PAHO requires secure take care of all newborns and kids on World Patient Safety Day 2025 – PAHO/WHO

This yr’s marketing campaign highlights the necessity to defend the youngest from preventable hurt in well being care settings

Washington, D.C., September 16, 2025 (PAHO) – On the event of World Patient Safety Day 2025, noticed on September 17, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) urges governments, well being professionals, and communities throughout the Americas to prioritize secure and equitable care from the very starting of life. Under the theme “Patient safety from the start!”, the marketing campaign seeks to boost consciousness and scale back dangers related to pediatric and neonatal medical care.

This yr’s focus underscores the distinctive vulnerabilities of newborns and kids, who face better dangers of hurt in healthcare settings as a result of their fast growth, particular wants, and reliance on caregivers and well being programs. It additionally emphasizes {that a} single error in medical care can have lifelong penalties for a kid’s well being and growth.

“Every newborn and every child deserves safe, high-quality care from the very first moment of life,” stated Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, PAHO Director. “In our region, preventable errors such as mistakes with medications, misdiagnoses, or healthcare-associated infections threaten the future of the most vulnerable. This World Day is a call to close these gaps and strengthen the health systems that protect our children,” he added.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, in 2020, 8.9% of dwell births—greater than 800,000 infants—have been untimely or small for his or her gestational age, dealing with elevated dangers of preventable circumstances akin to sepsis, congenital anomalies, and intrapartum issues. Neonatal mortality accounts for greater than 50% of kid deaths within the area, with prematurity and sepsis among the many main causes.

This actuality requires around-the-clock hospital care, ongoing employees coaching, and lively household involvement. Moreover, easy PAHO-promoted measures—akin to handwashing, administration of antenatal steroids, and skin-to-skin contact (kangaroo technique)—might forestall a major proportion of deaths in untimely infants.

At its 61st Directing Council, held in October 2024, PAHO adopted a decision establishing the “Strategy and Plan of Action to reduce the burden of sepsis (2025–2029).” This regional roadmap contains key actions in awareness-raising, an infection prevention (together with vaccination), hospital hygiene, and equitable entry to prognosis and care, particularly for weak populations.

Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one in ten sufferers suffers hurt in healthcare settings as a result of errors in remedy prescribing, prognosis, or healthcare-associated infections. These dangers additionally have an effect on kids and newborns, who’re notably weak. More than half of this hurt is preventable.

Regional webinar and world marketing campaign

To mark World Patient Safety Day, PAHO will maintain a regional webinar on September 23 at 10:00 a.m. (EDT), with consultants from Argentina, Brazil, Honduras, the United States, and Caribbean international locations. The occasion will deal with greatest practices in little one affected person security, digital well being, neonatal sepsis prevention, and the function of fogeys as lively companions in care. To register for the webinar, go to this web page.

On September 17, iconic monuments around the globe will gentle up in orange as an emblem of solidarity, representing a collective dedication to secure care from the very starting of life. WHO will illuminate Geneva’s emblematic Jet d’Eau and invitations communities to affix this marketing campaign.