By Felipe López, Gustavo Barrios, and Cristina Maldonado On November 8, 2021, a doctor at the health center in Guatemala’s Zunil municipality, Quetzaltenango department, called Romelia — an experienced comadrona (traditional midwife) and president of the municipality’s comadronas association — to inform her that a pregnant woman was presenting with…

Getting medicines and health supplies from procurement through the last mile to patients takes local leadership and coordination. As a partner under two USAID-funded health programs in Madagascar, MSH works with the Ministry of Public Health and partners to strengthen the health system and ensure that quality health services are…

“COVID-19 ha reconfigurado las vidas y realidades de las personas y las familias y ha resultado en el reenfoque de las prioridades y los presupuestos de salud. En Guatemala, durante la pandemia, las mujeres embarazadas y las adolescentes embarazadas han perdido acceso a los servicios prenatales y preventivos esenciales o…

“COVID-19 has reconfigured the lives and realities of individuals and families, and resulted in the refocusing of health priorities and budgets. In Guatemala, pregnant women and adolescents have lost access to essential prenatal and preventive services or institutional delivery care, and we’ve seen an increase in home births, obstetric complications…

Few pregnant women in low- and middle-income countries receive the minimum number of antenatal (ANC) and postnatal (PNC) appointments recommended by the World Health Organization, and millions of births still take place annually without a skilled birth attendant. In Bangladesh, the Shustha Ma, Shustha Poribar — Healthy Women, Healthy Families…

How the USAID ACCESS Program is Responding to the Pandemic in Madagascar “As a public health program, we knew we would have so many challenges to face when COVID-19 hit Madagascar. But we were ready for this; we had successfully stopped multiple outbreaks in recent years — including pneumonic plague…

How can digital health solutions support patients during and post-pandemic? — In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, it is hard to think of anything else. And yet, the burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) — such as diabetes and hypertension — remains and continues to grow across low- and middle-income countries. Each year, NCDs kill 41 million people, equivalent to…

Story by Agnès Ramananarivo and Misa Rahantason “Rasazy Mino, the midwife at Mananjary’s primary health center, introduced me to family planning methods. I have never changed providers because she inspires me with confidence and knows how to put me at ease while remaining very professional.” — Meva, 19 years old …

While progress against malaria in the last 20 years has been significant, many people continue to suffer and die from this preventable and treatable disease. Malaria is among the leading causes of child mortality in Africa. In 2018, nearly 900,000 children in 38 African countries were born with a low…