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.
Health links
Recent additions to the resources library
Turkey hosts almost 4 million refugees who were vulnerable already before the onset of COVID-19 and who were hit hard by the deteriorating socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. Turkish Red Crescent (TRC) and International Federation of Red Cross and …
This brief sets out the IFRC network’s experiences and recommendations for achieving equity across and within countries in vaccinating the world’s people against COVID-19 and addressing the many challenges along the way.
Red Cross case study on community-based surveillance implementation in Indonesia to effectively prevent, detect, and respond to significant infectious disease threats and minimize their effects.
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
Şiriyeva Rəxşəndə is one of the nearly 1,000 people who have received financial assistance from the Azerbaijan Red Crescent Society through a project to help vulnerable families heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic meet their basic needs.
To help nations in inoculating the most vulnerable populations, the Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has launched a $100 million campaign to provide COVID-19 vaccines to refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs) and migrants around the world. Accor …
By Birgitte Bischoff Ebbesen, IFRC Europe Regional Director The verdict is in: COVID-19 worsens mental health. So there can be no excuse and no delay in stepping up now to prevent a worsening and chronic catastrophe. There is no health without mental h …
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