Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit Pleased to Participate in New WHO Global Report on Drowning
On Tuesday, November 18, the World Health Organization will release the Global report on drowning: preventing a leading killer, which calls for a significant scaling up on efforts and resources to combat this public health threat that claims 372,000 lives every year, many of whom are children under five years old.
The Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit's (JH-IIRU) director, Adnan Hyder, was a member of the editorial committee on the report which highlights evidence showing a range of effective drowning prevention strategies, and makes a number of recommendations for concrete measures to be taken by national and local governments.
Dr. Hyder and the Injury Unit are committed to reducing the burden of child injuries around the world. That’s why JH-IIRU team members, including assistant scientist Olakunle Alonge, senior technical advisor David Bishai, research program coordinator Siran He, project coordinator Shirin Wadhwaniya and research associate Y. Natalia Alfonso are working in collaboration with the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) and the Center for Injury Prevention and Research Bangladesh (CIPRB), to initiate the Saving of Lives from Drowning (SoLiD) in Bangladesh, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. SoLiD is an implementation study that has been established to test the effectiveness of two interventions to prevent and reduce the burden of childhood drowning in Bangladesh. The interventions are being implemented along with family education and community awareness on drowning prevention.
JH-IIRU is proud to be part of this report (see page 38) that aims to galvanize attention and action to this issue by highlighting how collaboration across sectors can save lives. The Global report on drowning: preventing a leading killer was made possible with funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Children learn songs in a creche in Bangladesh.
To read the report, click here.
To find out more about JH-IIRU’s efforts to combat childhood drowning in Bangladesh, click here.