Updates

By: Dr. Joachim Osur, Program Director, Ipas Africa Alliance

Illness or death during pregnancy in my country, and throughout the region of Africa, is so common as to be considered a necessary risk of creating a family. This is particularly true for women of fewer means or in rural areas. Each case represents a family crisis or tragedy — but to me they represent opportunities lost and rights denied. Read more...

By: Dr. Neeraj Mistry, Managing Director of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases

This post is part of a series created in partnership by WASH Advocates and Women Deliver. For more information, please contact Cecilia Snyder csnyder@WASHadvocates.org and Janna Oberdorf joberdorf@womendeliver.org

To remind ourselves why it is so vitally important to make improvements to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), all we need to do is take a look at what’s in the dirty water. Lurking in infested water sources are parasitic worms that cause diseases such as human hookworm and schistosomiasis. These infections spread easily in communities that don’t have access to clean water or sanitation facilities. Read more...

By: Paula R DeCola, External Medical Affairs,  Pfizer Inc

It has been quite a journey leading up to this third Women Deliver (WD) conference. In London 2007, the WD conference focused on advocating for better progress in reducing maternal mortality, since the numbers of deaths were the same as those reported at the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women. Then onto WD conference 2009 in Washington DC, where we saw a decline in maternal deaths in a number of high burden countries, and of course campaigning for continued progress, as well as for expanding advocacy to encompass the insidious neglect of the girl child. Read more...