22 May 2017

Community health workers (CHWs) are members of a local community who are chosen to provide basic healthcare and to promote healthy practices and illness prevention. However, despite the crucial service they provide in rural communities with limited access to healthcare or in places where reliance on traditional healers and birth attendants is the norm, community health workers remain unpaid for their service. Community health workers are seen as key in reducing maternal mortality and child mortality rates by ensuring pregnant women attend clinics and give birth in hospitals and take their children for immunisation and treatment for pneumonia and malaria, the number one cause of death for children under age five. They are also key in HIV and tuberculosis treatment and prevention.

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