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Fighting a Disease without Borders
Although malaria is preventable and treatable, the World Health Organization reports that malaria affects between 300 and 500 million people per year. And malaria still claims the lives of more than 1 million children every year. Malaria’s impact on health systems and fragile economies is devastating to developing countries and their people. The fight against the disease is plagued by financial limitations, lack of community awareness, and drug-resistant malaria strains.
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We Are Stopping TB
Commonly overlooked in a world where modern diseases remain at the forefront, tuberculosis (TB) claims four lives every minute. With its reemergence in the past few decades, it is now considered a pandemic emergency.
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The President's Malaria Initiative: Bringing Effective Malaria Medicines to Angola
In 2006, the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) was successful in bringing first-line malaria medicines to the health systems of Angola—a nation struggling to survive after three decades of civil war.
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The Emergency Distribution of Coartem for the Uganda Ministry of Health under the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI)
MSH's Rational Pharmaceutical Management (RPM) Plus Program began to support the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) in Uganda in 2006. Despite problems in the availability and supply of the first-line antimalarial treatment Coartem, RPM Plus was able to mobilize and implement a successful plan to process, package, and distribute the drug to more than 200 health sub-districts in August 2006.
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MSH Works with USAID and Haitian Ministry of Health to Sponsor a World AIDS Day Variety Show on National Television
Management Sciences for Health (MSH), USAID-Pwojè Djanm, and the Haitian Ministry of Health and Population have sponsored the preparation and recording of Spectacle
de Variétés – Ruban Rouge,
or Red Ribbon Variety Show, to support World AIDS Day 2007.
The show featured numerous Haitian artists, performances, interviews,
educational messages, and personal testimonials. The Spectacle
de Variétés – Ruban Rouge was aired on
Haitian national television on December 1.
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Institutional Capacity Building: Regional Expertise for Local Health Issues
Confronting the challenge of providing technical assistance in reproductive health, child health and advocacy best practices to demanding clients in multiple countries, organizations are taking time to focus inward on their own management and leadership structures, with the support of the USAID-funded project Action for West Africa Region – Reproductive Health (AWARE-RH).
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Youth Mentors Spark Successful Youth-friendly Programs
The Integrated Primary Health Care (IPHC) Project initiated an innovative peer mentoring program that promises positive impact and sustainability. By sharing stories and advice with their often misinformed and misguided peers, trained youth mentors offer information and support to help young people make good decisions and protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies, violence, and infection with HIV and other STIs.
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Community Partnership Creates Cleaner Hospital in Malawi
The corridor floors of Salima District Hospital glisten in the afternoon sun and fresh air blows through sparkling clean windows—indications of the hospital’s ranking as one of the cleanest in Malawi. Local newspaper clippings hang on message boards praising the hospital's new standards of cleanliness. One headline reads, “Salima District Hospital, Clean at Last!”
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Dr. Iwamura’s Approach to Health Development and His Inspiration for Management Sciences for Health
Noboru Iwamura was dug out of the rubble of a concrete building less than a mile from ground zero three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, the only survivor of his high-school class. After several years' recovery from the effects of radiation, he became committed to making a contribution to peaceful development in Asia.
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The Private Sector Helps Fight Malnutrition
With support from MSH, community therapeutic care (CTC)—an initiative that mobilizes communities and health clinics to identify and treat severe malnutrition—has expanded to many districts in Malawi. MSH has supported CTC in five districts, dramatically increasing access to community-based care and improving cure rates among malnourished children. Given this success, the Mbalachanda Tobacco Estate called on MSH to help proactively address child malnutrition in Mbalachanda communities.
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Supporting Sustainable Malaria Control
In addition to bolstering service delivery and supply chains, MSH helps prevent and control malaria through systems-strengthening assistance that is vital to effective and sustainable malaria control.
