UN Commission Sets Out Plan to Make Life-Saving Health Supplies More Accessible

Yesterday, the United Nations Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children, part of the Every Woman Every Child initiative, submitted a new plan and set of recommendations to improve access to life-saving health commodities to the United Nations Secretary-General.

From Every Woman Every Child:

The recommended steps include bulk buying, local manufacturing and innovative marketing to help transform the supply, demand and use of quality life-saving products. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of women and children’s lives could be saved each year with essential supplies, including for family planning. Medicines for the prevention of bleeding after childbirth and treatment of diarrhoea and pneumonia such as oral rehydration solution and zinc and amoxicillin – which cost less than 50 cents per treatment — can make the difference between life and death for mothers and their babies.

“It is simply wrong that millions of children and women still die every year when we have the products and the knowledge to save their lives,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. “With the Commission’s help, we have still more practical solutions. What is needed now is the political will to implement them.”

Learn more here.

Read the new plan and set of recommendations here.

More information:
A new report from our colleagues at PATH, Safeguarding pregnant women with essential medicines, focuses on a global agenda for increasing the quality and availability of medicines.