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Supporting Moms and Babies in Bangladesh During the Weeks Before and After Birth

Direct Relief's Humanitarian Activity for the week of 04/18/2025 - 04/25/2025

News

Operational Update

Direct Relief provided Perinatal Health Kits to Hope Foundation Hospital in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, recently. The kits are filled with medications and supplies to treat conditions that can be deadly in the time before and after birth, including preeclampsia, newborn sepsis, and respiratory distress. (Courtesy photo)

Over the past week, Direct Relief has delivered 416 shipments of requested medical aid to 38 U.S. states and territories and 15 countries worldwide. The shipments contained 4.3 million defined daily doses of medication.

Medications and supplies shipped this week included medications for rare disease management, surgical supplies, diabetes management medications, personal protective equipment, and more.

Perinatal Kits Reach Bangladesh

HOPE Hospital midwives attend to a new mom and baby. (Courtesy photo)

Medications and supplies to treat conditions that put mothers and babies most at risk in the weeks before or after labor and delivery arrived at a critical hospital in Bangladesh this week.

Hope Foundation Hospital for Women and Children of Bangladesh received 20 Perinatal Health Kits from Direct Relief. The kits contain medications and supplies to treat conditions that can occur with life-threatening impacts on women and newborns, including preeclampsia/eclampsia, prevention of premature birth, infection, and respiratory distress. The kits contain enough medications and supplies to treat 1,000 cases of each indication.

Hope Hospital, which provides critical patient care, including labor and delivery services, to the surrounding community as well as women needing care from the nearby Rohingya refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

Twenty kits arrived at the HOPE Foundation Hospital to support care for mothers and babies at risk of conditions that can become life-threatening without intervention. (Courtesy photo)

The hospital is one of five pilot sites for the Perinatal Health Kits, which were designed in collaboration with and endorsed by the International Confederation of Midwives. The kits have also been sent to health providers in Somaliland, Uganda, and Malawi, with an additional shipment in process to Tanzania.

Based on feedback from providers, Direct Relief will continue to refine the kits and the items included.

The Perinatal Health Kits complement Direct Relief’s Midwife Kit, which was also developed with and endorsed by ICM. The Midwife Kits contain medical essentials needed for safe births and have been deployed to 35 countries to support health providers.

Lights On in West AfricaN Hospital

A physician examines a patient at F.J. Grante Memorial Hospital in Greenville, Liberia. (Courtesy photo)

In rural Liberia where power isn’t a given and hospital staff have had to treat patients by the light of only a cell phone during an outage, the lights are now on.

The FJ Grante Hospital, located in Greenville, Liberia, is now online with electrification and lighting, allowing the facility to harness the power of the sun and be energy resilient. The facility, which provides emergency surgeries and treatment to the southeast region of the country, depended on diesel generators formerly to power lights and equipment. The area lacks an electrical grid, and the cost and availability of diesel limited power access, with life-impacting consequences.

The solar installation at the hospital is part of the larger Africa Infrastructure Relief and Support, or AIRS, project — a Society of Critical Care Medicine Collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Global Alliance of Perioperative Professionals and the Institute of Global Perioperative Care.

Through AIRS, Direct Relief is funding reliable power and medical oxygen projects in Sierra Leone, the Gambia, and Liberia, with a $5.5 million grant. A solar installation and battery backup at the hospital are creating resilient power for medical operations there, and a medical oxygen plant at the site is expected to come online shortly.

Operational Snapshot

UNITED STATES

Direct Relief delivered 387 shipments containing 2.1 million doses of medication during the past month to organizations, including the following:

  • All For Health, Health For All, California
  • PanCare of Florida, Inc. Malone, Florida
  • Cabell-Huntington Health Department, West Virginia
  • Community Family Clinic, Idaho
  • University Community Health Services d.b.a. Connectus Health, Tennessee
  • Unity Shoppe, California
  • Neighborhood Health Services, Tennessee
  • Pasadena Senior Center, California
  • Bridgeville Health Center, Pennsylvania
  • Morton Comprehensive Health Services, Oklahoma

Around the World

Diabetes treatment medications and supplies are packed at Direct Relief’s medical distribution warehouse on April 24, 2025. The shipment will support diabetes treatment in Ethiopia. (Shannon Hickerson/Direct Relief)

Globally, Direct Relief shipped over 2.2 million defined daily doses of medication, totaling 54,434 lbs., to countries including the following:

  • Ukraine
  • Tanzania
  • Mali
  • Syria
  • El Salvador
  • Tunisia
  • Ghana
  • Colombia

YEAR-TO-DATE

Since January 1, 2025, Direct Relief has delivered 9,119 shipments to 1,782 partner organizations in 54 U.S. states and territories and 74 countries. These shipments included 89.6 million defined daily doses of medication, valued at $743.3 million wholesale, totaling 1.5 million lbs.

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