Blog

By Julia Bluestone, Jhpiego, and Chair, Frontline Health Workers Coalition This past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa a health emergency—a sobering reminder of the importance and sacrifice of frontline health workers. In affected countries, health...

By Tiffany Montgomery, Kaiser West Los Angeles Medical Center and member of Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) In December 2013, along with other maternal health advocates, I visited Bandung, Indonesia to observe the progress being made by frontline maternal-child...

"Most of the dedicated health workers are really doing a commendable job, dedicating their lives to working in very difficult conditions and caring for persons that have come down with Ebola. What we need to do is commend them for their bravery and their commitment for caring for the patients.” –...

By Kate Greene, Abt Associates In rural Mali, auxiliary midwives—called matrones--are often the frontline of care for pregnant women, but until recently they have not had the authority and training to perform critical maternal care services. Through the USAID-supported Improving National Capacity to...

This post originally appeared on the Vital Blog By Mohamed Jallow, IntraHealth International “I am afraid for my life, I must say, because I cherish my life," said Dr. Sheik Umar Khan, one of the leading doctors fighting the spread of the Ebola virus in eastern Sierra Leone. Last week, Dr. Khan’s...

By James Litch, Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS) Every year, 15 million babies are born preterm, and of those, more than 1 million don’t survive their first month of life. Additionally, nearly 3 million babies are stillborn every year. While we hope that increased...

By Kait Atkins, Jhpiego This week, thousands of health workers, researchers and advocates gather in Melbourne, Australia, for the 20 th International AIDS Conference. Tragically, we lost several of these dedicated professionals aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. Their loss is felt and mourned...

By Susan W. Hayes, ReSurge International The following is a Q&A between Susan W. Hayes of ReSurge International and Drs. Shafquat Khundkar and Nancy Chee, recipients of 2014 The REAL Awards , a set of awards designed to celebrate and accelerate the lifesaving work of frontline health workers...

By Carolyn Miles, Save the Children NOTE: This blog was originally published in HuffPost Impact. Fifteen years have passed since a husband and wife team in western India challenged the notion that the deaths of thousands of mothers and millions of babies during pregnancy and childbirth are...

By Sarah Dwyer and Carol Bales, IntraHealth International A young boy—we’ll call him Mani—was living on the streets of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He had no one to look after him, nowhere to go. He was just nine years old. Mani’s situation is not unique. One quarter of...