Priscilla Mazenotti
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - Every year around 63 thousand babies born prematurely in Brazil run the risk of contracting hyaline membrane disease (HMD), also known as infant respiratory distress syndrome (IRDS). Over 47 thousand of them die. To lower this index, the Ministry of Health announced today (7), World Health Day, the introduction of the first national surfactant in maternity wards throughout the country.

The processed surfactant - which is extracted from the lungs of pigs - compensates for the lack of natural surfactant production by the lungs and assures the baby adequate respiration with less oxygen, antibiotics, and hospitalization. The use of the medication reduces the number of HMD deaths by up to 40% in infants less than 28 days old. In the initial phase, the surfactant will be given to two thousand infants in 34 maternity wards around the country.

"The idea is for all public maternity wards and neonatology care units to have the surfactant to distribute for free and make available to all professionals for use in treating the population," affirmed the Minister of Health, Humberto Costa.

A partnership between the Ministry of Health and the Butantã Institute in São Paulo for the national production of the processed surfactant will guarantee the production of 100 thousand doses per year and will reduce the cost of the remedy by as much as two-thirds.

World Health Day was instituted in 1948, the year the World Health Organization (WHO) was founded, as a form of debate and reflection on health conditions around the world. This year's theme is "Healthy Women and Children."

Translation: David Silberstein