Health

Samira and her newly adopted baby Hewa, Sudan. Picture: Abbie Trayler-Smith/Panos Living a long and healthy life is essential for every human being to prosper. We work across a huge range of health issues from making sure babies have all they need in their first 100 days to working with governments to strengthen their health systems and infrastructures.

By 2015, we will:

help immunise more than 55 million children against preventable diseases
save the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 newborn babies
enable at least ten million more women to use modern methods of family planning by 2015
help halve malaria deaths in ten of the worst affected countries.

In depth

Strengthening health systems

We work with governments around the world to build up their capacity to cope with health challenges

Access to healthcare

We work to provide communities with the right treatments and services

Reproductive, maternal and newborn health

Our vision is a developing world where all women are able to exercise choice over the size and timing of their families, where no woman dies giving birth and where all newborns survive and thrive

Child health

Keeping children fit and healthy is a big priority for DFID

Malaria

Malaria is a preventable and treatable disease. Yet more than half of the world's population is at risk. We are committed to helping halve malaria-related deaths in at least ten of the worst affected countries

HIV and AIDS

We are tackling the global epidemic by significantly reducing infections, by increasing access to HIV and TB diagnosis, treatment, care and support, and by tackling stigma and investing in research