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Using Performance-Based Financing to Improve Health Services
Organizations and countries throughout the world are increasingly using performance-based financing (PBF) to help make improvements in health and development. PBF links an organization’s funding to its achievement of agreed-upon targets and may include bonuses if the organization exceeds those targets. MSH has managed performance-based grants and contracts for health services on behalf of funding agencies and has also provided technical assistance to many governments, private organizations, and funding agencies to help them develop and implement their own performance-based initiatives. This includes strengthening their ability to manage grants and contracts, estimate the cost of health services, set fees and performance indicators, and improve health information systems and financial management and accounting systems.
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World TB Day 2007: TB Anywhere Is TB Everywhere
World Tuberculosis Day, commemorated on March 24, encourages awareness of the international health threat presented by tuberculosis (TB) and recognizes the collaborative efforts of countries involved in fighting this infectious disease. MSH contributes to worldwide efforts to combat TB by engaging communities to improve their management systems and leadership skills, which are essential to effective TB control.
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Taking Charge of Their Health
International Women's Day, commemorated on March 8, connects women around the world and inspires them to achieve their full potential by celebrating the collective power of women past, present, and future across developed and developing countries. Throughout the world, MSH has helped to improve the lives of women by working to improve their health and the health of their families; our PRISM Project in Guinea is just one example. Through PRISM, a new local governance strategy that actively includes women is taking shape with a focus on reinvigorating and restoring people’s trust in their health care system.
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Helping Pakistan Rebuild after 2005 Earthquake
Through the USAID-supported PRIDE project, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), MSH, and JHPIEGO have started working with Pakistan's health sector to improve conditions in earthquake-affected communities. The focus of the work is directed toward improving financial and human resources, restoring and expanding access to and quality of primary health care services, and increasing demand for such services.
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Accelerating Birth Spacing Practices in Afghanistan
"Eight months ago, talking about contraception was a taboo. Nowadays people easily talk about birth spacing practice and its importance. No matter where people get together, birth spacing has become a value within our people and they know it's the most effective and quick way to reduce maternal and child death."— The woleswal (mayor) of Farza,
a Pashto area in rural Kabul Province, Afghanistan |
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Family Planning Takes off in Nabunturan
Four days after giving birth to her sixth child, Lenny Barroga decided to undergo bilateral tubal ligation, a surgical procedure that “ties” woman's fallopian tubes to block future pregnancies.
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IPHC Grantee Provides Holistic Care for Orphans
With grants provided by MSH's Integrated Primary Health Care (IPHC) Project and funded by PEPFAR, Khanyiselani Development Trust (KDT) in Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa uses ecotherapy (or “nature therapy”) to provide orphans and vulnerable children with vital and high-quality psychosocial support.
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Nicaraguan NGO Achieves 95% Self-Sustainability
Together, with their dedicated staff and with the help of PRONICASS-MSH, a USAID-funded management and leadership program, Profamilia has grown from 56% self-sustainability in 2003 to 95% in the first quarter of 2006, guaranteeing the continued provision of more than 150,000 maternal and child health services and a dramatic increase in family planning uptake.
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Maximizing Yields in Health Uganda Medical School Trains Doctors for the Realities of their Future Career
“Leadership training is planning for the future.” New doctors who accept posts in the rural communities where the shortage of medical professionals is especially severe often find themselves in positions of authority with limited management and leadership experience. MSH has partnered with Makerere University Medical School in Uganda to give future doctors experience as leaders in a community and expose them to community life.
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CTC Project Impact Reaches Beyond Malnourished Children
By helping the nutrition coordinators to travel more efficiently, they and the project are able to more effectively follow up and monitor project activities. Since the project started in late January 2006, it has facilitated scaling up the CTC services from 5 to 59 facilities, allowing the enrollment of 2,760 severely malnourished children into the nutrition rehabilitation program.
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Improving
Health in Challenging Environments
There is growing recognition that health
plays a key role in stabilizing and rebuilding the world’s
most troubled nations—those that have been ravaged by years
of conflict, disease, poverty, and natural disasters.
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Working
Globally for Access to Effective Malaria Treatment
This story is part one of a three-part
series written in commemoration of Africa Malaria Day 2006.
