While renewing call for applications, GSK and Save the Children have announced previous winners of the Health Innovation Awards are attracting
interest and support from national governments to help improve survival
rates of newborns and children under five in developing countries.
Six
months after receiving a share of the 2013 Healthcare Innovation Award,
five organisations based in developing countries are helping shape
national health agendas and influencing approaches to healthcare for
children and newborns.
One
of the winners, MicroClinic Technologies Ltd., was awarded $100,000 for
‘ZiDi™, a mobile health management system, which has now been adopted
by the Kenya Ministry of Health. The system is being used as part of the
national e-health platform due to its ability to improve medicine
supply, service quality and resource accountability for child
healthcare. It will be rolled out across 5,000 public health facilities
starting next year.
Muso,
a community-led organisation in Mali that helps tackle the issue of
poverty-related child mortality, also received $100,000 to support its
programme which aims to quickly identify women and children in need of
healthcare. The award money is being used to help reach 77,000 people
across the region and has inspired the Mali Ministry of Health to invite
Muso to help draft its five-year strategic plan for scaling up national
community-based healthcare delivery.
Previous
innovations recognised by the Healthcare Innovation Award are also
being implemented across borders through collaboration, ensuring that
ideas that may help save children’s lives are being shared. The
top-prize winner from 2013 was a low cost Continuous Positive Airway
Pressure (CPAP) kit, developed by Friends of Sick Children (FOSC) in
Malawi. This device helps premature and newborn babies suffering from
distress breathe more easily. With funding from the Award, and backing
from the Ministry of Health in Malawi, FOSC is now sharing this
technology with teaching hospitals in Tanzania, Zambia and South Africa.
This technology has the potential to save the lives of 178,000 African
children each year if implemented continent-wide.
Organisations
from across the developing world can now apply for this year’s
Healthcare Innovation Award. Applications must be for innovative
healthcare approaches that have resulted in tangible improvements to
under-5 child survival rates, which are sustainable and have the
potential to be scaled-up and replicated. This year, special interest
and attention will be given to work that aims to increase the quality
of, or access to, healthcare for newborns.
Ramil Burden, Vice President, Africa and Developing Countries, GSK, said:
“The success stories we’re hearing from last year’s winners, just six
months since receiving their funding, are truly inspiring and we want to
help replicate this success. When it comes to improving access to
quality healthcare, no single organisation has all the answers and we
need to continuously look for new and different ideas, wherever they
might be. Our award recognises that often the best solutions to
development challenges come from people living with them and through
partnerships we can help scale up local solutions to create global
impacts.
Dr Sam Agbo, Head of Health, Save the Children said:
“This year we’re particularly searching for innovations that are
helping to improve the health of newborns in the developing world. Every
year, almost three million babies die during their first month of life.
But many of these deaths are preventable with the right resources and
care in place. We must find different approaches, informed by first-hand
experience, to address this issue. This Award provides a platform for
working in collaboration, which will ultimately help to save the lives
of some of the world’s most vulnerable children.”
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