The Ministry of Health of Syria has recently launched its national strategy on reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health, with support from WHO, the United Nations Population Fund and UNICEF. The strategy will contribute to reducing neonatal, child and maternal mortality and enhancing the well-being of women, children and adolescents through comprehensive access to health services.
“Too many women and children are still dying because they lack access to quality health care, resources, and information,” said Dr Akjemal Magtymova, Head of Mission and WHO Representative in Syria.
WHO has been involved in the development of the strategy since its conceptualization and the situation analysis, and will support its implementation through operational planning with an indicators framework and costing. WHO has been supporting the reproductive, maternal, and children’s health in many ways, which include some of the most recent work in 2021, such as:
Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses programme through 540 health centres that received over 1 million child patient visits in a year.
Nutrition surveillance through 968 health centres that provided over 1 million services and detected 20 000 cases of malnutrition.
Nineteen (19) stabilization centres that treated over 1500 complicated cases of malnutrition.
Infant and young child feeding programme in 761 health centres, providing more than 285 000 services.
Neonatal resuscitation programme in 38 hospitals that offered different interventions to prevent asphyxia in more than 70 000 deliveries.
Youth-friendly centres that provided over 25 000 services.
Newborn care-at-home programme that conducted 20 000 home visits to detect risk signs in pregnant women and newborns and referred them, when needed, to special care.
Capacity of reproductive health professionals built through specialized training courses to 630 midwives.
Development and distribution of reprodcutive guidelines and awareness-raising materials on pre-marital testing, sexually transmitted infections and family planning.
“We all can contribute to the implementation of the strategy, so that mothers can experience safe childbirth, babies are born healthy and develop to their fullest potential from birth to their adolescence and adult life," Dr Akjemal noted.