Our very own UPCM 82 Alumni Dr. Maria Asuncion Silvestre is the recipient of this year’s prestigious United Arab Emirates Health Foundation Prize for 2023 . Awards for outstanding contributions to public health were presented during the 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva (Switzerland) on 26 May 2023, witnessed by official delegations of 194 member states of the WHO.

The United Arab Emirates Health Foundation Prize is awarded for an outstanding contribution to health development to a person or persons, an institution or institutions, or a nongovernmental organization or organizations.

Choosing from among 11 entries from different countries, this year’s Selection Panel unanimously proposed that the 2023 Prize be awarded to Dr Maria Asuncion Silvestre (Philippines).

Dr. Maria Asuncion Silvestre is a renowned clinician and the founder of a nongovernmental organization called Kalusugan ng Mag-Ina (Health of Mother and Child) in the Philippines. Dr Silvestre has used her experience as a private practitioner in her community and has drawn on her research findings, with evidence collected from the field, to improve the health of mothers and newborns. She has designed a pioneering protocol called Essential Intrapartum and Newborn Care, consisting of a simple set of choreographed actions for health workers attending a mother during delivery and her newborn immediately after birth and during the first week of her or his life. Her objective was to propose an affordable set of interventions, which would be replicable in all resource settings and thus help to bridge the health equity gap, and ensure optimal conditions for exclusive breastfeeding. Her work has helped to save countless lives at the national level and beyond, having collaborated with 17 countries of the WHO Western Pacific Region to scale up the Unang Yakap (First Embrace) campaign for Early Essential Newborn Care, a set of simple WHO-recommended and cost-effective interventions that her work has helped to shape. She has tirelessly invested her time and expertise in being a member of numerous regional and international technical groups to help to advance primary health care.

-Dr. Cecile Clemente-Ocampo
UPMAS PRO 2023

Photo credit: World Health Organization

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