Digital and data transformation

Zambia incorporates newborn care into its national strategy for managing childhood illness. Will the move help save babies?

Over the years, the United States’ commitment to funding global health research has led to the development of remarkable tools that have saved millions of lives both at home and abroad. Today, research and development supported by the people of the United States—often through the US Agency for International Development (USAID)—continues to make a better life possible for people around the world. Support from USAID helps bring forth breakthrough tools that combat tenacious killers, such as complications of pregnancy and childbirth, as well as new threats, including emerging resistance to some of our most effective medicines.

Chlorhexidine is a dependable antiseptic that’s been around since the 1950s. It’s inexpensive, effective, safe, and common in drugstores and hospitals across the United States and Europe. In poor countries, a new formulation can be a powerful solution to an unacceptable tragedy: the preventable deaths of hundreds of thousands of newborns every year from infection.

When Njabulo was born, his mother gave him the perfect food—breast milk. But she died when he was just two months old, leaving the infant without the source of nutrients he so needed and the antibodies to keep him free from illness. Njabulo was in dire shape when he was placed in a transition home for HIV-exposed infants. Fortunately, the home was one of the few places in South Africa with a human milk bank. Fed donated mother’s milk, the tiny infant began to thrive.