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‘Uncomfortable and disgusting’: Uganda’s 1.2m unwanted condoms
The government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on female prophylactics, but poor take-up is sparking concerns of a rise in HIV infections.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- public health
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Revolutionary malaria tests have unexpected downsides
The use of RDTs skyrocketed after the World Health Organization in 2010 recommended that all suspected cases of malaria be confirmed by a test before treatment; roughly 314 million tests were procured in 2014. Together with ACTs, they have transformed malaria treatment in poor countries.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- public health
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Only 3% of world’s healthcare workers are in Africa
Something needs to be done, as Africa has 24% of the world’s burden of diseases but only 3% of the global health workforce.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Rethinking the Flush Toilet: It’s Time to Move Sanitation Infrastructure Off the Grid
Virginia Gardiner, inventor of the Loowatt toilet system, says sanitation infrastructure has to move off the grid, just as mobile communications did in the 20th century. She points to a growing number of companies, including her own, that are piloting the provision of non-sewered sanitation to households thorough container-based sanitation, a system that presents the most viable alternative for urban areas in need of sanitation solutions.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care, Social Enterprise, WASH
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Malaria test adapted to predict treatment side-effects
While most patients who receive the drug of choice (artemisinin artesunate) against malaria recuperate, a small number (less than 5 per cent) develop a serious and often fatal anaemia called post-artesunate delayed haemolysis (PADH) within a month of treatment.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Runaway Trains of Thought: How Boosting Cognitive Bandwidth Can Fight Poverty
Cognitive bandwidth allows humans to reason, focus and resist impulses – and unfortunately, we have only a limited amount of it. Everyone struggles to make decisions when they run low on cognitive bandwidth, but the added stress of poverty consumes more of it. Creating simple ways to free this bandwidth, whether through money or time, can elevate helpful anti-poverty programs into transformative ones, according to ideas42.
- Categories
- Health Care
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As warming brings more malaria, Kenya moves treatment closer to home
With just a medical kit and a mobile phone, health volunteers diagnose villagers with malaria in their own homes.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Internet of Living Things
Volunteers around the world and pocket-size genomic sequencers could play an increasing role in protecting global health and ecosystems.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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