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Health care program for Afghan women is halving maternal, neonatal death rates

A key component of work by medical teams working in areas near Rawalakot, in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir (Azad Kashmir), is to meet medical care needs in communities that would otherwise be ignored. Here CWS nurse Shahnaz (left) listens to a patient. Photo: Chris Herlinger/CWS

December 3, 2007

EDITORS NOTE: Afghan women's program representatives available for interviews on request in New York and Washington.

NEW YORK -- Conflict-torn Afghanistan has one of the world's worst health records, but in certain provinces, infant and maternal mortality rates have dropped by more than half during the course of a Community Health Project being delivered by global humanitarian agency Church World Service.

CWS Pakistan/Afghanistan staff will hold briefings in New York, December 3, 4 and 7, on the agency's maternal and neonatal program approach and success and on the current state of health overall among Afghans who are refugees in Pakistan and those returning to or still displaced within Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan health program representatives will also meet with USAID, other NGOs and Capitol Hill lawmakers in Washington this week.

The agency's Pakistan/Afghanistan Community Health Project deploys female doctors to Basic Health Units and reproductive health clinics in those culturally sensitive regions, delivers health care training for community health workers, and engages the community in health care awareness and support. The program serves Afghans displaced in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as Pakistanis in Mansehra displaced by the 2005 earthquake.

Who

Mr. Dennis Joseph, Associate Director of Operations, Church World Service Pakistan/Afghanistan

Mr. Wajahat Latif, Senior Program Advisor, Church World Service Pakistan/Afghanistan

When/Where

Tuesday, December 4, 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., Church Center for the United Nations, 10th Floor Conference Room, 777 U.N. Plaza, New York. Moderator: Dennis Frado, Director, Lutheran Office for World Community, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Friday, December 7, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Church World Service-hosted briefing, Orthodox Room (First Floor), The Interchurch Center, 475 Riverside Drive at 120th Street, New York

The CWS Pakistan/Afghanistan representatives will also meet in New York and Washington in December with United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations, federal agencies, and members of Congress.

Background

Conflict has displaced millions within Afghanistan and to nearby Pakistan. Access to education and health care is limited, especially for women. Alarming numbers of women and babies die in childbirth, and many who survive later die from preventable diseases.

According to the 2006 World Health Organization World Health Report, in Afghanistan overall, the neonatal mortality rate was 60 per 1,000 live births, and 57 per thousand in Pakistan. The maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan for that year was 1,900 among 100,000 live births and 500 per thousand in Pakistan.

By comparison, dramatically fewer mothers and newborns are dying in the communities served by the Church World Service program. According to CWS Community Health Program reports for 2006, neonatal mortality rates have dropped to 5.2 per thousand live births in Afghanistan and 5.5 in Pakistan.

Maternal mortality rates in the Afghanistan program communities have dropped to 860 per thousand live births and to 122.69 in Pakistan communities served.

More than 250,000 Afghans benefit from the broader CWS health project, part of the Church World Service Durable Solutions for Displaced Persons (DSDP) program offering services to long-term forcibly displaced people around the world. The overall CWS health program has been operating in Afghanistan since 1997 and in Pakistan since 1979.

The program's female physicians and community health workers are serving displaced Afghan women and infants in:

Pakistan's Mansehra District, North West Frontier Province: Barari Refugee Camp, Ichrian Refugee Camp, and Khaki Refugee Camp

Afghanistan/s Nangarhar Province: Pachir-wa-Agaam District and Surkhrood District

In addition to providing services by female physicians, the program's approach to improving local health delivery systems focuses on training health care workers to provide improved preventative and curative health services and community engagement in health care.

According to Jennifer Wilson, CWS Program Officer, Durable Solutions for Displaced Persons Program, "There could be other contributing factors, but the high maternal and infant mortality rates in the general populations of both Pakistan and Afghanistan are widely attributed by WHO, UNHCR and others to the lack of access to health care and, more specifically, to a shortage of culturally appropriate female medical professionals who can provide services viewed as acceptable by leaders and elders in a manner that is more consistent with religious and cultural norms."

For more information about events in New York contact: Jennifer Wilson: jwilson@churchworldservice.org
For more information about the UN Church Center briefing, contact Michael Neuroth: mneuroth@churchworldservice.org

Complete NYC and Washington itinerary and biographies of Church World Service Pakistan/Afghanistan representatives available on request. (Read itinerary here)

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;

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