Off the wire
• IS militants execute 40 people in Iraq's Anbar province  • S. Africa not to relax immigration rule: minister  • Mozambican police approves detention of suspect over beer poisoning  • Ukraine pledges decentralization reform by October  • African countries urged to ratify Maritime Labor Convention  • Urgent: Ukraine says group of soldiers captured in flashpoint town  • China-Kenya bilateral trade in 2014 rises 53 pct  • Juncker appoints special adviser on European defense, security policy  • FLASH: MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS, GUN SHOTS HIT OPPOSITION RALLY IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA  • Pakistani army chief in Kabul for security talks: military  
You are here: 　 Home

WaterAid joins Ghana's fight against infant mortality

Xinhua, February 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

International development aid organization WaterAid has joined the fight to eradicate infant mortality in Ghana through its "Healthy Start Campaign".

The campaign is aimed at improving the health and nutrition of newborns and children under-five years globally.

"Access to clean water and safe sanitation is a basic human right, and when combined with good hygiene practices, it constitutes the essential building blocks for good health," Afia Zakiya, Country Director for WaterAid Ghana (WAG), said during the launching ceremony here Monday.

She pointed out that poor hygiene practices and the absence of clean water and safe sanitation had a particularly devastating impact on the health and well-being of newborns and children.

In Ghana, around 19,000 people, including 5,100 children under five years, die each year from diarrhea. Out of this number, nearly 90 percent can directly be attributed to poor Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services.

These deaths, Zakiya said, could be drastically reduced and child health improved if attention was given to ensuring that health plans, policies, programs and practices took WASH as a fundamental component of any public health system.

She explained that newborns and children were prone to intestinal infections when exposed to any form of contamination, resulting in severe diarrhea and high morbidity and mortality rates.

"WAG believes that all health care facilities in Ghana, especially where women go to give birth, must ensure separate ones for women and men, as a matter of urgency," she said.

Chaka Uzondu, WASH and Health Focal Lead at WAG advocated a strong inter-sectoral collaboration and effort by government to embed WASH services in all plans.

This is to help reduce under-nutrition, acute malnutrition, preventable childhood diseases and newborn deaths, Uzondu said.

According to WaterAid, its Healthy Start, which is concerned about the health of the nation, newborns and infants, will run for the next four years.

"Achieving our goal of giving all our children a healthy start is possible. Inspirational leadership, working with commitment and dedication to transformation of our public health system can make this possible," the NGO stated.

It said a key recognition of such transformation of Ghana's public health system is the recognition and prioritization of WASH services in a promotive and preventive-oriented health care system.

Although many would like to attribute some of the diseases to nature, medical science had proven that, with proper care, many of these diseases could be prevented, the NGO said. Endi