Nearly 10 million children under the age of five die each year, mostly from preventable illnesses such as diarrhoea and malaria.
Working with local church partners across the world, Tearfund combats the causes and symptoms of diseases that keep millions in poverty and result in the death of one child every three seconds. We focus particularly on the world’s biggest killers – HIV and AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and water-borne diseases, like cholera.
We recognise that many factors influence the provision of healthcare to poor communities: from clean water and sanitation to hygiene awareness and education, from cultural issues that don’t allow women to attend hospital, to preventing the ‘brain drain’ that means trained doctors and health workers can make more for their skills outside their own countries.