Concern Blogs

By Jennifer Weiss – Health Advisor, Concern Worldwide US

According to estimates from the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly one million children do not reach their fifth birthday because they die from malaria each year.  Ninety percent of these deaths occur in Africa, where malaria remains the number one killer of young children.  An additional 30 million pregnant women and their newborns are also at risk of malaria infection, which may lead to stillbirth, spontaneous abortion, low weight, and neonatal death.

Pregnant women and children die from malaria because they lack access to low-cost, effective solutions to both prevent and treat the disease.  Concern is working to change this through our USAID-funded Child Survival programs in Rwanda, Burundi, and Niger, which provide life-saving malaria prevention and control to a total of 1.2 million women and children. Read the rest of this entry »

Philip Wegner is Health Advisor for Concern Worldwide’s Child Survival programs in Haiti, Burundi, Rwanda and Niger.

In Western nations, most people don’t think twice about mosquito-bites except as a minor annoyance.

However, as Health Advisor for Concern Worldwide’s Child Survival programs, I cannot help but wonder how the world would be altered if the mosquitoes that cause so much suffering in Africa or Asia did the same thing here?

At one time, malaria was also present in the West—but its impact never compared to the illness and death it brings to people in developing countries. Read the rest of this entry »

Mother and Child participating in Concern's CMAM program in Haiti

As I walk from crib to crib in the hospital, not trusting myself to speak for fear I will cry, I think of my own two girls, and how by a twist of fate they could be lying in one of these beds – hooked to an IV – being fed milk from a cup.  I spent just 48 hours in Haiti, but this was my far the single most difficult. Read the rest of this entry »

In Cite Okay neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, poor sanitation and water quality have been a major threat to the health of the community. Concern has been working with local organizations, youth volunteers and health committees to clean up neighborhoods and promote clean, litter free environments.

It is difficult to imagine that just 700 miles from United States soil, mothers are still dying in childbirth and children continue to pay the ultimate price for contracting such preventable diseases such as diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition.

For Haitians, the health situation is the worst in the western hemisphere. To make matters worse, the country is threatened by extreme weather conditions including major hurricanes and tropical storms that are destroying infrastructure and uprooting livelihoods. Read the rest of this entry »

Soldiers running together in daily exercise routine near the DRC border

Getting to Burundi

This is my second time now within the past two months that I have had to transit through Nairobi, Kenya en-route to the African Great Lakes countries (Rwanda and Burundi). Read the rest of this entry »