Articles

Over the years, the United States’ commitment to funding global health research has led to the development of remarkable tools that have saved millions of lives both at home and abroad. Today, research and development supported by the people of the United States—often through the US Agency for International Development (USAID)—continues to make a better life possible for people around the world. Support from USAID helps bring forth breakthrough tools that combat tenacious killers, such as complications of pregnancy and childbirth, as well as new threats, including emerging resistance to some of our most effective medicines.

Think about how you wash your hands. Are you happy with the process?

As the UN General Assembly wound up late last week, global health thinkers pondered the extent of our success in reaching UN Millennium Development Goals that call for increased survival of children. Some, such Dr. Michael H. Merson, founding director of the Duke Global Health Institute, see the numbers of childhood deaths as potentially stalling after a sharp decline. Others, such as New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, think childhood survival numbers will continue to improve. Both, however, insist more needs to be done.

Chlorhexidine is a dependable antiseptic that’s been around since the 1950s. It’s inexpensive, effective, safe, and common in drugstores and hospitals across the United States and Europe. In poor countries, a new formulation can be a powerful solution to an unacceptable tragedy: the preventable deaths of hundreds of thousands of newborns every year from infection.