USAID campaign to raise child health awareness

>>> despite global efforts, every year seven million children die before their fifth birthday. imagine, losing nearly as many children as the entire population of new york city . tomorrow, secretary of state hillary clinton and health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius are teaming up to launch an international effort to find solutions central to this mission. thank you so much for being here, raj. let's talk about the importance of making sure children live past their fifth birthday because once they pass that point, then you have a real fight against the infant mortality rate .

>> we basically know if kids around the world reach 5, they are likely to become adults and likely to survive and thrive, to learn well, to grow up in a community where they have a lot of opportunity. but even then, as you point out, nearly seven million kids, more than seven million kids every year perish before the age of 5 and what's extraordinary is given the new state of technology and knowledge, know-how and experience, even in some of the toughest parts of the world, most of those lives are now preventible. we can effectively prevent child death around the world.

>> you brought some examples, some props here. show me what steps we can take. very easy, not expensive steps.

>> sure. i wanted to illustrate that most of what it takes to save these kids' lives costs less than $30 and fits inside this backpack. recently, new vaccines, this is a rotovirus vaccine for diarrhea and pneumonia vaccine. these can save four million lives over the next five years if provided to kids around the world. the obama administration has supported an innovative public/private partnership to do just that. this is an orange flesh sweet potato , actually orange on the inside because it's rich in beta-keratine through our feed the future program, president obama 's food security effort, we have actually helped create these kinds of sweet potatoes . they are organically produced in uganda and elsewhere and protect kids from vitamin a deficiency and helps support them living and thriving through childhood. these are just zinc tablets. tomorrow at this major international meeting, we will announce a new partnership to produce more zinc and more tablets for young kids because even though it's pennies per dose, it can help save kids who get diarrhea when you use that along with oral rehydration salts , salts you mix with water and it's taken like gatorade. these things seem very simple. we don't lose a lot of children in this country from many of these diseases but diarrhea, malaria --

>> you have a bed net .

>> i do. the u.s.'s effort to distribute these across africa and parts of asia saved 220,000 children from dying every single year. we know that. that's been validated by independent studies from boston university and elsewhere. we know this costs $6 and a kid can sleep under it for years. then this is a new device that we created. this doesn't look like advanced technology because it's not. as you know, this is a bag mask . you can put this on a little infant, put their mouth right in this piece and do suction to help babies breathe. we have launched an effort called helping babies breathe together with private companies that now produce this device for about $8. if you walk into an american hospital , a similar device made with much higher quality materials would cost 10 or 12 times that amount. if we can get these basic items, new technologies through new partnerships with the private sector , with faith-based institutions, to millions of kids who don't have them, we think we can literally end preventible child death.

>> you have photos and testimonials from a lot of famous people age 5. let's take a look at some of the pictures you've got on your website because these are all people involved in this and people who care. i'm trying to think of who some of these kids are.

>> that's tom coburn , i believe. that's susan rice .

>> adorable at age 5.

>> i believe that's nancy pelosi . she sent us her photograph as well.

>> katherine mcphee , one of the u.n. ambassadors on this.

>> secretary clinton.

>> secretary clinton, now former president bill clinton . that was in hope, arkansas. do we have your picture in there?

>> we do. we have nearly 1,000 photographs.

>> that is someone i recognize, me and my older sister. yeah. it's hard to take, but yeah.

>> our effort is really about making sure every child gets --

>> and raj.

>> take that one down. i am not proud of my fashion choices when i was 5. it makes the point, i have three young kids and when they get injured or hurt, we get to go to the hospital and it's a difficult circumstance. imagine around the world when these kids, when a family loses a child or loses two or three children --

>> completely preventible.

>> preventible. not only tragic, it affects the ability of communities to grow and educate themselves and move themselves out of poverty and be stable over time .

>> we have to leave it there, thank you so much. great to see you.