Determined to lessen the malaria burden, the United Republic of Tanzania has announced the launch of its national Zero Malaria Starts With Me campaign, becoming the 11th nation to join the ever-growing Pan-African movement. Tanzania is among the highest-burden countries with 93% of the population at risk of malaria The campaign was launched during the…
Important gene variants found in certain African populations
In the nearly 20 years since the Human Genome Project was completed, experts in genetic variants increasingly have raised concerns about the overemphasis on studying people of European descent when performing large population studies. A study appearing October 31 in the journal Cell aims to address some of this disparity by focusing on populations living in rural…
Health Foundation lauds approval of Ebola Vaccine
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) has lauded the decision by the WHO to finally recommend the highly effective Merck vaccine against Ebola The vaccine was first used with very positive results in 2015 during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa that killed over 11,300 people. Since then it has been administered in multiple outbreaks under…
SDG: Global Health Progress launched to drive cross-sectoral collaborations
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) has launched Global Health Progress, a knowledge hub aimed at driving new and existing collaborations to support the SDGs, with a particular focus on Sustainable development goal number 17. This knowledge hub collates industry efforts – from individual company programs to initiatives between multiple IFPMA member companies –…
Ethiopia joins join Zero Malaria Starts with Me Movement
Ethiopia has announced the launch of their own Zero Malaria Starts with Me campaign to help accelerate malaria elimination. Launched by His Excellency Mr Demeke Mekonnen, Deputy Prime Minister of Ethiopia, the nation becomes the 10th nation to join the continent-wide movement. The launch, which took place in Addis Ababa was attended by high-level dignitaries, ambassadors, representatives of…
African experts named finalists for 2019 Recognizing Excellence around Champions of Health Awards
Two Ugandans, a Kenyan, a Cameroonian and a Congolese were named Monday as finalists among a group of 15 frontline health workers and innovators for 2019 Recognising Excellence around Champions of Health, REACH Awards. The biennial REACH Awards celebrate frontline health workers who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership, courage and commitment in the field of disease elimination.…
New initiatives to fight Schistosomiasis
A leading science and technology company,Merck, has announced that it is intensifying the Research & Development efforts for developing and providing access to transformative and sustainable health solutions to fight schistosomiasis. Through its Global Health Institute, Merck has established a portfolio of innovative and collaborative projects for new or adapted treatments, sensitive schistosomiasis diagnostics, technologies…
2.2 billion people suffer vision impairment
At least 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment or blindness, of which over 1 billion cases could have been prevented or have yet to be addressed More than 1 billion people worldwide are living with vision impairment because they do not get the care they need for conditions like short and far-sightedness, glaucoma and…