The Roll Back Malaria Partnership supports global events every
year on April 25 to draw attention to the world's malaria burden,
the overwhelming majority of which is borne by sub-Saharan
Africa. This year's Africa Malaria Day theme is “Get your ACT
Together” — referring to ACT (artemisinin-based combination
therapy), the most, and sometimes only effective treatment
for malaria.
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World
Health Day 2006: Working Together for Health
The current crisis of human resources
for health (HRH) has the potential to not only reverse health
gains made in the past decade, but also to contribute to the
collapse of the health system in some countries. The World
Health Organization (WHO) is raising awareness about the HRH
crisis in part by making HRH the theme of World Health Day
2006: Working Together for Health.
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DOTS
Expansion Brings Hope to Afghan TB Patients
Seventeen-year-old Wasil is one of the
76,000 Afghans with a new, active tuberculosis (TB) case this
year; without treatment half of those infected will succumb
to the disease. As a child, Wasil watched his mother die of
TB, but when her all-too-familiar symptoms—persistent
cough, loss of appetite, weight loss, and fever—frighteningly
became his own, Wasil had access to a Comprehensive Health
Center (CHC) operated by IMC, a REACH NGO grantee. At the CHC,
sputum smear examination confirmed a diagnosis of TB, and Wasil
began directly observed therapy, short course (DOTS).
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Keeping
the funds flowing to HIV/AIDS Programs
World AIDS Day, December 1,
2005
Financial management is the Achilles heel for rapidly scaling
up civil society’s role in mitigating the HIV/AIDS pandemic,
especially when the donor community is caught between the “rock” of
getting the money out there and the “hard place” of timely
and accurate financial reporting to keep the funds flowing.
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Saving
Lives from Malaria: Expanding Access to Medicines in Cambodia
Each year, thousands of children die
from treatable illnesses in areas with few resources and little
medical knowledge. One Cambodian mother's story is a tragic
example of why expanding access to medicines is critical to
decrease child mortality.
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Strengthening
Laboratories in Uganda
"I have learnt that a laboratory
service is the engine oil that lubricates the 'mechanical system'
of the hospital, without which the engine breaks down. As a
leader, I will ensure that the oil is always available."
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A Tree of Dreams Bears Fruit in a Nicaraguan Community
In communities traumatized by civil
war and hurricanes, it takes concerted effort to bring people
back together to collectively rebuild and create a better future.
Recognizing this need to develop local governance and the capacity
to improve, USAID presented MSH’s Management and Leadership
Program with a difficult request in 2003: generate social capital
within Waslala, Nicaragua as groundwork for advancing child
health, nutrition, and education in the rural area.
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Empowering
Leaders Throughout Mozambique's Health Sector
The Mozambican Ministry of Health (MOH)
used a new approach to improve service delivery over the past
two years—giving workers at all levels of the health sector
a chance to offer solutions to issues ranging from budget details
to equipment sterilization. Though such issues don't usually
inspire an outpouring of enthusiasm or creativity from employees,
MOH managers have recently seen just such a response from their
staff.
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Using
New Technology to Improve Services at Senegalese Health
Centers
Working in conjunction with Management
Sciences for Health (MSH) under a USAID-funded maternal health
and family planning project, a local reproductive health coordinator
used a personal data assistant (PDA or “palm pilot”) to record
data and present a regional health committee with the problem.
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Building
Integrated HIV/AIDS Services into Malawi's Health Sector
Located at the district hospital in
Ntcheu, Malawi, this new health center is part of a USAID-funded
program led by Management Sciences for Health (MSH) to integrate
voluntary counseling and testing services with the provision
of anti-retroviral drugs (ARV) to HIV/AIDS patients in the
region.
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Think
Big. Start Small. Act Now.
A team of fifteen physicians from Afghanistan
arrived in Egypt in May 2005, for a tour of the Leadership
Development Program (LDP). The Afghan group met with health
unit teams and community members to hear about how the LDP
teams had improved health indicators in the area.
