ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- A two-day health conference dubbed, Acting on the Call 2017, kicked off on Thursday in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa to deliberate on ways of addressing challenges of maternal and child health.
Under the theme, "Overcoming critical barriers to maternal and child survival," the conference shares the best practices, lessons learned, and challenges while celebrating the progress to date.
It also deliberates on ways of reaching the 2030 targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as it relates to the Global Strategy for Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health.
Officially opening the conference, President Mulatu Teshome of Ethiopia underlined the need to employ joint efforts, commitment and clear directions and effective investment towards ending preventable maternal and child deaths.
He stated that extraordinary progress has been achieved over the past five decades in ensuring healthy lives for children, as child mortality rates around the world have been cut in half.
Recognizing the achievements in the past few decades, the President called for strengthened efforts to address the challenges of maternal and child health, which he said are especially prevalent in developing countries, with significant discrepancies even within countries.
Globally 303,000 mothers and 5.9 million children die each other. This includes the 2.6 million newborns who die in their first month and almost one million on their first day of life.
Approximately, 2.4 million maternal, perinatal, neonatal, and child deaths would be averted annually if the complete package of evidence-based interventions that can be provided at the community level reached all who need them, according to the organizers.
