Health and care activities in the IFRC include first aid and emergency response as well as epidemic control, programmes in health promotion and prevention, addressing stigma, providing psychosocial care and enabling community empowerment.
Health and care activities in the IFRC include first aid and emergency response as well as epidemic control, programmes in health promotion and prevention, addressing stigma, providing psychosocial care and enabling community empowerment.
Around the world, hundreds of thousands of volunteers work in communities to promote health, prevent diseases and demonstrate positive values through their actions. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and its National Societies actively support communities through their network of volunteers, their community-based approach, their expertise and experience.
The past decade has seen major gains towards improving global health. Today, less people die of measles or malaria and the number of new HIV-infections has been stabilized in some countries.
At the same time, implementing primary health care at the community level remains a challenge:
- Worldwide, an estimated 14 million people continue to die each year from infectious diseases. Many more suffer from malnutrition and disruption of livelihood
- More than 1 billion people don’t have access to safe water
- 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation.
- More than 500,000 women die each year in pregnancy or childbirth and still too many children die before their fifth birthday.
This situation will get worse because of global trends such as climate change, population growth and ageing, urbanisation, migration, food and water shortages, poverty, emergent diseases and the lack of access to health services.
Recent additions to the resources library
The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is made up of 190 National Societies, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The current Ebola outbreak is happening in three health zones in Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Equateur Province: Wangata, Bikoro, and Iboko. This revised Emergency Appeal will support 400,000 of the most vulnerable people in these areas for six m …
The Red Cross Society of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and IFRC are racing to stop the spread of an Ebola outbreak in Equateur Province. We urgently need your support to provide emergency health interventions for the next six months.
Health in Action
World First Aid Day
The IFRC is the largest first aid educator and provider in the world. In 2014, over 15 million people were trained, and for more than 150 years, first aid has provided by our volunteers.
In focus: Ebola
During the 2014-15 Ebola outbreak, Red Cross teams worked with community leaders to ensure families knew about how the virus is spread, what the symptoms are, and the importance of early treatment.
World Water Day
Water, sanitation and good hygiene practices are fundamental to healthy life. Our collective aim is to ensure every family has affordable and sustainable access to safe water and adequate sanitation.
Health news
Over 20 participants from Red Cross National Societies in Latin America trained to address health in the response to an emergency.
Even before the outbreak of Ebola in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), communities in this province of over five million inhabitants had already been weakened and rendered vulnerable by an armed conflict that has lasted for 20 years. If t …
Rahima Akter Khushi is a female interpreter who has been with the Red Cross Red Crescent emergency field hospital since the start.
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