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Closing
the Gap by Strengthening Health Systems
In many countries, the health system
is undermined not only by a lack of resources, but a lack of
systems to effectively manage the people, medicines, money,
and information that contribute to improved health outcomes.
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Staff
Shortages Hinder Patient Care
The Executive Director of a major hospital
in Kenya faced a daunting challenge. How could she possibly
scale up antiretroviral (ARV) treatments to meet the targets
set by the Government when she had a 50% vacancy rate among
the nursing staff?
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The
Unsung Heroes of Tuberculosis Control
Tuberculosis (TB) is a public health
emergency: 8 million people worldwide develop active TB each
year. Diagnosing patients with TB, by examining their sputum
under the microscope to detect tuberculosis bacteria, is pivotal
to the control of this disease.
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MSH’s
REACH Program is Building Strong Systems to Improve Health
and Save Lives in Afghanistan
In partnership with the Ministry of
Public Health, MSH’s USAID-funded REACH Program has established
Provincial Health Coordinating Committees (PHCC) in 16 of Afghanistan’s
34 provinces. The PHCCs are putting systems in place to track
medicines; detect disease outbreaks; monitor service operations
and finances, and manage human resources. Without the vital
systems that MSH’s REACH Program is working on, women and children
will continue to die from preventable causes.
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Increasing
Access to Quality Essential Medicines in Tanzania
To improve Tanzanian's access to quality
medicines, the Ministry of Health and Tanzanian Food and Drugs
Authority (TFDA), supported by MSH, have created a pilot program
to establish a network of privately owned accredited drug dispensing
outlets (ADDOs), or duka la dawa muhimu (essential
drugs shops). |
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Virtual
Pathways Leading Africa’s Fight Against HIV/AIDS
The Virtual Leadership Development Program
(VLDP) works to help strengthen health managers and their teams
to address real organizational challenges. One such organization
is Kenerela, a network of religious leaders with HIV working
throughout Kenya to increase HIV/AIDS awareness and address
stigma, denial, and discrimination issues. |
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A
Day of Birth in Angola: Improving Quality of Health Services
in the Worst of Circumstances
The average Angolan woman bears 7.3
children, usually beginning in her teens. Here, 250 out of
1000 children born alive die before their fifth birthday. Here,
you do not ask a woman simply how many children she has, you
ask how many live children she has. |
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The
Mosquito and the Millions
As part of the AWARE Project, MSH works
with regional health institutions in West Africa to improve
access to quality health services and create a regional response
to child and reproductive health challenges. While “it takes
a village” to raise a child, it takes a region to protect people
against the effects of rapid urbanization, transnational pandemics
and population growth. |
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Saving
Women’s Lives in Afghanistan
Every year, 23,000 Afghan mothers die
in childbirth. What should be one of life’s most joyous events
instead turns tragic, when one in six women die annually during
labor. Countless numbers of children die with them.
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DR
Congo: Advance Africa Addresses the Needs of Women and
Families
When Mama Yvette, a pregnant woman
in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DR Congo), went into labor, she was forced to walk alone through
the night in order to reach the Kabongo maternity clinic. She
gave birth to quadruplets the next morning.
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HIV/AIDS: Scaling Up is
about Management
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Managing
People: Kenya Addresses Staff Shortages in Health Facilities
The available pool of skilled health
workers in many developing countries has severely diminished
due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Strategically implementing human
capacity development approaches, MSH along with the Kenyan
Ministry of Health, is working to reduce high staff vacancy
rates in health facilities in Mombassa. |
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Managing
Medicines: Haitians Receive Urgently Needed HIV/AIDS Medicines
Access to HIV/AIDS-related medicines
is severely limited in many developing countries thereby decreasing
the span and quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS.
