Tanzania and Kenya now are able to train more nurses and
midwives to help lower staggering figures of newborn and maternal
deaths thanks to a US$500,000 donation made by China yesterday.
And many more African babies could be saved from dying at birth
once the pilot projects in Tanzania and Kenya are introduced to
other parts of the continent.
Chinese Ambassador to South Africa Liu Guijin handed a
US$500,000 check to Firmino Mucavele, chief executive of the New
Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Secretariat, at the
NEPAD office in Midrand, northern Johannesburg.
"It is actually a training program to train the trainers and
they can train some other nurses and midwives, because Africa is
short of medical staffs," Liu said.
He said this was finalized by Premier Wen Jiabao during his
meeting with Mucavele last month in Cape Town, when Wen visited
South Africa.
The training would take place at universities and other
educational institutions in the two countries, where at least
20,000 babies die each year because they could not receive proper
care when they are born, largely due to lack of nurses and
midwives, said Mucavele.
"There is an acute lack of trained nurses and midwifes in these
two countries. The child and infant mortality is very high. The
care in terms of child care and conditions of nurses are very
poor," he told a press conference.
If successful, the pilot program would be extended to some other
African countries, where the picture is bleaker.
"Tanzania and Kenya do not have the worst child mortality on the
continent. Women in Africa have a 200 times greater chance of dying
of conditions related to pregnancy and child birth than women in
Europe," Eric Buch, a health advisor to NEPAD, told Xinhua News
Agency.
"One in every 20 African women will die of conditions related to
pregnancy and child birth. About one in ten African children will
die before their fifth birthday," he said.
Global charity Save the Children indicated that low-cost
interventions could reduce newborn deaths by up to 70 percent. But
this can hardly become a reality in many developing countries due
to lack of skilled persons and facilities.
Buch said NEPAD has drawn up a framework of action and will work
with health ministries of Tanzania and Kenya to implement the
project.
The project is part of China's commitment to assisting Africa in
human resources development, a priority NEPAD has identified for
overcoming underdevelopment of the continent, Liu said. "China is
firmly behind NEPAD," he added.
NEPAD is an initiative launched by African leaders in 2001 with
aims to boost economic and social development, reduce poverty,
improve living conditions, and promote democracy and good
governance in Africa.
Mucavele also said he believed Africa and China could be
mutually benefited through a strengthened partnership.
The project in Tanzania and Kenya could be seen as "a gesture of
solidarity, of friendship, of cooperation, as well as of
partnership, in which we would like to see China and Africa
developing strong relationship," he said.
(Xinhua News Agency July 27, 2006)
