The additional cost of maintaining essential newborn health interventions at 90 percent coverage in the 75 countries with the highest mortality is estimated to be a mere US$4.1 billion per year. This would supplement current spending of US$2 billion, only about 30 percent of which is for interventions specifically aimed at newborns, while the majority is for interventions that also benefit mothers and older children.
Even with a weak health system, it is possible to achieve measurable mortality reduction. But the world needs to act now to generate the political will and financial resources needed to save the lives of up to three million babies who die each year simply because they are born without the basic care that is their right.
Indeed, to continue to fail the world's at-risk children is to deliver a verdict of wanton inhumanity against ourselves, for we are a knowing party to an entirely preventable mass destruction of human life.
Joy Lawn is senior research and policy adviser for Saving Newborn Lives/Save the Children-USA in South Africa.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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