The Listeners

(2 of 2)

So Abhay and Rani got a seamstress to stitch the sleeping bags and a carpenter to make the abacuses, and they drew up a health training program that they taught to a newly assembled corps of village health workers. In 1999, the Bangs published the results of their efforts, again in the Lancet. They had cut child mortality in half--a figure that would fall to a quarter by 2003--for a cost of $2.64 for each child saved. The program is being adopted across India, where more than a quarter of the 4 million annual newborn deaths occur, and in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and parts of Africa.