In Haiti, where thousands of HIV-infected individuals are without
treatment, MSH is working to guarantee the continuous availability
of HIV/AIDS medicines in several health facilities. |
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Managing
Money: Tanzania Rapidly Funds Innovative HIV/AIDS Projects
Around the world, millions of dollars
have been allocated to fight HIV/AIDS. National programs, however,
need sound financial management skills to disburse these funds
and to ensure appropriate use. In Tanzania, a rapid funding
program supported by MSH demonstrates the importance of efficient
resource management in the fight against AIDS. |
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Managing
Systems: Improving Use of Resources to Effectively Fight
AIDS in Uganda
To contain the spread and minimize the
impact of HIV/AIDS, several global initiatives are making large
amounts of financial and medical resources available. However,
without efficient health systems, their impact will be limited.
Therefore, MSH is assisting the Ugandan government to allocate
and utilize new HIV/AIDS resources in a strategic and effective
manner.
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Strengthening
Malaria Control Programs in the Hardest-hit Countries
Approximately 300 million people worldwide
are affected by malaria every year and more than one million
of them die from the disease. |
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The
Technical Cooperation (TC) Network: Finding Local Talent
through a Global Network
For the past twelve years, aid agencies
and businesses in Eastern Africa and Europe have called on
Nairobi-based MAER Associates for organizational development
assistance. Always on the go, MAER staff struggle to keep abreast
of new developments in their field while juggling the demands
of multiple clients. |
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Tanzania:
Building on Successes to Expand HIV/AIDS Programs
"We will expand, scale-up, and
cover more districts.but only in partnership with other [non-governmental
organizations] NGOs and the public sector." Staff from
the East African Development Communication Foundation (EADCF)
sit together in their office in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, nodding
in agreement as the director reflects on the group's successes
and describes how it will build on them to reach more Tanzanians
with crucial HIV/AIDS information. |
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Haiti:
Partnering to Expand HIV/AIDS Services
Coupled with the worst AIDS epidemic
in the western hemisphere, severe poverty and political upheaval,
providing HIV/AIDS services in Haiti is both a challenge and
an urgent need. Working with multiple donors committed to fighting
HIV/AIDS in Haiti, MSH's USAID-funded Health Services (HS)
2004 Project is actively supporting the establishment and scaling
up of HIV/AIDS services to a national level. |
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World Tuberculosis Day-profiles
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South
Africa: Reinforcing the Basics to Improve TB Management
After receiving training from MSH, South
African traditional healer Sylvia Fadane helps to ensure TB
patients complete treatment. |
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Afghanistan:
Trading Despair for Hope
Living in a remote village in Afghanistan,
this couple sacrificed everything to get the tuberculosis treatment
this young woman needed to stay alive. |
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Brazil:
Family Health Teams Make DOTS Work
In Brazil, this young man is motivated
to complete TB treatment by his family health team. |
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Kazakhstan:
Assuring the Quality of TB Drugs
Streamlining the drug procurement process
in Kazakhstan has helped the government purchase TB drugs from
reputable manufacturers at lower prices and higher quality. |
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International Women's Day-profiles
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Leadership
and Determination
Born in Rangoon, Burma in 1949, Dr.
San San Min, of MSH had a childhood of privilege and entitlement.
But she chose a life of service to those most in need. |
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An
Afghan Heroine
A medical doctor in Afghanistan, Dr.
