The unfinished business of saving children’s lives in Ethiopia
As fall sets in each November, World Pneumonia Day is marked to raise awareness on this leading infectious killer of young children, responsible for nearly a million preventable deaths annually. Half of these deaths occur in just five countries globally and Ethiopia is one of them.
Despite the remarkable social and economic development the country has achieved over the past decade and half, and the widespread perception among the global health community that goals in Ethiopia have been achieved, significant challenges remain — both for mother and child survival and sustainable development across the country.
Today, Ethiopia is Africa’s fastest-growing economy.
Investment in infrastructure and industry has been substantial and hence business is booming. With its impressive buildings, air connectivity, a brand new metro system and a high speed rail link to the port of Djibouti, Addis Ababa has become a thriving commercial hub in the region.
However, benefits of this rapid socio-economic development are yet to trickle down to many of Ethiopia’s 100 million people. Pockets of vulnerability remain across the country, for example the hundreds of thousands living in camps for displaced communities and industrial corridors. Young people - the country’s biggest asset, do not seem to have enough opportunities in smaller towns and if empowered could help expedite socio-economic progress and help address the health worker gap if trained as clinicians, technicians, paramedics or pharmacists.
The country also leads on the policy and domestic financing front in Africa, yet many peripheral communities still lack access to basic healthcare. The flagship health extension worker programme does not offer universal coverage and nearly a third of the population lack access to essential health services — relying on care from private providers that are often unregulated or quality assured.
In my two visits to the country earlier this year, I’ve been impressed with the contrasts this rich country has on offer — much of which reminds me of the subcontinent — not just the food and hospitality, and resilience and entrepreneurship of her people, but the disparities and challenges on human development as well.
Over the past two decades, Malaria Consortium has been working closely with the government of Ethiopia to help overcome gaps on health access by contributing to strengthen the evidence base on quality primary health services for marginalised and vulnerable communities across the country.
Our pioneering work around pneumonia diagnostics is contributing to reducing pneumonia deaths in the country and helping save children’s lives. We’re also helping strengthen malaria case management at community and health facility levels and promoting integrated case management for neglected tropical diseases (NTD) as part of a strengthened district health system.
We’re at the forefront of global pneumonia diagnostics work, trialling innovative devices to enable appropriate diagnosis in low resource settings. Evidence from our ongoing work in Ethiopia has been promising and it’s evident that the ARIDA device is feasible in these settings and could be a game changer for significant reduction in pneumonia mortality in both Ethiopia and globally.
We’re working in close partnership with the Federal Ministry of Health, the national malaria control programme and partners across the four most populous regions of the country, viz Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR and Tigray, to expedite progress towards malaria elimination in the country. In some of the health facilities and posts I visited, Malaria cases have not been reported for over a couple of years which is a remarkable achievement.
Ethiopia has some of the highest burden of NTDs in the region and given the agrarian way of life in rural communities, NTDs and in particular skin infections are widely prevalent and require integrated approaches such as One Health to effectively tackle disease in both humans and animals. We’ve been working with partners to strengthen the evidence base and policy guidelines around integrated NTD case management as part of primary healthcare. That will enable the health authorities to holistically address this gap and reduce excess morbidity and mortality in these low income settings.
A week ago, the world celebrated Universal Health Coverage day. And while Ethiopia deserves much praise for all the progress made on economic development, continued commitment and robust action for human development will be needed going forward to ensure universal health access for all her peoples, in order to meaningfully address the unfinished business of saving children’s lives in Ethiopia.
Engaging the growing private sector in the country is crucial in this regard and with the Ethiopian government stewardship and partners’ support, it could play an instrumental role in expediting progress towards achieving sustainable development in the country over the next decade.
