Save the Children receives $60 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to save newborn lives globally          

[JAN. 6, 2006]  WESTPORT, Conn. -- Save the Children announced Dec. 1 that it has received a $60 million, six-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help prevent newborn illness and death in 18 countries in Asia and Africa and to build on the achievements of the Saving Newborn Lives global initiative launched five years ago.

Through this new grant, Save the Children will focus on ways to identify and promote the large-scale adoption of proven, low-cost tools and approaches that address the three main killers of 1-week-old babies -- infections, lack of oxygen supply to a baby during delivery and at birth and low birth weight.

The Saving Newborn Lives initiative, started with a $50.5 million Gates Foundation grant in 2000, has already reached more than 20 million mothers and babies with essential health services. The initiative helps ensure access to services such as skilled midwife care; prompt treatment of newborn infections; tetanus vaccines for pregnant women; and education about the importance of proper hygiene, warmth and breast-feeding for infants.

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[Provided by the Good News Agency]

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