Funding from The StratREAL Foundation helps Merlin to provide desperately needed health care to children and young mothers in Afghanistan.

One in four Afghan children dies before the age of five, often from preventable diseases like pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria. The country’s health services are severely limited by a lack of trained medical staff and equipment. With support from the StratREAL Foundation, Merlin aims to reduce child mortality rates and improve the available level of care.

The StratREAL Foundation’s funding supports the following five aspects of Merlin’s work in Afghanistan:

1. Vaccinating children

Access to trained doctors and nurses is severely limited in many parts of Afghanistan and few children are vaccinated against dangerous but preventable diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and hepatitis B. Funding from the StratREAL Foundation will be used to vaccinate 3,000 women and children.

2. Ensuring children grow up strong

In Afghanistan 50% of children are weakened through malnourishment and made more susceptible to illness. Doctors and nurses at 19 health clinics are being trained to monitor and encourage healthy growth and development, bringing better health care to 35,000 children each year.

3. Caring for new born babies

Afghan women face a one in six chance of dying during childbirth due to the lack of trained midwifes and antenatal care. The StratREAL Foundation is funding additional training for birth attendants ensuring that pregnant women receive adequate care during and after the birth of their child.

4. Reducing death from preventable disease

The highest cause of death of children under the age of five is diarrhoea, a condition that is easily cured. Merlin is providing medicines and training health workers to identify and treat the disease, helping to reduce the number of children who die unnecessarily.

5. Providing equipment for child health clinics

Over 2,500 children will benefit from new equipment provided by funding from the StratREAL Foundation. The equipment will help doctors to correctly diagnose conditions and provide appropriate treatment.

In addition to the above five key areas, the StratREAL Foundation worked with Merlin to help realise the Pulse Campaign, a massive outreach vaccination programme which was implemented by mobile health teams between August 2007 and April 2008. The aim of the Campaign was to immunise those children who live too far from a health facility and so had not been vaccinated against childhood, preventable diseases. StratREAL funding ensured the success of the Pulse Campaign in three of its fourteen target areas.