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…human resource planning in rural and remote communities is limited by the availability of a locally educated, stable workforce. Remote presence telementoring (RP) extends a universities’ ability to offer nursing education in rural areas, building both local capacity and infrastructure for rural and remote healthcare. Solution The College of Nursing of the University of Saskatchewan has leveraged RPs as a link between health education and service delivery through…is available. The platform enables remote access to health and educational facilities, where deployed, and allows faculty experts to engage with remote students in one-on-one and small group instruction. Outcome In January 2015, the RP-Xpress® was officially launched in Manila, Philippines, with three countries connected remotely via the robots:  Canada, Russia and the U.S.A. Implementation…of students exposed to the RP was 10 in Philippines, 20 in Yakutsk and 27 in Saskatchewan. A key outcome of the launch in Manila was the signing of an agreement for the use of RP by nursing students for the care of tuberculosis. The University of Saskatchewan now comprises the first nursing thematic network in the University of the Arctic (UArctic). The intent of the network is to further the UArctic northern nursing education network to promote the establishment of additional northern, rural and remote nursing programs in the eight circumpolar states. Accessible nursing education is critical to the long-term stability and effectiveness of…

IssueThe Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto mosquito is the primary malaria vector. Growing resistance to pyrethroids presents a real and immediate challenge to the efficacy of otherwise successful insecticide-treated net (ITN)-based malaria control intervention against the adult vector. Solution The interruption of mosquito-borne malaria transmission by targeting larval growth and the development of the mosquito using plant compounds, M. koenigii phytochemicals, has the potential of locally eliminating malaria. Efficient, locally accessible phytochemicals have the potential to significantly reduce the malaria vectors and contribute to the reduction and eventual elimination of malaria in Kenya and the region. This project bioprospected plants for novel anti-mosquito blends or compounds that show promise in integrated management of malaria vectors. Specifically, the team carried out the following activities: 1)  Determined molecular diversity, and developed molecular barcodes and spatial distribution maps of selected mosquitocidal M. koenigii from various regions of Kenya 2)  Determined bioactivity, and the impact of M. koenigii phytochemical blends on biological fitness…

Issue The global sanitation challenge is immense, with some 2.6 billion people currently lacking safe sanitation. Despite decades of NGO and government schemes to give away toilets in Southeast Asia, the overall coverage rate remains stubbornly low, with significant public health ramifications. Solution WaterSHED takes a systems approach to make markets work for water, sanitation and hygiene, emerging as a true value-chain development success story.The organization works to catalyze Cambodia’s private sector to respond to the water, sanitation and hygiene…sales agents, small business owners and informed customers. To accelerate sanitation coverage in Cambodia and ensure the market’s sustainability, WaterSHED began recruiting local government officials to be key promoters of toilets. The pilot Civic Champions program provided leadership skills and development training to a cohort of highly motivated councillors, with hard targets for improving sanitation in…be one of the most cost-effective ways to increase sanitation coverage in Cambodia. The organization has played a significant role in doubling the rate of new latrine uptake in the country since their activities began in 2010. WaterSHED unlocked further market potential for toilets with the launch of the Civic Champions pilot program in 2014.…

…people, who are predominantly pastoralists. Hospital records in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) of Tanzania indicate that fecal-oral transmitted diarrheal diseases are consistently in the top 10 diagnoses for Maasai in this region. Solution Project SHINE (Sanitation and Hygiene INnovation in Education) sought to test an innovative, grassroots, participatory science education and social entrepreneurship model of health promotion as a means of engaging youth and communities to improve sanitation and hygiene in a rural and remote Tanzanian setting. The key activities in the intervention were:…complete a science fair project related to WASH.In order to measure the knowledge, attitudes and practices of students in two participating secondary schools, baseline and post-intervention, six-month follow-up surveys were conducted, as well as ‘think tanks’, focus groups and in-depth interviews with students, teachers, traditional leaders and other stakeholders. Outcome Project goals were achieved for short- and medium-term outcomes, and partially achieved for long-term outcomes. Significant positive intervention effects were noted with respect to: a)      intentions to use toilets in futureb)      reduced frequency of unhygienic behaviourc)       increased frequency of using soap/mud/ash when washing…

Issue Diarrhea remains a leading cause of mortality among children under five years of age around the world; inadequate water and sanitation lead to high rates of waterborne illnesses. Point-of-use water quality interventions could cut diarrhea episodes by half, with some studies suggesting disease reduction could be as high as 70% or more. Solution The objective of the project was to develop a handheld water filtration device for families in developing countries. The filter – Tapp – not only removes bacteria, parasites and dirt to make the water potable, but is self-cleaning. The project aimed to prove that the product would work through its expected lifetime and that the deployment strategy for the approach was feasible. A machine was designed to simulate the three-year lifespan of the filter in a compressed time period. The machine was able to simulate one day of use in 20 minutes, thus…project has been scaled by others and there are currently a number of projects in the pipeline in Ethiopia, Haiti, Lebanon and India. These projects involve ramping up manufacturing to a commercial scale, while also building the necessary relationships to support commercialization. The project received $200,000 from angel investors and an Industrial Research Assistance Program…

Issue Infectious disease control programs remain inefficient in many low-income countries due, in part, to a lack of accurate diagnoses at point-of-care (POC), improper clinical management and delayed, incomplete and inaccurate information available to health program managers (HPMs). Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are considered a viable approach to deliver highly accurate diagnoses of both malaria and…in the data-driven decision-making process. Solution The project was conducted in Geita District, Tanzania, to test using a mobile device integrated with information services to interpret RDTs for malaria and syphilis, and to collect and transmit health information from peripheral point-of-care facilities to the district, regional and national levels in real time. Fionet is designed to assist peripheral healthcare workers in processing and interpreting RDTs, as well as in collecting and transmitting clinical data to a cloud information service by means of…system, and collected data on over 6,000 patients in the course of eight weeks. Public health managers were able to log into the portal and review cases uploaded, aggregated and organized in predefined reports, enabling them to make recommendations about program management, including monitoring of RDT processing in the field. After the encouraging results of…

IssueIn Togo, women face significant barriers to accessing family planning resources. Low uptake of contraceptives has contributed to high rates of maternal mortality and unintended pregnancy. The Togolese Government is committed to raising the contraceptive coverage rate to 24.3%; however, the national rate of 18% falls significantly short of this target and remains as low …and enroll women into potentially life changing family planning programs. At the clinic level, Integrate Health improved resource supply by: ensuring an effective and consistent supply chain for family planning commodities, improving supply chain management through ongoing training, eliminating point of care user fees to remove financial barriers to access, and training clinical staff through…

Philips and Grand Challenges Canada have signed a repayable grant agreement to scale the manufacturing and distribution of the Philips Children’s Respiration Monitor (also known as ChARM) to make it affordable and accessible for community-based health workers in low-resource settings throughout the world. ChARM has the potential to assist community health workers in establishing a more accurate measurement of a sick…Organization (WHO) have made pneumonia a focus area in efforts to reduce child mortality.The repayable grant, matched by Philips, will finance the market launch of ChARM and support the development of the next generation of the device, which is planned to include pulse oximetry. The agreement also aims to ensure global access in low- and…