USAID's Response: Population & Health

Improving Quality of Life for the Poor

USAID focuses on improving people's health in Bangladesh, especially children, women and vulnerable groups in targeted areas. USAID's activities in health expect to help Bangladesh to achieve its goals in reducing fertility, reducing child and maternal mortality reduction, maintaining HIV prevalence below 5% in most-at-risk populations (MARPs) and containing tuberculosis prevalence by improving service detection and treatment.

USAID works through a network of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to deliver essential health services. Services are approved by the Government of Bangladesh, and are concentrated in areas with little or no health care. Providing quality health services to the poor is a major thrust of the program.

USAID’s program provides clinic-based, fee-for-service, one-stop health services for the entire family. (To read more about these partnerships, click here (Adobe PDF). In 2008, the program included 318 full-time community clinics, more than 8,000 associated satellite clinic sites, and nearly 6,000 rural community volunteers.  It provides service coverage to approximately 13% of Bangladesh's population in both rural and urban areas.

The program aims to:

• reduce fertility through informed and comprehensible choice of contraceptive methods;
• save the lives of children through immunization and the early identification and treatment of respiratory infections and diarrheal diseases;
• save the lives of mothers through prenatal, delivery and postnatal care and tetanus immunization;
• provide other reproductive health care to men, women and adolescents; and
• provide health information related to all of these health concerns.

To reach these objectives, USAID concentrates on improving service quality at clinic sites, strengthening the skills of local NGOs providing services, and incorporating strategies to improve management, programmatic and financial sustainability of the NGO program. Currently, USAID is working with the Government on a policy to increase the provision of health services by NGOs. These NGOs will serve as models for expanding private basic health services with government and other donor financing.

Combating Maternal and Neonatal Mortality

To learn more about the current issues, USAID supported a survey in 2001, which estimated that 320 women die from pregnancy-related complications for every 100,000 live births. This was an important milestone since no reliable maternal mortality data existed previously. A child is now most likely to die in the first month of life than at any other time, since most births are delivered by untrained birth attendants and health check ups after birth are very low. To reduce both maternal and neonatal deaths staff are now performing safe delivery services in 35 NGO clinics. In selected areas, where maternal and neonatal mortality are particularly high, community workers provide counseling on safe motherhood and appropriate newborn care to pregnant mothers at the household level, and mobilize the community to improve practices related to safe delivery and healthy newborn care.

USAID's Health Programs Benefit All Bangladeshis

Social marketing provides easy access to contraceptives, oral rehydration salts, and other health supplies in over 200,000 non-clinical, commercial outlets across the country. The program uses mass media to encourage women to visit clinics, breastfeed their babies and give their children Vitamin A.

USAID assists the health ministry in creating better and less expensive systems for purchasing health and family planning supplies. The goal is to improve the distribution to the public. USAID funding and technical assistance are helping revitalize Bangladesh's clinical contraception program, including voluntary surgical contraception. USAID also supports clinical training and curriculum development for the Government's health and family planning program.

Immunization is a Vital Component

Immunization is a vital part of basic health care, particularly for children and women. USAID supports Bangladesh's National Polio Immunization Days and Vitamin A supplementation campaigns. Through the World Health Organization, USAID supports polio officers who track polio trends in order to eradicate it. To read a polio success story, click here.

Reducing the Risk of HIV/AIDS

To slow the spread of HIV/AIDS, USAID promotes 100% condom use for every sexual act and encourages people infected with sexually transmitted infections to seek treatment. The focus is on people with high-risk behaviors. To read more about USAID's work to stem an HIV/AIDS epidemic in Bangladesh, click here.

Collecting Data to Plan and Respond to Emergencies

USAID supports research into Bangladeshi's disease and nutritional status. The information gathered improves the Government's ability to plan for and react to disease-related emergencies and natural disasters. USAID also funds the triennial Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey, which provides timely, reliable data on the status of health and population issues in Bangladesh. USAID will also provide funding support for the upcoming 2011 census.

Other applied research under the program is geared towards finding and testing better and lower cost ways to improve the health care available to poor Bangladeshies.