OFID observes World Health Day

April 7 marks World Health Day, which is celebrated every year to mark the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948. The topic for 2014 is vector-borne diseases: "Small bite, big threat."

Since 1976, OFID has provided more than US$671 million to help improve health standards and living conditions for millions of people in developing countries around the world. This support includes technical assistance grants that helped fund national and regional projects/programs aimed at eradicating vector-bone illnesses such as Rift Valley fever, malaria and sleeping sickness. OFID also partnered with WHO to support River Blindness and Guinea Worm disease control and eradication initiatives.

OFID recently extended a grant to the Liverpool School of Tropical medicine to co-fund an integrated program that aims at controlling and eliminating targeted neglected tropical diseases in DR Congo, including schistosomiasis and Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis.

A significant portion of OFID's funding to help bolster the health sectors of its partner countries has comprised public sector loans that helped finance activities such as the:

Find out more about OFID’s projects in the health sector here.