The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) backs the Angolan government's efforts to improve maternal and child health in the country, according to a news release issued by the agency.

UNICEF staff are working with the Angolan health authorities in five provinces to implement an initiative aimed at providing better healthcare services to expectant mothers and newborn babies.

The staff also helped monitor local health facilities and provided educational, technical and financial assistance.

The goal of the programme is to deliver health services to women, especially in rural or isolated areas, who have no access to such services and give birth at home without the help of trained health workers.

Under the program, expectant mothers are given intermittent preventive treatment for malaria, vaccinations against tetanus, voluntary testing and counseling for HIV, education about good hygiene practices, free insecticide-treated bed nets to protect against malaria, and also iron and folic acid supplements.

UNICEF said mothers are given advice on potential danger signs that would prompt them to seek medical assistance for their newborn babies.

Improving maternal mortality is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which set anti-poverty targets expected to be achieved by 2015.

(Xinhua News Agency August 5, 2008)