The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is on a mission to help reduce maternal mortality rates worldwide.
The foundation’s annual Goalkeeper’s report, released on Tuesday, reveals that progress on reducing maternal mortality rates has stalled in many countries, with deaths on the rise in some places.
“Everyone agrees that a mother should not die in childbirth and that a child should not die of a preventable disease,” Mark Suzman, chief executive of the foundation, told The National.
According to statistics provided in the report, from 2000 to 2015, maternal mortality rates steadily dropped.
But progress ground to a halt in 2016 and rates have remained stubbornly unmoved since.
Maternal mortality is when a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes or within 42 days of the end of the pregnancy termination.
The Covid-19 pandemic, during which there was a massive international effort to develop and distribute vaccines, did not help matters.
The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have taken attention and money away from dozens of other critical issues facing the world, including maternal mortality.
According to Mr Suzman, aid to Africa dropped 8 per cent in 2022.
He said “it is difficult to stay focused” on other issues “when you've got a big crisis like Covid”.
In 2015, the UN adopted a set of Sustainable Development Goals that included 17 interconnected objectives, designed to create a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet”.
Among the many objectives was reducing maternal mortality rates to fewer than 70 out of every 100,000 births and to end all preventable child deaths by 2030.
As of 2021, maternal mortality rates hovered close to 159 for every 100,000 births, a number that has a cascading effect on the health and well-being of infants and families.
The chance of an infant surviving to its first birthday plummets to just 37 per cent if the mother dies during childbirth.
The report illustrates just how far off the world is from its sustainable development objectives concerning maternal mortality.
“Sadly, we are significantly off track for most of these,” Mr Suzman said.
But he said it was not too late to reverse the tide.
“It is possible for not all the goals, but many of them to get back on [track] even within the seven years,” Mr Suzman said.
The report highlights three relatively easy and affordable innovations that could go a long way in helping to make it safer for mothers to give birth around the world, including in lower and middle-income countries.
The innovations include treating post-partum haemorrhaging with a simple V-shaped plastic bag, known as a drape, that would allow doctors or nurses to easily identify whether a woman is haemorrhaging or not.
Anaemia is a leading cause of post-partum haemorrhage. The report highlights the work of a Nigerian obstetrician, who has shown that a 15-minute intravenous infusion of iron during or after pregnancy could have a life-saving effect.
Another solution the report highlights is providing azithromycin, an antibiotic that treats sepsis, which is also a leading cause of maternal mortality.
In the US, which has a high maternal mortality rate, especially among black and indigenous women compared to other high-income countries, sepsis is especially deadly.
Azithromycin could be a “game-changer” in the US, the report said.
“The United States has some of the most abysmal – and most inequitable – maternal mortality rates among high-income countries,” Melinda Gates said in the report.
“American women are more than three times more likely to die from childbirth than women in almost every other wealthy country.”
Mr Suzman added that “there are tools and innovations that can help bend that curve, but it's going to be challenging."
While the solutions may exist, it is up to the international community to heed the clarion call.
“This is the most visceral human achievement there is, preventing avoidable deaths of mothers and children,” Mr Suzman said.
“And it's absolutely doable at relatively low cost2. It just requires this combination of political time and energy.”
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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yallacompare profile
Date of launch: 2014
Founder: Jon Richards, founder and chief executive; Samer Chebab, co-founder and chief operating officer, and Jonathan Rawlings, co-founder and chief financial officer
Based: Media City, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: 120 employees
Investors: 2014: $500,000 in a seed round led by Mulverhill Associates; 2015: $3m in Series A funding led by STC Ventures (managed by Iris Capital), Wamda and Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority; 2019: $8m in Series B funding with the same investors as Series A along with Precinct Partners, Saned and Argo Ventures (the VC arm of multinational insurer Argo Group)
Haircare resolutions 2021
From Beirut and Amman to London and now Dubai, hairstylist George Massoud has seen the same mistakes made by customers all over the world. In the chair or at-home hair care, here are the resolutions he wishes his customers would make for the year ahead.
1. 'I will seek consultation from professionals'
You may know what you want, but are you sure it’s going to suit you? Haircare professionals can tell you what will work best with your skin tone, hair texture and lifestyle.
2. 'I will tell my hairdresser when I’m not happy'
Massoud says it’s better to offer constructive criticism to work on in the future. Your hairdresser will learn, and you may discover how to communicate exactly what you want more effectively the next time.
3. ‘I will treat my hair better out of the chair’
Damage control is a big part of most hairstylists’ work right now, but it can be avoided. Steer clear of over-colouring at home, try and pursue one hair brand at a time and never, ever use a straightener on still drying hair, pleads Massoud.
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Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos
Rating: 2.5/5