An Epidemic Within a Pandemic: Safeguarding Myanmar's Newborns From Hepatitis B During COVID-197/27/2020
 Khin Aye and her newborn son who are participating in CPI's Stop Hep B @ Birth Project in South Dagon, Myanmar. Photo: Community Partners International "We have a real opportunity here to push back hepatitis B. With the right approach, we can free a generation of children in Myanmar from this debilitating and deadly virus.” Seven years ago, Khin Aye went for a routine prenatal check-up while pregnant with her first child. The hospital staff conducted a blood test. “When the test came back, they told me I had hepatitis B.”
Rohingya refugee children in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, with some of the cards they received from children in Houston, Texas. Photo: Community Partners International
"We hope that Rohingya children feel happy seeing our cards and that they think, ‘I received this. There are others out there who care for me.’"
These are the words of Faryal Asim, 14. To mark World Refugee Day, Faryal and a group of friends from Houston, Texas, designed cards expressing their solidarity and support for Rohingya children from Myanmar living as refugees in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Faryal and her friends are members of families who have supported Community Partners International (CPI)'s Rohingya Refugee Response since the beginning of the refugee crisis in August 2017. "After hearing what they were going through we decided to make cards for them to make sure they know to stay brave and courageous and to not give up," Faryal explains.
 An ethnic health worker conducts a check-up of a baby in Kayin State, Myanmar. Photo: Community Partners International For ethnic health providers in Myanmar to persuasively make the case for increased funding to support comprehensive care, they need to provide clear evidence of needs and results. Community Partners International (CPI) and the Karen Ethnic Health Organizations Consortium (KEHOC) are working together in Kayin State and Bago Region to standardize services and staffing and collect and use population data to measure, verify and improve health services under a pilot purchasing model.
A health worker from the Eastern Naga Development Organization travels to remote villages in the Naga SAZ to conduct COVID-19 prevention activities. Photo: Courtesy of the Eastern Naga Development Organization
In Myanmar’s restive and remote Naga Self-Administered Zone (SAZ), there are only two medical doctors to serve the needs of an estimated 130,000 people. In April 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic threatening communities across Myanmar, Community Partners International (CPI) supported local civil society organization the Eastern Naga Development Organization (ENDO) to raise awareness of COVID-19 risks and prevention measures in 108 remote villages in five townships: Lahe, Leshi and Nanyun in the Naga SAZ, and the neighboring townships of Hkamti and Pansaung.
An ethnic health worker uses a megaphone to broadcast COVID-19 health information in a remote community in Kayin (Karen) State, Myanmar. Photo: Karen Department of Health and Welfare
Community Partners International (CPI)’s Myanmar team has been busy supporting conflict-affected, hard-to-reach and under-served communities across Myanmar to establish and maintain COVID-19 prevention and response activities. Here are some of the ways that CPI has been mobilizing to help our ethnic and community-based health organization partners in the past few weeks.
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November 2020
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