Ifakara Health Institute is part of this year’s Annual Scientific Conference on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health held in Dar es Salaam from November 17-19. Two Ifakara projects, NEST360 program and Safe Delivery App (SDA), have pitched booths to showcase their work on the sidelines of the conference.

The Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children hosts the meeting whose theme is: Accelerating actions towards reduction of maternal, newborn and child health in Tanzania. Tanzania’s Prime Minister, Kassim Majaliwa preside over the official opening.

The PM and his entourage visited the booths where he witnessed the technology and equipment on display. NEST360 team member, Dr. Robert Tillya, introduced the PM to the program and some equipment on display. Among the top digniteries in Majaliwa's entourage included Health Minister, Dr. Dorothy Gwajima, and Former Tanzania President, Dr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete. After retiring from office in 2015, Dr. Kikwete has continued to support local and global health initiatives, including those targeting to improve maternal, newborn and child health.

More photos from Ifakara booths.

About SDA
Every day, more than 800 women and 7,000 babies lose their lives during pregnancy and childbirth- and 99% are in low- and middle-income countries. Most of these deaths can be prevented if the mother has access to skilled care during pregnancy and childbirth.

The Safe Delivery App is a smartphone application that provides skilled birth attendants with direct and instant access to evidence-based and up-to-date clinical guidelines on Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care.

The App leverages the growing ubiquity of mobile phones to provide life-saving information and guidance through easy-to-understand animated instruction videos, action cards and drug lists. It can serve as a training tool both in pre- and in-service training, and equips birth attendants even in the most remote areas with a powerful on-the-job reference tool. Learn more here: About the Safe Delivery App

About NEST360
NEST360 (Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies) is an international alliance of clinical, technical, and public health experts who have joined together to end preventable newborn deaths at hospitals across Africa. NEST360 established an evidenced-based, health-systems model to deliver, sustain, and scale a package of technologies and services to improve the quality of newborn care.

The NEST360 model enables countries to meet newborn survival targets by improving outcomes, saving newborn lives, and empowering the medical workforce of the future. The NEST360 model has been implemented in four countries with plans to expand to all of sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. More about NEST360: www.nest360.org