Experts analyze maternal and child health in the Border
ABOUT: Press Conference "Every mother and child counts!" in celebration of World Health Day (WHD) and to launch the World Health Report 2005. The main theme for WHD is healthy mothers and children. The specific focus of the World Health Report is a global analysis of maternal and child health. Several experts will analyze the situation of maternal, infant and child health in the US and Mexico, and along the border. The Mayor of the City of Brownsville will be given the "Every mother and child counts!" proclamation honoring World Health Day.
WHEN: April 6, at 11:00 AM (the day before WHD to provide information to the media)
WHERE: Brownsville Events Center, Major Jacob Brown Room, 1 Events Center Blvd., Brownsville, Texas.
WHO: Along with other experts will be Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services; Dr. Rodolfo Torre Cantu, Secretary of Health of Tamaulipas; Dr. Paul Villas, member of the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission; Dr. Daniel Gutierrez, Chief of the U.S.-Mexico Border Field Office of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization; Charlotte Gish, M.S.N., U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and, Dr. Octavio Gomez Dantel, Mexico Secretariat of Health.
MOTIVE: Worldwide more than 500,000 mothers die during pregnancy and childbirth each year. An estimated 23,000 of these women are from the Americas. Worldwide each year, more than 10 million children under the age of 5 die from a handful of conditions that are preventable and treatable. Many do not even reach the end of their first month of life. Many more children suffer from the effects of ill health, poor nutrition and inadequate health care. On the U.S.-Mexico Border, the average rate of infant mortality in 2002 for the U.S. Counties was 4.6 per 1000 live births (L.B.). For the same year, the average in the U.S. border states was 6.05 while the national rate was 6.97 per 1000 L.B. On the Mexican side, the average infant mortality rate at the municipal level in 2003 was 9.7 per 1000 live births, for the same year, the average for the six border states was 12.4, and the national level average was 12.60 per 1000 L.B. Infant mortality rates in the U.S. Mexico border counties and municipalities was less than the state and national rates in each country.
CONTACTS: Piedad Huerta, Health Promotion Officer, Pan American Health Organization/ World Health Organización, Tel. (915) 845-5950, ext.14, Beulah Mendez, Brownsville Department of Public Health, Tel (956)542-7511.ext 6514.
For additional information please visit www.borderinfo.org.
