNESCO 2003).
• More than 189 nations have committed themselves to the Millennium Declaration and the ensuing targets of the Millennium Development Goals. The Millennium Development Goals acknowledge the importance of healthy mothers and children for social and economic development. They also demonstrate that simultaneous action is needed across many different fronts in order to achieve results.

• The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has almost universal ratification, promotes holistic approaches to child health through its core principles of non-discrimination, participation, the best interests of the child, and the survival, protection, and development of the child.