Got $6? You can save a life.
According to a EurekAlert, an investment in 18,000 $6 insecticide-treated bed nets has prevented approximately 414 infant deaths.
The nets were distributed for free to mothers-to-be at 28 prenatal clinics in Kinshasa, the capital and largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Pregnant women also received information about how to use the nets to protect first themselves and then their newborns from malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
Researchers from the University of North Carolina studied the impact of the project, which was part of a larger healthcare and disease prevention program. The outcome was impressive. Not only were lives saved, but according to the article: “the intervention prevented an estimated 587 low birth weight deliveries, which in turn reduced long-term disability.”
According to the researchers, the intervention wasn’t just cost-effective: it achieved far more than higher-priced projects in the U.S.
If just $6 in netting and pesticide can have such a profound impact on Africa’s children, imagine what $10 in preventive healthcare could do!
Photo courtesy of stock.xchng