‘The Big Push’ Launched to Take on Global Health Challenges
25 September 2012
New York – Partners in global health today announced the launch of The Big Push, a campaign to raise support for global health goals that need support and funding in order to achieve success.
The campaign was initiated by organizations that are mobilizing efforts to reach health-related Millennium Development Goals by 2015, and by Ray Chambers, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Malaria and MDG Advocate, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The Big Push has a dedicated section on the Huffington Post, a leading news and opinion website, providing a platform for global health advocates to spread information and raise awareness about global health goals and the need for additional funding to achieve them.
“What we need is the funding to deliver on these goals,” said Mr. Chambers. “We have made tremendous progress, but there is further to go. We can’t stop now.”
Reducing child mortality rates and improving maternal health are long-term goals that have been strongly endorsed by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Tonight, he is hosting a special event, called ‘Every Woman, Every Child’ that will highlight maternal and child health and will encourage government leaders to keep them high on national agendas.
The Global Fund has supported numerous programs that focus on eliminating deaths from malaria among women of child-bearing age and among children under the age of five, the most vulnerable populations. In many cases, additional funding is needed to expand successful programs into areas where demand has not been met.
“We have a historic opportunity to save the lives of millions of people, if we take practices that are already effective and expand them,” said Gabriel Jaramillo, General Manager of the Global Fund. “We need help. We need a Big Push.”
Mr. Jaramillo pointed out that new results of Global Fund-supported programs show that by mid-2012 the number of pregnant women living with HIV and receiving antiretroviral prophylaxis to prevent them from infecting their babies with the virus rose by 50 per cent to 1.5 million between the end of 2010 and June 30 2012. The increase was 90 per cent compared with the end of 2009.
“That’s an incredible achievement,” Mr. Jaramillo said. “But there is much more to do. HIV is still responsible for 46 percent of all deaths of women of child-bearing age, and those women need our help.”
The partnership with the Huffington Post is intended to both collect and disseminate information, and to gather support.
“We have never been so close to achieving goals that were unthinkable only a few years ago,” said Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post. “We are launching this campaign to make it happen.”
One feature of the campaign is a digital wall of portraits on the Huffington Post, showing people holding up signs that demonstrate their commitment to fighting these diseases. Supporters are encouraged to participate by taking and posting their own photographs.