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Our Rotary Foundation at Work
Update on Global Grant to End Spina Bifida

When you dig a well or build a habitat, progress is obvious. But public health projects usually take time – often measured in years – to see results and benefits. The Rotary Club of North Atlanta (RCNA) and their partners are in the third year of a planned five-year global grant project to reduce severe birth defects in Ethiopia, supported by District 6900 and The Rotary Foundation. Collaborators include Emory University, two other U.S. Rotary clubs, the Rotary Club of Addis Ababa Central Mella and the ReachAnother Foundation.

Ethiopia has one of the highest worldwide rates of neural tube defects or NTDs (including spina bifida and anencephaly). The Rotary project provides supplemental vitamin B9 (folic acid) to Ethiopian women at who are at a 10-fold higher risk because of a prior NTD pregnancy. The B9 supplement helps to prevent NTDs, but it must be taken before and during pregnancy to be effective.

Eligible mothers have been recruited for the program at six public hospitals in Addis Ababa since November 2023. Candidates must be of reproductive age with an NTD history.

Each participant receives daily ReachAnother Foundation Folic Acid Supplementation Program | 2026 Mid-Year Report confirms birth defect prevention and positive pregnancy outcomes. Among the findings for the 113 mothers who have given birth out of the 2783 mothers currently enrolled in the program:

  • 111 mothers (98.2%) have had a normal birth
  • One child died at birth
  • One newborn had an NTD.

In Ethiopia, about 7 out of 100 mothers who have had one child with an NTD are predicted to have another affected child: 1 out of 113 is a major reduction .

These results must be interpreted with due caution because it is not a scientific study, and more robust data is forthcoming. Nonetheless, the program’s nascent results are encouraging, and it could become a template for similar efforts in other countries with high NTD rates.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia is making major strides toward a sustainable solution by fortifying wheat and salt with vitamin B9, for an even greater national impact on the reducing the burden of this often-devastating birth defect. A pharmaceutical company in Ethiopia is now making the high dose vitamin B9 tablets.

R.I. President Francesco Arezzo and his wife visited the award-winning project in Ethiopia and recognized the work of Rotarian Dr. Yakob Ahmed and others. While in Ethiopia, President Arezzo met with the President of Ethiopia and the Minister of Health.

Posted by Jon Yaeger
June 26, 2026

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