Healing the world: Ethiopia
Momina Mohammed, 34, sits with her 8-month-old son, Ali Mohammed, who is suffering from severely acute malnutrition in a refugee camp in Suola, near the Eritrean border, Afar region, Ethiopia on Dec. 12, 2008.
WASHINGTON — Here’s a fact-based snapshot of Ethiopia, one of the eight countries that the U.S. government has spotlighted in its initial work through the Global Health Initiative.
ETHIOPIA
Total GHI spending:
FY 2009: $397 million
FY 2010: $411 million
Total population: 91 million
GDP per capita: $321
Maternal mortality per 100,000 live births: 673
Number of children under 5 who die per year: nearly 500,000
Major health concerns in the country:
1) Infectious disease, including tuberculosis and diarrheal diseases
2) High rate of maternal and infant mortality
3) Two-thirds of the population is at risk for malaria, with 5 million cases per year
GHI's main goals: Streamline different types of health services and put the savings toward extending health care throughout the country; reduce the number of maternal and child deaths by about one-third by 2015 and tuberculosis deaths by half; send four times more fever cases for lab testing by 2014 in order to identify and treat malaria
GHI on the ground: With GHI funding, Ethiopia intends to hire more than 5,000 new midwives by 2015, as well as 9,000 “health information technicians” who will monitor health data. On-the-spot malaria testing kits will also be distributed to 13,000 health workers.
(Sources: CIA; GHI country strategy documents; Kaiser Family Foundation; UN; www.foreignassistance.gov)
Funding for this project is provided by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation as part of its U.S. Global Health Policy program.
This story is presented by The GroundTruth Project.