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A Corridor of Contrasts: Urban Health in West Africa

  • Mary Burket
May 27, 2015
 Pinky Patel}

This week, African Strategies for Health (ASH)—a USAID-funded, MSH-led project that identifies public health best practices in sub-Saharan Africa and advocates for their adoption—has been attending the International Conference on Urban Health from May 24 through 27 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. At the conference, ASH has been sharing A Corridor of Contrasts, a report compiling photographs and stories of the people living along the West African Abidjan to Lagos transport corridor, which crosses Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria.

World TB Day 2014: Reaching the 3 Million

  • Pedro Suarez, MD
March 24, 2014
 Warren Zelman.}

Azmara Ashenafi, a 35-year-old woman from the Amhara region of Ethiopia, was diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) and placed on treatment. She was fortunate. Many people with TB are missed by health systems altogether. But Azmara’a treatment wasn’t helping. Despite taking medicine for months, her symptoms persisted and became more severe. In many places, her story would have a sad ending—TB is one of the top three leading causes of death for women 15 to 44 in low- and middle-income countries.

Commemorating World TB Day 2014 Around the World

  • Management Sciences for Health
March 24, 2014
 MSH staff.}

MSH staff are commemorating World TB Day through awareness-raising activities around the globe, including in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Here are photos (some from 2013) with activities this year. Afghanistan - TB CARE I

Ghanaian Prayer Camp Leader Now Promotes Medical Treatment for TB: "Not a Spiritual Disease"

  • Bismarck Owusu Adusei
March 25, 2013
 B. Adusei/MSH.}

Tuberculosis (TB) control in Ghana is challenging: detection of TB cases is low, and TB mortality rates high. In many communities, like Lower Manya Krobo District, these challenges are compounded by the popular belief that TB is a spiritual disease. Many Ghanaians who contract TB seek healing in prayer camps and shrines, rather than going to health facilities for testing and treatment. By the time these patients seek medical care, it often is too late to recover and avert death.

MSH Commemorating World TB Day

  • Management Sciences for Health
March 20, 2013
 MSH.}

Sunday, March 24, 2013, is World TB Day, and MSH staff and partners are promoting global efforts to stop TB throughout the week.Here are highlights from some of our activities around the world:The Afghanistan TB CARE I team is working with the national TB program (NTP) to conduct celebration events at 290 health facilities and communities in 13 USAID-supported provinces. TB messages will be aired through local telephone companies to approximately one million people throughout the nation.

10 Takeaways from Beijing: Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research

  • Jonathan D. Quick, MD, MPH
December 05, 2012
 HSR-Symposium.org}

Last month, I joined over 1,800 participants from more than 100 countries in Beijing at the Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research. We've made some concrete steps forward since we last met in Montreux, Switzerland, two years ago, among them the launch of a new research society Health Systems Global. Central topics of this year's discussions included: “Inclusion and Innovation towards Universal Health Coverage” (UHC), the symposium theme, and monitoring and evaluation.Here are my top 10 takeaways from the symposium:1.

Global Health Impact: On the Road Toward UHC

November 01, 2012
Health for All.

The October edition of MSH's Global Health Impact newsletter (subscribe), features stories of people, communities, and countries on the road toward universal health coverage (UHC). The vital role of the essential package for health impact "Universal health coverage has two fundamental goals: maximizing health impact and eliminating — or at least reducing — impoverishment and bankruptcy due to healthcare costs," blogs MSH President Jonathan D. Quick.

Community Health Worker Becomes Role Model for Family Planning

  • N Santuah
May 17, 2012
 Niagia Santuah/MSH.}

Apegnon Akpene is a 20-year-old mother of three children: four-year-old Joseph, two-year-old Romance, and one-month-old Akou Jacqeline. Since attending USAID's Action for West Africa Region, Phase II (AWARE II)  community health worker training, she has become a client of family planning -- and a role model for family planning in her community.Akpene is one of three community health workers in Diguegue, a small village of about 800 people in the hills of the southwestern forest separating Togo and Ghana. Distance and difficult terrain are major hindrances to accessing

Access to Medicines through Universal Health Coverage: Golden Ring or Trojan Horse?

  • Jonathan D. Quick, MD, MPH
November 18, 2011

Over the past 25 years, the number of people worldwide with access to essential medicines has more than doubled. Yet more than 30 percent of the world’s population still does not have reliable access to essential medicines.

First Pan-African Congress on Universal Health Coverage Convenes

  • Nkem Wellington
November 16, 2011

Over 100 practitioners and global health experts are gathering in Accra, Ghana for the First Annual Pan-African Congress on Universal Health Coverage, Nov. 15-17. The conference will focus on creating a movement for universal health coverage in Africa through health insurance.

Universal Immunization through Universal Health Coverage?

  • Jonathan D. Quick, MD, MPH
August 09, 2011

A child born in Ghana today will most likely receive a full schedule of immunizations, and her chances of surviving past the age of five are far better than they were a decade ago. Today Ghana boasts a coverage rate for infant vaccination of 90 percent and hasn’t seen an infant die of measles since 2003.Ghana has been expanding primary health care by bringing services to people’s doorsteps since the 1980s, and since the early 2000s has done so in the context of a commitment to universal health coverage.

Simple, Low-Cost Interventions Save Babies’ Lives

  • I Rockson
July 13, 2011

Safoura Amadu is the 19 year-old mother of Ibrahim, who was born preterm on March 8, 2011 at 1.46 kg (3.2 pounds). Baby Ibrahim did not grow well in his first days of life. Safoura was very worried---her first child had died at birth---and she did not want to lose Ibrahim, her second child. Safoura sought help and when Ibrahim was ten days old she and the baby were admitted to the new Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) center at the Maternité Issakha Gazoby in Niger.

Looking for mHealth Sustainability? Look for Country Ownership and See how Africa is Leading the Way

  • P Bocock
December 07, 2010

There have been a collection of high-profile and well attended mobile health (mHealth) “summits” held around the world in the past few years, including last month’s second annual mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C. (headlined by Bill Gates and Ted Turner), but the really interesting conversations are happening on the African continent.


Source URL: http://www.msh.org/blog-posts/1399