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Colonialists Are Coming For Blood — Literally
Developing nations have protested before that richer countries and their corporations should compensate them for their biological resources. They consider it colonialism for the bioprospecting age: Instead of stripping the developing world of its precious metals, timber, or minerals, the nations of the West are mining for microbes and other biological source materials.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Deal gives resource-limited countries affordable access to ID testing
The Hologic Global Access Initiative will provide countries with affordable molecular diagnostics testing for HIV, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus and HPV, according to a news release. The countries eligible for the program, which are largely in Africa and Southeast Asia, comprise 90% of the global HIV burden.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Viewpoint: Public, Private Sectors Must Work Together to Manage Next Pandemic
History has taught us that there will be future deadly global pandemics. We therefore need to invest in better tools, effective early detection and a more robust global response system.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Failing to Scale: Fixing Common Missteps in mHealth Ventures
Telemedicine or mHealth systems have great potential to bolster fragile health care systems in the developing world. However, these programs often fail to survive beyond the pilot phase. A team at the Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship Program at Penn State studied 35 telemedicine and mHealth projects and discovered six recurring reasons for failure to scale. Program director Khanjan Mehta offers solutions to some common missteps.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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How to Wipe Out Malaria for Good
The WHO attempted to eradicate malaria in the 1960s and while it succeeded in ridding many countries of the disease, it fell short of the goal due to growing drug resistance and by failing to focus enough attention on Africa.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Portable, Reliable and Safe: Billions Need Anaesthesia – Partnerships Can Deliver It
When global crises rivet the world’s attention to a conflict or a disaster-struck region, people take notice and respond. But they tend to ignore the fact that 5 billion of the 7 billion people in the world lack access to basic surgery – and the safe anesthesia care necessary to facilitate it. Andrea Charters of Diamedica talks about the life-saving work doctors are able to perform using the company’s portable anesthesia machine – and the potential to cure the everyday disaster of inequality in global health care.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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Bending the Arc of Humanity – Effective Development of Exponential Technologies to Serve Mankind
Exponential technologies such as big data, the internet of things and artificial intelligence can transform lives in poor countries. But Akhtar Badshah – who led Microsoft’s philanthropic efforts for 10 years – highlights some risks alongside that potential. The main question, he says, is how to bridge the gap between those who quickly benefit from these technologies, and those who are left behind.
- Categories
- Technology
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Bill Gates thinks an infectious disease outbreak could kill 30 million people in the next decade — but the US is cutting efforts to prevent global pandemics
Diseases know no national borders and can jump from one species to another, as happened to with Ebola, MERS, SARS, and various other epidemics in recent years. Because of that, many experts think that we need to be better prepared to conduct global disease surveillance in order to prevent future outbreaks.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- North America
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