Lack of access to safe water, bad sanitation and inadequate health care mean that in Ethiopia preventable illnesses too often prove fatal.
However, there are signs of improvement. Ethiopia is one of the few countries to have recognised the importance of community health workers, who are providing vital basic health care and education in rural areas.
- AMREF performs Cleft Lip and Palate Surgery in Ethiopia. Click here to view a video of this work.
Major health challenges
- The quality of health care in Ethiopia is extremely low. Health centres also suffer from regular shortages of medicines and laboratory equipment.
- The rural nature of much of the population means that is it especially difficult to deliver health care to hard-to-reach groups
- HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and waterborne diseases are undermining the Ethiopian workforce, keeping people from earning and lowering productivity levels as a result.
AMREF is:
- Training health workers among the nomadic pastoralist groups in South Omo and providing mobile health clinics along migratory routes.
- Reducing malaria in the remote region of Afar, through the distribution of 90,000 mosquito nets at household level, and community sessions using culturally-specific picture-based educational materials.
- Reducing waterborne diseases in Kechene slum through the provision of clean water, showers and toilets.
