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The global health crisis you’ve never heard of
When we talk about global health challenges, we often cite the ones that receive the most attention or funding. AIDS and malaria come to mind. You probably don’t think about injuries sustained from cooking fires or acid attacks. But the truth is, severe burns are a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in developing countries — a crisis afflicting the poor that hardly anyone is talking about.In resource-strained parts of the world, open fires and kerosene cookstoves are relied upon for cooking, heating and lighting. Add in to the mix overcrowded living conditions, lack of proper fire safety measures, loose clothing worn by women and insufficient supervision of children. Suddenly, it’s not hard to see why someone is severely burned every three seconds in a developing country.That’s more than 10 million people each year. For those burn survivors around the world who do not have access to basic medical care, burns are left to heal by themselves, creating a permanent tightening of the skin as the burn wound heals. As a result, even a minor burn can restrict one’s ability to walk or cause a working hand to become an unusable fist.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- public health
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Africa: The Next Great Growth Story for Visa and MasterCard?
Africa's role in the global economy is visibly changing. It is no longer the world's tip jar, but rather a formidable growth pillar.Kenyan telecom company Safaricom, for instance, is the world leader in mobile payments. More than 17 million of Kenya's 40 million citizens use Safaricom's mobile payment service, M-PESA. In addition, close to 25% of Kenya's Gross National Product flows through the service.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Rwanda: ‘Ensuring Universal Access to Financial Services Key Priority’
Increasing access to financial services is one of the Government's priorities as Rwanda looks to ensure a self-reliant populace, John Rwangombwa, the central bank governor, has said."Rwanda's vision is to ensure financial inclusion, especially for the rural masses. In fact, we have made significant progress towards this target. So far, we have been able to double formal financial inclusion from 21 per cent of adults in 2008 to 42 per cent as at the end of last year," Rwangombwa noted.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Nigeria’s Bank of Industry Seeks to Empower Women with Financial Inclusion Strategy
For Nigeria to realise its economic goals, a paradigm shift in the nation’s financial inclusion strategy may have become imperative.This was the view of the Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BoI), Ms. Evelyn Oputu during at the microfinance conference organized by LAPO Microfinance Bank Limited in Lagos, yesterday.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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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.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- public health
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Mobile money growth accelerates as operators adopt new innovations
The volume of mobile money transactions processed in Nigeria is gathering momentum after a slow start as operators adopt new innovations.In June, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reported that licensed operators had processed transactions amounting to N64 billion in the previous 12 months, however 60 percent of the total had taken place in the final three months.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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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.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- 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.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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