Dhaka, Nov. 14 -- The government is recruiting 100,000 health workers, 80 percent of them women, to expand preventive healthcare services across Bangladesh, according to Dr Zubaida Rahman, vice-president of the Ziaur Rahman Foundation.

She announced the initiative on Saturday at an event marking the 12th anniversary of the Institute for Developing Science and Health Initiatives (ideSHi) at a hotel in Dhaka's Gulshan.

Zubaida, wife of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, said years of neglect had left preventive healthcare underdeveloped, exposing millions of women across Bangladesh's more than 90,000 villages to avoidable diseases.

"The government has placed special emphasis on disease prevention," she said, adding that the new health worker...