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Birth advice by text message: Phone medicine saving lives in Kenya
A young woman steals her way down darkened passages in Korogocho -- one of Kenya's largest slums. Crime, prostitution and drug use are rampant in the locality where a quarter of a million people reside and the young woman's eyes dart around erratically on the lookout for danger. It should be one of the happiest days of her life -- she is pregnant and has just gone into labor. She is also one of the fortunate few that can afford to go to hospital. Some women face a homebirth where, instead of medical equipment, they must make do with cotton wool and razorblades. But the journey to hospital leaves her vulnerable to opportunistic assault.
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- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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- public health
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Bikes for Africa changing health care
When Andrea Coleman bought her first motorcycle six months before her 16th birthday, all she wanted to do was escape her “funny little suburb” outside London. Now, almost 50 years later, she is being credited with using motorcycles to revolutionise Africa's transport and health systems. The mother- of-three will receive the Barclays Women of the Year award at the 59th annual Women of the Year Lunch on 16 October.
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- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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NewDigm: an example to be followed for improving healthcare in rural areas
Scientific paradigm is a recognized achievement which provides solution models to be followed by a specific community. That is exactly the role NewDigm is performing in the Indian rural healthcare landscape: by developing mobile-based Clinical Decision Support apps, real-time monitoring & tracking systems or training village health workers (VHW), they aim to be the new solution for democratizing access to quality and affordable healthcare through appropriate technology.
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- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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- public health
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Africa: Gavi On Track to Immunize One-Quarter Billion Children By 2015
The GAVI alliance - a public-private global health partnership previously known as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization - has announced it is on track to immunize a quarter of a billion children against killer diseases by 2015. The organization said nearly four million children's lives will be saved thanks to these additional vaccinations.
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- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Disrupting The Pharmaceutical Industry To Save The World From Diarrhea
Pharmaceutical companies like to focus on developing two kinds of drugs: blockbuster drugs that lots of people use (like Lipitor), and more recently, extremely expensive niche drugs. Drugs targeted specifically for common afflictions that affect the developing world aren't as profitable and are often left out of the picture entirely. Global health nonprofit Path is trying to change that with an ambitious drug development program that targets diseases like kala-azar (also known as black fever disease), malaria, HIV, and diarrheal diseases, such as cholera.
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- Health Care
- Tags
- public health
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Social Entrepreneurs On A Mission To Solve Chronic Female Health-Care Problem
India is headed on a well-laid path towards modernization in terms of technology and economy. Yet, for most women hailing from interior parts of Indian farmlands, modernization is only a matter of outside change and has failed to reflect their inner mind-sets. When it comes to personal hygiene, over 300 million Indian women prefer home-spun, cotton rag substitutes or even dry leaves or news papers over branded sanitary pads.
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- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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- public health
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Fighting tuberculosis: Can Nikshay save 300,000 lives per year?
Can digital intervention and adoption of information communication technology (ICT) tools save 300,000 TB patients from dying every year?Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said recently that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has in its two terms in office taken initiatives to revamp two key sectors—health and education. Although public health is a state subject, the central government has made significant investments in developing health infrastructure and services delivery through the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Under NRHM alone, more than Rs.96,000 crore has been provided for revamping rural healthcare.
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- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- public health
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The long war: A new vaccine will help, but will not defeat malaria
ON OCTOBER 8th researchers announced progress in developing a vaccine against malaria. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a British pharmaceutical firm, said it would seek regulatory approval next year for this vaccine, called RTS,S. GSK and its charitable partner, the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, also revealed new data showing the vaccine’s effect in children. This is good news, but RTS,S will not vanquish malaria by itself.
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- Health Care
- Tags
- public health