Africa's most vulnerable live in absolute poverty and per person subsist on less than 2 percent of industrialized world earnings. For Africa's children, survival preempts even the most basic education. Each year, such preventable diseases as malaria, measles, diarrhea, and respiratory infections claim the lives of more than 11 million African pre-school age children. For every 100,000 Africans there is an average of 16 medical doctors and access to health care is far from adequate. For some it is non-existent.
Women are particularly at risk.
Also, mortality rates from disease are among the highest in the world. Throughout Africa, epidemics are re-emerging. The survival of orphaned children left behind is largely dependent on extended families who themselves have insufficient resources to care for their own children. It is estimated that the number of orphans will increase from 10 million today to 40 million in the year 2008. Since the mid-1980s, the American Red Cross has been dedicated to improving the health of vulnerable Africans and has significantly contributed to African relief operations for major humanitarian crises in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Rwanda, to name a few.