Sohaila Seddiq survived the Taliban and has committed her life
to helping re-build her country. |
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Inspiring
Women to Face HIV with Optimism
50-year-old Salome Kombe is living with
HIV/AIDS in Tanzania |
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An
Afghan Nurse Midwife
Mortality figures as high as those in
Afghanistan can be hard to comprehend, but Razia Naeem Khliqi,
Master Trainer for community health workers in rural Afghanistan,
has seen the faces of the women and infants whose lives, and
deaths, they represent. |
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Antiretroviral
Treatment in Africa
A paper by Dr. Malcolm Bryant of Management
Sciences for Health was presented at the American Public Health
Association Conference in San Francisco last November. The
topic of this provocative presentation was whether widespread
resistance to antiretroviral agents is inevitable in Africa. |
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Getting
Medicines to the People of Tanzania
Tanzania is officially committed to
providing medicines free of charge through the public sector,
but public facilities regularly have gaps in stock. In addition,
approximately 75 percent of all Tanzanians live in rural areas
where essential drugs and basic medicines are often not available. |
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World
AIDS Day 2003
December 1 is World AIDS Day. For the
past 15 years, this day has been set aside to draw attention
to the battle against HIV/AIDS - and to help us focus on the
challenges ahead of us. |
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Traditional
Leaders in South Africa Encourage Healthy Behavior in Youth:
An HIV/AIDS Prevention Campaign
South Africa is home to the largest
number of HIV-positive people in the world. To protect their
community’s younger generation from the scourge of AIDS
and help prevent new infections, some village leaders
in South Africa’s impoverished Eastern Cape Province
are promoting abstinence. |
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Helping
Afghan Women and Children Get Basic Health Services
Through the USAID-funded REACH Program,
MSH is working with the Ministry of Health of Afghanistan to
ensure that an estimated 16.5 million people throughout Afghanistan
have access to a basic package of health services. |
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Getting
Medicines to the Neediest
MSH's Strategies for Enhancing Access
to Medicines (SEAM) Program is responding to the challenge
of improving access to essential medicines. With funding from
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, SEAM is working with
both the private and public sectors in selected developing
countries to improve the systems through which drugs are supplied. |
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Prioritizing
Maternal and Child Health in Afghanistan
Interview with Afghanistan's Deputy
Minister of Public Health, Dr. Ferozudeen Feroz |
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Increasing
the Visibility of Women's Health Needs
An interview with Susana Galdos for
International Women's Day, March 8, 2003 |
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Photo
Essay: Bringing Hope for Better Health: A Day in the Life
of an LIP Volunteer
The India Local Initiatives Program
has trained women in some of the poorest slums in India to
become community health leaders. Through these volunteers,
thousands of other women and their families have received critical
health services and been given the tools they need to take
charge of their own health. |
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Shaping
Women's Lives in Mpumalanga
Across South Africa, health care workers
are struggling to improve health services for women and children
and prevent needless deaths. In Mpumalanga Province, Piet Retief
Hospital offers such an example. |
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The
Face of AIDS in South Africa
The story of a young woman dying of
AIDS reveals the critical role of interventions such as transportation
to hospitals and the need for an adequate supply of drugs. |
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The
First Step in Rebuilding Afghanistan's Health Care System
After more than twenty three years of
war and conflict, much of the health services infrastructure
throughout Afghanistan has been completely destroyed. The Afghanistan
government and international donors see a national health survey
as a necessary first step in rebuilding the country's health
system. |
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Training
the Poor to Help Themselves:
A Community Health Approach in India
The India Local Initiatives Program
(India-LIP) is a community health model which, in just three
years, has trained almost 2,000 volunteers to provide health
services to over 200,000 people in some of the poorest and
most remote areas of India. |
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Using
New Weapons to Fight the TB War
The Zanempilo Project in the rural villages of South Africa's
Eastern Cape Province is proving that community mobilization
to combat health problems like TB is possible and crucial
to sustaining health improvements in under-resourced areas. |
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Cash
Registers Increase Hospital Revenues in Kenya
As part of a cost-sharing initiative aimed at improving the
quality and scale of health programs while controlling costs,
the government of Kenya introduced cash registers in hospitals
and health centers to great success. |
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Building
Sustainability: The Art of Crafting Business Plans
for Social Return on Investment
Reaching Bolivia's rural poor continues to be a major challenge
for the health sector, but the PROCOSI network of NGOs is
finding new ways not only to reach the poor, but to ensure
programs meet client needs and provide donors with return
on their investment. |
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Young
People Use Cameras to Speak Out for Change in South Africa
Finding ways to maintain hope amid the realities of township
life in Mdantsane, South Africa's second largest township,
is daunting, but young leaders there have taken a bold step
towards progress and change. |
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One
Woman's Perspective: Health in Afghanistan
Dr. Laurence Laumonier-Ickx is a French doctor who began
working in Afghanistan in 1980 to help communities improve
their health through basic education and provision of health
services. |
