Ebola in Congo now infecting newborn babies, UN says

Associated Press Congo HNN Team

LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization says a worrying number of the newest Ebola cases amid Congo’s ongoing outbreak are in patients not usually known to catch the disease: babies. In an update published this week, the U.N. health agency reported 36 new confirmed cases of Ebola, including seven in newborn babies and infants … Continued

Three births

Financial Times India, Mexico, Congo HNN Team

The day a baby is born in the developing world will be the most dangerous of its life — and can be just as perilous for its mother. Amy Kazmin, Jude Webber and Andrew Jack, FT reporters on three continents, follow the fates of three women and their babies.

Mercy Ships and Laerdal – Helping Babies Breathe Easier in Congo

Congo HNN Team

“The midwives who deliver the babies did not have direct access to emergency medication, proper resuscitation methods or doctors. This needed to change.”

Newborn deaths reduce by 1.3 million in two decades but will take Africa 150 years to reach US/UK newborn survival levels – Study

Angola, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Sierra Leone

The first week of life is considered as the riskiest week for newborns but yet many countries are only just beginning postnatal care programmes to reach mothers and babies at this critical time