SILVER SPRING, Md.--On World Health Day, April 7, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) renews its commitment to combating disease throughout the developing world, recognizing the vital importance of adequate health care to achieve successful development among the world's most vulnerable nations.

"Adequate health care, and successful development are two themes that are intrinsically interdependent," stated Mike Negerie, senior technical advisor for Health at ADRA International. "Through ADRA's work to improve the health in the communities that we serve, we are making a direct impact on not just the lives of the current beneficiaries, but on the success of generations to come."

As part of that commitment, ADRA is currently running a five-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to reduce child mortality and morbidity in eastern Nepal.

Through the Eastern Region Family Planning Expansion Project (ERFPEP), ADRA is assisting nearly 100,000 couples, in reducing their number of mistimed, unplanned, and high-risk pregnancies. This objective is being reached through the use of community mobilization and awareness campaigns, training in reproductive health services, and improving access to quality reproductive health and family planning services.

In addition, the project is also improving the health of the beneficiaries' children, and their overall welfare by the successful promotion of child spacing. The project has been successful in increasing the awareness, service expansion and availability of family planning services in remote regions of Nepal.

"I had no clear idea about the availability of family planning services," said Mr. Arjun Shrestha, one of the project beneficiaries to ADRA Nepal. After taking part in the project, he and his wife chose to adopt usage of Depo-Provera, a commonly used contraceptive. "Now, I don't have any fear of unplanned births. This training has [also] encouraged me to disseminate the family planning message in the community."

In response to the high incidence of Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) in the coastal region of Guyana, the Ministry of Health (MOH) launched a national deworming campaign, requesting ADRA's assistance in procuring 50,000 doses of Albendozole, a common deworming drug, to help eliminate the disease throughout the country. The distribution of the medicine will be led by the MOH, and other national agencies, and will take place between November 2008, and September 2009.

More than 120 million people around the world live with LF, a parasitic and incurable disease also known as Elephantitis, reported the World Health Organization (WHO). Approximately 40 million of those suffer from serious disfiguration caused by the disease, making it one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. In 1997, the World Health Assembly called for the elimination of LF as a global public health goal.

In Mozambique, ADRA is improving the health and nutrition of young children, instituting and strengthening community health councils, recruiting and training community health volunteers, and establishing health and nutrition communication groups, through Osanzaya Zambezia, a three-year project implemented in the coastal province of Zambezia.

Nearly 22,000 people are enrolled in the health component of the project, which also promotes positive health messages and practices, such as growth monitoring, hygiene, diet diversification, food preparation, breastfeeding, and disease prevention techniques.

"Thousands of children die every day from diseases that could have easily been prevented," said Lynn Boyd, country director for ADRA Mozambique. "Projects like this one are aimed at eliminating that threat, so children don't have to die from something as simple as a lack of clean water, or poor sanitation."

ADRA is also increasing access to potable water by constructing water filters, and rehabilitating hand pumps and hand-dug wells. Community members are also receiving training in water point maintenance, and benefiting from the construction of pit latrines that will be used for both household and public use. The USAID-funded project will benefit more than 62,000 people by its completion.

World Health Day commemorates the founding of WHO in 1948. Each year, the day is used to raise awareness of important global health topics. ADRA is a non-governmental organization present in 125 countries providing sustainable community development and disaster relief without regard to political or religious association, age, gender, race or ethnicity.

For more information about ADRA, visit www.adra.org.

Author: Nadia McGill