Author: Richard Horton
"The opportunity is extraordinary. In 2013, Dean Jamison launched our Commission on Investing in Health. He concluded that the present state of knowledge enabled us to claim that it was now possible to end preventable mortality among women and children within a generation. It was an immensely motivating statement. It added energy and optimism to the end of the Millennium Development Goal era and gave a clear direction to the emerging vision for sustainable development. During the past 2 years, that opportunity has been refined and developed. First, Ole Norheim and colleagues calculated in 2014 that extending access to cost-effective and affordable interventions meant one could look forward to eliminating two-thirds of child and maternal deaths by 2030.
Second, the recent Disease Control Priorities project, also led by Dean Jamison, published its strategy for women’s and children’s health. A team led by Bob Black showed that with existing preventive and treatment measures about half of current deaths among women and children could be avoided by 2030."
Horton, R. 2016. "Offline: The future for women's and children's health." The Lancet. 14 May 2016. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30306-3/abstract