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
Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 2.7 million lives. More than 123 million COVID-19 infections have been reported. Billions of people around the world are suffering the indirect consequences of the pandemic. While a few countries …
The Health and Care Unit in the Africa Regional Office, through its Community Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness Programme and Cholera Preparedness programme, have developed many resources which have been integrated into a single package to maximise th …
Communicable diseases kill more than 14 million people around the world every year. They include respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, diarrhoeal diseases, tuberculosis, malaria and measles. An increase in the number and severity of natural disasters has e …
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
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 …
On 17 December 2020, Tropical Cyclone Yasa roared across Fiji as a Category 5 storm, packing wind gusts of up to 345 kilometres an hour and 3m storm surges. It is estimated that more than 90,000 people were affected , particularly on the second largest …
On the 4th of August, a massive explosion occurred in the port area of Beirut, capital of Lebanon, injuring more than 6500 people and affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands. Four months later, a lot has been done but the work is far from finished …
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