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Issue Infection resulting from unclean conditions is a leading cause of maternal and newborn deaths in developing countries. Facility-based births are recommended as an effective strategy to improve the quality of care at childbirth. However, health facilities in resource-poor settings often lack access to adequate staff, training, sterile supplies and infrastructure required to provide clean and safe births. Scalable and sustainable distribution of simple, proven technology solutions for resource-poor health institutions continues to be a serious development roadblock. Solution In India, Ayzh, a social enterprise, has developed a Clean Birth Kit to help women in…than 80% of respondents in hospitals strongly agreed that the delivery kit made a difference in their delivery. The project has been approved for a loan of up to $1 million in matched funds from Grand Challenges Canada, to develop a new model for product distribution across the Indian market in three states. Ayzh aims…

Issue An estimated 884 million people worldwide lack access to a safe source of drinking water, with approximately a third residing in Sub-Saharan Africa. In rural Kenya, the main water purification technology available is boiling water but, for many Kenyans, this method is cost-prohibitive and limited by the availability of raw materials. Solution Innovative Canadians for Change (ICChange) has developed a ceramic water filter technology…production facility in Kitale, marketing and selling filters at an affordable price to at-need populations. Outcome CeraMaji Co. is nearing full financial sustainability and was able to recoup more than 75% of the costs of CWF production and rely less on external funding. The team projects it will achieve full sustainability within the next three…

Issue The province of Northern Samar in the Philippines has poor access to safe water. This province lacks infrastructure for water treatment and only two of its 47 villages have safe water sources. During floods, its evacuation centres are unable to provide residents seeking help with an adequate supply of water. Solution The project sought to improve access to safe water, reduce the incidence of waterborne diseases, and raise public awareness on health and hygiene by…of other contaminants (e.g., very high water hardness). They have developed a project website that provides information on the project in lay language, a video and written promotional material. They have also published research articles in Environment Systems and Decisions, Clean Technologies and Environment Policy and two articles in Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS), in April and June 2015. The team intends to apply for Phase II Transition To Scale funding to accomplish the following: ·         improve the bio filter product…

Issue According to UNICEF, almost one billion children regularly experience physical punishment at home. Changing entrenched beliefs that perpetuate this situation is a daunting challenge, as these beliefs are often handed down across generations, reinforced by laws, supported by religious interpretations and embedded in traditions. Approaches are needed that can provide parents with a new…and delivery process. Eight Local Facilitators (LF) from Kosovo, Kenya and Canada attended the training session and, following the Advanced Training, they planned similar, four-day training sessions for other LFs in their home communities. All LFs were trained in the ethical administration of standardized pre- and post-test questionnaires to parents and were asked to administer…further expansion in other countries. On the basis of their success, additional Save The Children offices have invested in the laddered training model and are already scaling up PDEP. The team is considering an application to Phase II Transition To Scale (TTS) funding to implement the innovations, with the objective of scaling the program in…

…children in developing countries are treated in the private sector, including through drug shops. Other studies report that between 39% and 53% of people who seek treatment for an illness consult a private health provider first, including general merchandise sellers, pharmacies, for-profit providers and drug sellers. Many private sector providers are unlicensed and unsupervised. They often diagnose illnesses incorrectly, sell reduced doses of medicines, expired drugs and drugs that are not recommended by national guidelines. Solution The objective of the project was to evaluate the feasibility of implementing Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM) for the management of childhood illnesses in unlicensed drug shops in Uganda. Engaging private drug sellers to…children under five years of age is amoxicillin. At baseline, only 16.3% of children with pneumonia received any kind of amoxicillin but, after the intervention, 66.1% received amoxicillin. The team plans to scale up the project in the Kamuli district and beyond in Uganda. They are also preparing manuscripts to disseminate information about the project.

Issue India accounts for 25% of the global incidence of tuberculosis (TB). While ‘mystery clients’ (standardized patients [SP]) have been used to assess and ensure quality of care in low- and middle-income settings for health conditions (such as angina, asthma and dysentery) and for health services (such as family planning), this approach has not been tested …

Issue According to World Health Organization statistics, tobacco is a global pandemic that results in six million deaths per year. Smoking is responsible for 30% of all cancer-related deaths and 85% of all lung cancers, in addition to being linked to cardiovascular disease and overall decreased health. Effective intranasal vaccines against nicotine require potent but safe mucosal adjuvants to enhance specific …IgG in bronchoaveolar lavages (BAL) and in distal mucosa. These antibodies are essential as a first line of defence in neutralizing nicotine. Moreover, the vaccine does not promote an allergic response, as no anti-nicotine IgE was detected in the sera of vaccinated mice. Preliminary data from histopathological analyses of tissues indicated that the vaccine did…related to cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. With these promising results, the project team plans to optimize and improve the production of the vaccine to make it ready for pre-clinical and eventually human trials.    Knowledge was widely disseminated in conference presentations and publications. The Northern Cancer Foundation awarded a grant of $230,000 to support four years’ work on the project.

…as malaria and arboviruses) are major challenges in Africa. In Tanzania, these diseases affect 12 million and kill about 70,000 people annually. While ongoing interventions are having significant impact, techniques for mapping intra-village variations that would allow targeting of hotspots of residual transmission are lacking. Solution The project aimed to create a geo-information system to map intra-village variations in the distribution and density of malaria vectors. To accomplish the study objectives, the team surveyed and mapped the…more or less abundant within the villages through observational changes, and distribution of the environmental variables and anthropogenic features. These changes were precisely and reliably recorded and updated by village community members, who can associate mosquito abundance and the environmental and anthropogenic variables in their locale. The project team found relying on community knowledge to…

…caused by a nematode parasite known as Wuchereria bancrofti. In Tanzania, Culex quinquefasciatus is an important vector and also considered as the most important nuisance mosquito. Due to its insecticide tolerance, insecticide-treated mosquito nets have proven to be ineffective in controlling the mosquito. Solution The project, carried out in Tanzania, involved introducing a natural oviposition attractant from grass infusion to lure gravid Culex quinquefasciatus to breed in biolarvicide-treated sites to disrupt development of its immature stages, including eggs and larvae. In the study areas, experiments were undertaken to determine mosquito abundance and transmission indices of Wuchereria bancrofti. The…grass infusion as an oviposition attractant and neem seed cake extract as a biolarvicide. The findings showed that Culex quinquefasciatus was the most abundant mosquito caught, accounting for 90.3% (n=38,655) of the collected mosquitoes. One out of 1,400 Culex quinquefasciatus dissected for filarial infection was carrying an infective parasite-causing lymphatic filariaisis. While using the polymerase…

Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death around the world. In India alone, there are nearly 62 million diabetic patients, a number that is expected to rise to 80 million by 2030. There is a large unmet need to provide an affordable, simple and intelligent blood glucose monitoring solution to patients and healthcare…data to specialists, along with public health agencies. After an initial proof-of-concept grant under Grand Challenges Canada’s Stars in Global Health Program, Jana Care is now scaling up the development of the Aina device, a mobile blood monitoring tool that plugs into a mobile phone. The device turns any mobile phone into a basic blood…measure blood glucose and five other basic blood parameters. The device and platform also integrates decision support and lifestyle tracking tools with a web-based patient management system for remote physician feedback. Jana Care will be undertaking pilots with both the Indian Ministry of Health and with two large hospital chains and the Public Health Foundation…