Healthy Start: the first month of life

Marking World Water Day 2015, WaterAid is launching a new four-year child health campaign and the release of its paper Healthy Start: the first month of life.

The Healthy Start report was launched on 17/3/15 in Geneva alongside another by WHO and UNICEF which found that across 54 developing countries 38% of hospitals and clinics do not have access to any water source. The implications are deadly. Tragically for one in five babies who die in their first month in the developing world, just being washed in clean water and cared for in a clean environment by people who had washed their hands could have prevented their untimely deaths.

This demonstrates the costs to developing countries and the world of failing to invest in robust health systems which both ensure that water, sanitation and hygiene are available in health centres and incorporate them as part of public health investments to prevent illness and disease.