Freetown, 7 April 2025 – The World Properly being Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the Ministry of Properly being Sierra Leone, joined the international community to commemorate World Properly being Day 2025 below the theme: “Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures a Call to Action to strengthen systems and partnerships that ensure every woman and newborn survives and thrives.
The event that brought together the press, key health stakeholders, including senior officials from the Ministry of Health, health development partners, and the donor community aimed at accelerating progress in reducing preventable maternal and newborn deaths in the country. And marked the official launch of a year-long Maternal and Newborn Health Campaign under Sierra Leone’s sub-theme: “Tackling the Public Properly being Emergency of Preventable Maternal and Puny one Mortality.”
Speaking at the event, Dr. George Ameh, WHO Country Representative, applauded the Government of Sierra Leone and its people for the tremendous strides made in reducing maternal and newborn deaths in the country.
“The World Properly being Day marks WHO’s 77th anniversary and underscores our collective catch to the backside of to terminate preventable maternal and newborn deaths. In Sierra Leone, the Govt’s courageous steps-including the declaration of maternal and newborn deaths as a national emergency in 2019 – have paved the capability for indisputably one of the most steepest declines in maternal mortality in Africa, with a 78% reduction since 2000,” said Dr. George Ameh.
“WHO commends this development and recognizes the urgent decide on to jog up efforts in reveal that no lady or newborn is left in the support of. Every buck invested in maternal and newborn health delivers life-saving returns: healthier households, stronger societies, and economic resilience,” added Dr Ameh
Dr Austin Demby launched the latest estimates from the UN Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group, which showed Sierra Leone’s great achievements and milestone of reducing maternal mortality from 443 to 354 per 100,000 live births (2020 – 2023). This puts Sierra Leone on the right trajectory of reducing maternal mortality to less than 300 by 2025.
In his remarks, he lauded this year’s theme that resonates with the Person-Centered Life Stages Approach, like how a mother’s and child’s health at the start of life set the foundation for a thriving, prosperous future. A healthy beginning is not just about survival. He reaffirmed the Government’s unwavering commitment to ending preventable deaths of mothers and children.
“Sierra Leone has made commendable development, but we must attach more to abet and form on our gains. These achievements result from the Govt’s commitment and measures, including a worthy, structured response during the Incident Management Machine for maternal and child mortality supported by WHO and partners where the parable of every single demise is informed and effectively timed actions are taken to forestall the reoccurrence of identical incidents,” said Dr Austine Demby.
“This demonstrates steps taken forward in instituting accountability to the females and formative years of Sierra Leone. For this cause, we’re inserting a mechanism in residing to watch every being pregnant the exhaust of the Prestrack, a transformational step forward,” added Dr Demby.
Dr Demby reechoed the Government’s commitment to continue supporting the work of WHO and our partners to deliver health services to the population in Sierra Leone.
As part of the campaign, WHO and partners will unite to support a series of targeted interventions throughout the year-ranging from community outreach and health worker training to policy advocacy and service delivery improvements.
WHO also collaborated with the Sierra Leone Blood Bank to mobilize blood as a life-saving intervention for mothers, among other groups, facing emergency situations.
