Twice-yearly child health weeks are an effective way of reaching children with essential child survival services in developing countries.
This year the city put up $1.3 million for "survival services" from its share of general revenue sharing funds.
The clinic at Mbita was organized by the Ndavaya centre to bring child survival services closer to residents.
The MCHW events have driven equitable access to VAS and other essential child survival services in Sierra Leone.
The day of Ms. Mangolo's visit coincided with the end of two weeks of countrywide mobilization for increased utilization of routine child survival services.
I am pleased to report that a multi-country effort to more effectively bundle child survival services is showing very encouraging results in West Africa.
It is likely that improvements in all child survival services have contributed to the decrease in under-5 mortality observed in Sierra Leone (see Figure).
The aim is to incrementally expand the emergency health package of services to a more comprehensive package of child survival services as a country transitions from an emergency programme to a development programme.
In 2007, the Government launched an initiative called Malezi Bora ('Good Nurturing') to increase the utilization of routine child survival services, including immunization, growth monitoring and vitamin A supplementation.
In response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria, the U.S. Agency for International Development USAIDD) mission in Nigeria initiated the VISION Project, a three-year project designed to maximize the use of family planning services, HIV/AIDS services, and child survival services in Nigeria [ 9- 13].
The nutritional situation in the Sahel region (northern Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) remained at extremely critical levels, with acute child malnutrition rates among the highest in the world and widespread chronic malnutrition resulting from poor access to essential child survival services, inadequate infant feeding and hygiene practices, and lack of access to water.
