Blog, Frontline Health Workers, midwives, World Health Assembly, World Health Organization

2020 Marks The International Year of The Nurse and The Midwife #SupportNursesAndMidwives

It is no surprise that the world needs more health workers. In fact, even though there are currently 22 million nurses and 2 million midwives globally there is an urgent need for 18 million more health workers in order to reach universal health care coverage by 2030 according to the World Health Organization.

There is a particular need for 9 million nurses and midwives as they are critical components to a robust health system and are often on the front lines of general and critical care including:

Prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and other communicable diseases
Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of noncommunicable diseases
Sexual and reproductive health services, including family planning, and maternal and newborn health care, including immunization and breastfeeding support.

Jennifer JamesJanuary 1, 2020Leave a comment

Blog, Breastfeeding, malnutrition, Philippines, World Health Assembly, World Health Organization

Is the Formula Industry Overpowering Breastfeeding?

Yesterday global women’s and children’s advocates sounded the alarm regarding alleged strong-arming by US delegates at this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva. The issue at hand was the rights of women regarding their choice between breastfeeding and formula feeding.

According to the New York Times, the US delegation sought to remove the language in a pro-breastfeeding resolution that compelled countries to “protect, promote and support breastfeeding” and to remove any restrictions on formula that many global health experts contend is harmful to infants and toddlers.

The US delegation threatened Ecuador (the sponsoring country for the resolution) with devasting trade measures and a reduction in military aid. Ecuador acquiesced as did many more African and Latin American countries until Russia stepped up to sponsor the resolution, a country the US could not threaten.

Lucy M. Sullivan, Executive Director of 1000 Days, tweeted an entire thread about what was happening at the World Health Assembly in May.

Thread. A battle over #breastfeeding has been brewing this week at @WHO headquarters at the #WHA71 where countries are negotiating a resolution on infant and young child feeding #IYCF. 1/

— Lucy M. Sullivan (@lucymsullivan) May 25, 2018