Press Releases 2004

U.S. Awards $1.5 Million for Child Survival

June 30, 2004

NEW DELHI - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded a $1.5 million, five-year grant extension to Counterpart International, to continue its efforts to improve the health and save the lives of young children growing up in the slums of Ahmedabad city. The grant is part of a comprehensive USAID child survival effort in the country, valued at more than $52 million in FY-04.

In India, burdened with nearly 25% of child deaths worldwide, more than two million children die annually from preventable, curable diseases. The USAID grant furthers a drive to combat the daily threats to children's lives from infectious diseases such as diarrhea or pneumonia, and to improve child nutrition and maternal health. It helps families - preoccupied with eking out a living in a rapidly changing urban environment - to become more aware of and better respond to their children's health needs.

Project staff will work with local health care-providers, partners and government health workers, to encourage families to take timely action to prevent and treat their children's infections. They will persuade mothers to immunize their children and urge them to provide proper care for common infectious diseases. Mothers and children needing specialized medical attention will be identified and referred to appropriate health care facilities. Communities will be mobilized to practice positive health behaviors and to sustain maternal and child health improvements. The effort will benefit children and their families living in slum communities spread across nine wards in Ahmedabad city.

The USAID grant sustains an already successful public-private partnership between a non-government organization, Sanchetna, and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, enabling it to expand coverage to about 300,000 people - a 68% increase over past levels. The partnership leverages $1.3 million raised by the grantee and draws on the health infrastructure of the city government to reach poor families with health information and services. Previously the partnership helped to double immunization coverage against six killer-diseases affecting children, and triple the use of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) in the project area. ORT is the cheapest and most effective way of preventing death from diarrhea.