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Consortium to advance human hookworm vaccine in sub-Saharan Africa
The HOOKVAC consortium, led by the Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam, Thursday announced receiving a grant of 6 million Euros to develop and test a vaccine for human hookworm, a disease that infects 600-700 million of the world’s poorest people.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Game-changing Partnerships: Health care companies in rural India finding ways to complement each other
About 840 million people in India - or 72 percent of the total population of 1.2 billion - are rural. For these 840 million people, health care is basically inaccessible. A few innovative companies are out to change that.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Africa’s Healthcare Cocktail: Of Coverage, Cost And Innovation
“You guys are investing in hospitals.” That was the question (or masked hope) of an American-trained Ethiopian doctor, the owner and head doctor of a local hospital in Addis Ababa. The question is a familiar one to investors in many of Sub-Saharan Africa’s emerging economies. Many foreign-trained doctors are returning home to the desperate health sectors in Africa. The perilous state of health care in Sub-Saharan Africa begs for more investment. Communicable and parasitical diseases persist, with few countries able to provide basic sanitation, clean water and adequate nutrition to all of their citizenry. Few countries are able to spend the $35 per person that the World Health Organization (WHO) considers the minimum for basic health care. But despite the extensive poverty, more than 50 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s health expenditure is paid out-of-pocket by individuals.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Organization Rallies Global Oncology Community to Eliminate Cancer Health Disparities
Today, more than half of new cancer cases and over two-thirds of cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Underlying this burden of cancer is an unequal distribution of global resources, a lack of coordinated care for oncology patients, and a multitude of social, cultural, and economic factors that lead to late diagnosis and incomplete palliation in the developing world. To combat the growing cancer burden, concerted action is needed from the global health and oncology communities. In her Presidential Address to the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Sandra Swain, MD, highlighted the “possibilities and promise in global health equity,” encouraging oncology leaders worldwide to join the effort to bridge the “access gap” in cancer care. The Global Oncology Initiative, an academic and grassroots volunteer organization based out of Boston, Massachusetts, seeks to do just that. GO connects local and global oncology communities and is developing programs aimed at alleviating worldwide cancer care disparities.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Ghana to vaccinate girls against cervical cancer – Mahama
Ghana this year will begin a demonstration project vaccinating girls against human papillomavirus (HPV). The HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer, which is the biggest cancer killer of women on the African continent.President John Mahama revealed this in New York on Tuesday, when Ghana hosted a side event at the ongoing UN General Assembly, in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) and the Global Fund.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Healthy Connections: Technology Promoting Family Health
During the Healthier Futures plenary at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting, Chelsea Clinton was joined onstage by Pro Mujer's President and Chief Executive Officer, Rosario Perez; Mayo Clinic's President and CEO, John Noseworthy, M.D.; the President of Pfizer Latin America, Adele Gulfo; Sesame Workshop President and CEO, H. Melvin Ming, along withSesame Street Muppet, Rosita, to announce a unique CGI Commitment to Action that will promote healthy behavior and disease prevention among poor women and children in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, Mexico and Argentina. The commitment will use a new technology platform integrating mobile, web, and video technology along with remote training and access to specialists.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- public health
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Multi-level strategy to fight malaria launched by UN development arm and partners
The United Nations and a coalition of partners today launched a comprehensive approach to fighting malaria, a disease which – despite tremendous advances – still kills an estimated 660,000 people each year and poses a major challenge to development. With the participation of world leaders gathered in New York for the 68th General Assembly, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched the Multisectoral Action Framework for Malaria, which calls for greater coordinated action among different development sectors to tackle the disease, which exacts its deadliest toll in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- public health
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A ‘Win-Win-Win’ Possible In TB Battle: But engagement with private providers is critical for achievement of goals
A key challenge in TB control is replacing suboptimal tests with WHO-endorsed, validated tools at affordable prices, and ensuring that all TB cases are appropriately managed. In this Q&A, Dr. Madhukar Pai of the McGill International TB Centre in Montreal discusses a few of the overarching market issues that impact efforts to diagnose and treat TB worldwide.
- Categories
- Health Care