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…can be the most effective global health interventions and can reduce neonatal mortality by 50%, they face numerous challenges. Many such programs are now using mobile tools to improve health service access and quality, but adopting mHealth can be challenging, high-risk and costly for programs in developing countries. Solution Dimagi is a social enterprise/software company that has developed a proof-of-concept model for organizations to test an open-source mHealth platform, CommCare, to…frontline worker programs in low-resource settings. Deployed in over 50 countries, CommCare is one of the most-widely used mHealth tools, leveraging the power of mobile technology to support data collection and monitoring, service delivery and decision-support, education and counseling. The current project was called the ‘Maturity Model’ and was built on CommCare as a means…

…causing lifetime consequences if not prevented in time. In 2012, it was estimated that 20% of children in Peru under five years of age suffered from malnutrition. To prevent malnutrition, nutritional status screening and monitoring are paramount. However, they are not routinely done and are subject to measurement errors. Solution The goal of this project…traits, number of images, image acquisition methodology and image enhancement techniques to be used. The remaining 264 children’s images were used to evaluate image-based anthropometric measurements and for training of the neural networks. Outcome The team managed to develop a prototype of the nutritional system for the screening and monitoring of children less than five…80%, overall accuracy was above 85%. A larger sample of children of less than three years of age is felt to be necessary in order to generate specific neural network systems to estimate Z-score values for each age group. The research team has not yet decided whether to apply for Transition To Scale (TTS) funding.

Issue Ghana suffers due to a critical shortage of health professionals. A 2012 report revealed that the country’s doctor and nurse population ratio is 1:10,452 for physicians and 1:1,251 for nurses. These shortages create a significant disparity in quality of life and life expectancy for Ghanaians. It is imperative to develop a cost-effective, rapid and effective solution to address the issue of scarcity…courses included introductory courses in distance learning, e-learning and mobile learning for CUC faculty and staff. Students received training in online learning and were capacitated in technology support and troubleshooting. A formative evaluation was conducted with the students and project personnel, to determine if improvements could be made to the program. Outcome The project showed…

Issue Lack of affordable, rugged, sensitive and selective point-of-care (POC) tests suitable for use in low-resource settings for rapid diagnosis of disease and to monitor disease progression continue to hamper HIV infection management. An affordable, rapid approach for monitoring HIV-1 infection at the bedside, which does not require significant training, would be of great benefit. Solution The team sought to develop a novel, POC, affordable kit for the biological monitoring of HIV-1 infections and assessing the efficacy of HIV-1 vaccines. The approach was based on a novel antibody (HIVOP) detected by the research group in the sera of some HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy) naïve HIV-1 infected individuals, which correlates to helper CD4 T cell count, low plasma viral load and…

Issue Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) is directly or indirectly responsible for approximately one million deaths per year in children globally, with these children usually dying from common infectious diseases. Data from a recently concluded clinical trial done in Kenya suggests that the risk of death from infections may be sustained despite nutritional rehabilitation and apparent stabilization. Based on the results of the trial, more data are needed to identify those at highest risk and to guide the development of effective follow-up strategies. Solution The overall objective of the project was to identify prognostic molecular signatures in severely malnourished children in Kenya who had been treated and rehabilitated, but who still died shortly after treatment. The project’s specific objectives were: 1)     to determine…

Issue Japanese encephalitis virus (JE) is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes that have fed on infected wading birds and pigs. Approximately 1% of human infections result in encephalitis; approximately 30% of these patients will die and another 30% will suffer from permanent neurologic deficits. It is the most common cause of encephalitis in Asia, including Bangladesh. Research findings suggest that pigs may be an important environmental reservoir for JE in northwestern Bangladesh and, by vaccinating pigs against JE, it is likely that this could reduce the risk of JE to humans. In Bangladesh, pig-raising communities…they were sold or eaten during the study. The next phase of the project will involve continuation of vaccination campaigns in the initial study area, and scaling up to other endemic JE regions of Bangladesh. The project team also plans to demonstrate the health and economic impact of vaccination on people in other endemic areas…

Issue There are still 2.5 billion people without access to safe toilets. Even when people do have access to a toilet, most human waste in developing countries is dumped directly into waterways or emptied into pits that contaminate groundwater. Solution Implemented in Haiti, the objective of the SOIL project was to develop a sustainable business model for providing sanitation to Haiti’s urban slums. SOIL’s idea was to develop ecological sanitation (EcoSan) toilets that produce compost as a by-product of the waste treatment process. The…SOIL had sold 70,000+ gallons of compost to individuals, companies and organizations around Haiti.Market demand for the compost creates the potential for the private sector to play a significant role in supporting demand-driven sustainable sanitation. Compost sale revenue and waste treatment fees have the potential to recover a significant percentage of overall costs for waste treatment in the long term,…

Issue In 2008, the American Cancer Society reported that 60% of cancer cases in Africa – equal to 426,000 cases annually – led to death from preventable forms of cancer. Further investigation implicated poor pathology as a causal factor in the high mortality rates, with a shortage of expert pathologists and the lack of training for local pathologists being main causative factors. Solution The goal of the project was to provide an accessible and cost-effective telepathology system for training local experts in pathology and diagnostic support, through remote access to global expertise. The telepathology system that Pathcore developed is called "Pathcore Web". Pathcore Web enables pathologists to easily collaborate between hospitals, manage whole-slide…

…the blood is a major cause of death and morbidity among children less than five years old, particularly in resource-limited settings. Blood culture is the gold standard for diagnosis of bacterial sepsis – a technique that is virtually absent in resource-limited settings. In order to reduce mortality, antibiotic therapy is normally initiated without adequate evidence. Solution The investigators for this pilot project hypothesized that a combination of biomarkers with moderate diagnostic threshold…evidence for an innovative strategy to identify the potential biomarkers for bacterial sepsis that could be used to develop a rapid, point-of-care test for bacterial sepsis. The design of this test could then be combined with the existing malaria rapid diagnostic test (mRDT) into a single rapid test for diagnosis of both malaria and bacterial…

Issue In Tanzania, 9% of all deaths in children under five years are due to diarrhea and only 54% of the population have access to an improved water supply. Published meta-analysis reviews have shown that household-level water quality interventions (filtration, chemical treatment and boiling) have greater diarrheal disease risk reduction impact, compared to source water quality interventions. Ceramic…arms: ·         Standard ceramic filter pot·         Filter pot combined with novel chlorine (WaterGuard) dosing mechanisms·         Chlorination (WaterGuard) only·         Control (no household-level water treatment). Each household was followed for three months, with visits every two weeks. Outcome The water quality results showed a significant reduction in the quantity of E. coli after using a drinking water treatment. The average amount of E. coli in source water was reduced from 105 cfu.100…