Global Health Initiative

On February 2010, USA announced a Global Health Initiative(GHI) to promote health outcomes with a special focus on  health of newborns, women and children through launching various programs that address infectious disease, nutrition, maternal and child health, family planning, safe water, sanitation and hygiene. They  invested  $63 billion for a time period of 6 years to make this initiative a success. Later the  Obama Administration launched the Global Health Security Agenda in 2014 to lead towards a more safe and secure world free of any infectious disease. USG agencies are acquiring  5 million dollar to fight the Ebola issues both at home and overseas as a part of the Global Health Security Agenda thereby building infrastructure  needed to prevent, detect, and respond to other infectious disease threats. The Institute of Medicine’s 2003 report Microbial Threats to Health stresses that the United States should enhance the global capacity for responding to infectious disease threats and should take a leadership role in promoting a comprehensive, global, real-time infectious disease surveillance system. The International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) records all the potential global public health threats along with its approaches to address those serious health threats. The purpose of this initiative is to coordinate and integrate the US global health efforts in the partner countries. . GHI takes into account and leverages the health and development efforts of partner countries, other bilateral donors, multilateral organizations, civil society, private sector, and faith-based and non-governmental organizations to achieve the greatest possible impact with U.S. investments. They confirm the U.S. commitment to the health-related Millennium Development Goals, which provide a useful framework for our GHI investments. Some of the successes  achieved through this initiative are:

• The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) have directly supported more than 4 million people with their ongoing HIV  treatment, the prevention of nearly 12 million new HIV cases; which included 5 million orphans and vulnerable children.
• The President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) lessened the burden for Africa by supporting about 70 percent of the malalria patients under at-risk stage.
• It supported about 2.6 million positive TB cases thus led to a 50% reduction in TB deaths
• It also took care of the maternal mortality issue by reducing deaths about 30% and under five chid mortality was also reduced by 35 percent across the partner countries. Reduced child malnutrition cases by 30% across the assisted food insecure countries with the help of the  President’s Feed the Future Initiative (FTF).