Africa: Canadian Govt Addresses Child Health Challenges

Thursday 13 September 2012 Uganda, Burkina Faso and South Africa are among African countries that will receive grants from Grand Challenges Canada. OTTAWA---As many as 200 million children fail to meet their full developmental potential because of the debilitating impact of poverty. Risk factors, such as malnutrition, infection, unhealthy pregnancy and birth complications, as well as an absence of stimulation and nurturing all contribute to the loss of cognitive potential in developing world children and condemn them to impoverished lives. "The best way to keep a country poor is to rob its children of their full developmental potential," said Dr. Peter A. Singer, CEO of Grand Challenges Canada. "Consistent with Canada's commitment to women's and children's health, the Saving Brains initiative is a bold and transformational approach to addressing the significant challenges facing the developing world. We are investing in improving conditions in the first 1,000 days of children's lives so they can flourish and pull themselves, and consequently their countries out of poverty." Grand Challenges Canada, which is funded by the Government of Canada, announced $11.8 million CAD in funding over two years for 11 bold ideas from innovators in the developing world, to address health conditions causing diminished cognitive potential and stunting. Uganda, Burkina Faso and South Africa are among African countries that will receive grants from Grand Challenges Canada. Exclusive Breastfeeding (EBF) has been associated with better cognition in some developed countries. In this project, scientists from MakerereUniversity (Uganda) and Centre Muraz (Burkina Faso) will assess whether EBF promotion through peer counseling enhances human capital formation in an African setting, including cognitive function, mental and general health, among 5 to 7-year-old children who were breast-fed as infants. The work builds on findings that community-based peer counsellors roughly doubled exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) in Uganda and Burkina Faso from about 40 to 80 percent, while in South Africa, the long term impact on cognitive and socio-emotional functioning of an intervention to enhance the mother-infant relationship. Building on a previously project in South Africa on the impact of improved mother- infant interaction on infant functioning, the project will investigate the long-term benefits of this intervention in reducing the loss of human potential in children living in poverty. An earlier study supported HIV-positive and HIV-negative women to exclusively breastfeed their infants in a rural area of South Africa where mixed breastfeeding (i.e. breast milk and other fluids and solids) was the norm. This study will investigate whether this early feeding intervention is associated with further benefits for children, in terms of development, health and school readiness. If benefits for the children are established, this will have major policy and clinical implications, especially in view of the relative simplicity and low cost of the intervention.