Tatum Anderson

Chowdhury champions constant learning, evaluation and innovation in research

Dr Mushtaque Chowdhury.

 

A three-finger pinch of salt, a fistful of gur – a sort of unrefined sugar or molasses – in half a litre of water; this simple concoction revolutionized the treatment of diarrhoea in Bangladeshi children in the 1980s.

Oral rehydration therapy (ORT), in its various guises, has since become a major tool in the armoury against the second leading cause of death among children under five globally. It has been described as potentially the most important medical advance of the 20th century [1].

That Bangladesh successfully introduced home-based ORT on such a large scale is in no small part down to research carried out by a modest, softly-spoken researcher called Dr Mushtaque Chowdhury. Nudged to acknowledge his achievements he says: “I am very proud that Bangladesh has the highest ORT use in the world. The research contribution in that is enormous”.

More at WHO's TropIKA.net here>>

Cancer doctors pledge to widen access to pain relief in developing countries

Cancer advocates plan to broker deals with drug companies to get cheaper, more plentiful supplies of pain relief drugs to patients in developing countries using models pioneered in the field of HIV/AIDS.

The plans form part of the Global Access to Pain Relief Initiative (GAPRI), a strategy launched at the World Cancer Congress, in China on 19 August. Led by the International Union Against Cancer (UICC), which represents 350 cancer charities including Cancer Research UK, GAPRI has the backing of organisations including the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society, and the World Economic Forum.

GAPRI will tackle the lack of access to strong opioid based pain relief. Today, a few rich nations, including the UK and US, consume .......For more

The politics of pain

Pain control

Pain relief is often taken for granted in the Western world, but in about 150 countries the use of morphine is severely restricted. Tatum Anderson investigates how this has come about, and what steps are being taken to stop patients living and dying in extreme pain.

Dozens of recycled plastic mineral water bottles are filled with brightly coloured solutions. The bottles are full of oral morphine, colour coded for different strengths—green for the weakest, then pink, and blue for the strongest. Every day, teams of nurses take them to paediatric and cancer wards and patients living at home near Kampala, Uganda. To view the article click here.

BIOTEC leads Thailand’s leapfrog towards self-sufficiency

If all goes well, the first malaria drug developed by Thai researchers could reach human clinical trials at the beginning of next year.

The drug, dubbed P218, is the product of research carried out by a group at BIOTEC, a research centre created by the Thai government to generate biotechnology innovations.

Although several international partners, including Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), Yale University, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Monash University in Australia, have been involved along the way, it was BIOTEC that conducted the initial research that has eventually allowed new drug candidates, such as P218, to be developed.

See the rest of the story here. 

Guardian Development Competition Longlist: Bed nets for all?

 

There is a river which runs through Goundry, a village in rural Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Actually it's more of a stream with lots of exposed riverbed even as the rainy season finishes. And among the still pools of mustard-coloured water, if you look closely enough, you can see the darting of tiny mosquito larvae.

See the rest of the story here .

Health workers need a taste of the community

 

Peter Ndumbe was working in London when the new HIV virus began to emerge in the early eighties. One of the multitude of scientists trying to understand the pathogen, he focused on hepatitis and its possible links to the new virus

 See the rest of the story here.

Tide turns for drug manufacturing in Africa

With several efforts underway to increase the local production of drugs in developing countries, Tatum Anderson assesses the pros and cons of manufacturing medicines in Africa

See the rest of the story here

Dengue vaccine candidates show promise

here

Open source: the way forward in the search for new treatments for the infectious diseases of poverty?

17 March 2010

A collaboration, called the Open Source Drug Discovery Foundation (OSDD), plans to use voluntary and open efforts to accelerate the development of affordable drugs for diseases including malaria, leishmaniasis and – first – tuberculosis.

Few if any new drugs have been created for many of these diseases, because they disproportionately affect the poor and pharmaceutical companies say they would have little hope of recouping any investments in such drugs. TB kills around 1.6 million people a year but only a handful of drugs have been developed in decades more>>.

Battle for life starts before birth

   12 March 2010

Newborn babies have a pretty rotten chance of survival in developing countries. Each year more than 4 million babies die in teh first month, 2 million in the first week, and as many as 2 million die before they are a couple of days old. When the chances of survival are so proor, many motehres prefer not to name their babies until they have managed to live for a few weeks More>>.

Mobile phones for health: high hopes but research lacking

via www.tropika.net

How can child and maternal mortality be cut?

  BMJ  2010;340:c431 (Published )

With only five years to go, the millennium development goals to reduce maternal and child mortality remain a long way off target. Tatum Anderson looks at the problems. More>>

Neglected diseases get the mathematical treatment

TropIKA.net Jan 26, 2010

Infectious disease modelling is a new and sometimes controversial discipline. TropIKA.net speaks to one of the leaders in the field - Professor Sir Roy Anderson More>>

Health-related adaptation” to climate change seen as a low priority

TropIKA.net, 11 Dec 2009

Projects aimed at helping the world’s 48 poorest countries adapt to the health effects of climate change are few and far between, says the Global Environment Fund (GEF), the organisation set up to manage them under the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).More>>

Burkina Faso welcomes drug trials

  December 10th 2009

New clinics allow African researchers to test the latest drugs locally. But the logistical problems remain a challenge, writes Tatum Anderson.

Read the rest of the story on the Guardian Weekly website.  

Where is health on the climate change agenda?

TropIKA.net Dec 9, 2009

As the climate change conference kicks off in Copenhagen this week, is global health just a side issue? More....

Greener stoves cook up health benefits, study shows

SciDev.net November 30, 2009

Replacing smoky indoor cooking fires in India with environmentally friendly cookstoves would have the same effect on health as almost halving the country's cancer burden, a study says.

The research — the first to quantify how many lives could be saved by using improved cookstoves — is one of a series on the public health benefits of reducing carbon emissions in selected scenarios, including food, agriculture and household energy, published in The Lancet last week (25 November).

Read the rest of the story on SciDev.net.  

Innovative financing of health care, BMJ, November 4, 2009

Published 4 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4235
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4235

International Aid

Innovative financing of health care  With national budgets stretched, countries are trying to find new ways to fund aid to developing countries, Tatum Anderson reports

Morocco’s airline travellers will soon be contributing to the cost of drugs to treat malaria and antiretrovirals to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV and treat infected children after a new tax on flights is introduced. Morocco joins over 30 other countries that collect taxes on airline tickets (Norway also contributes part of its tax on carbon dioxide emissions). So far, the $1.2bn (£75m) raised has enabled aid agencies to negotiate up to 70% discounts on drug purchases and buy more drugs for people who cannot afford them.

^{See the rest of this article at BMJ}

Malaria in pregnancy: research must be stepped up

TropIKA.net, Nov 3, 2009

Not enough research is being done on malaria and pregnancy. That’s the message from Rose Gana Fomban Leke, Professor of Immunology and Parasitology at the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon, who has spent the best part of her career looking at how malaria affects women.

see the rest at TropIKA.net

 

Confusion over counterfeit drugs in Uganda

The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9681

 

Uganda is under pressure to revise a draft law to combat counterfeit products, which, as it stands, could inadvertently hinder patients' access to generic drugs. Tatum Anderson reports.

 

The Ugandan Government is considering amendments to a proposed anticounterfeit law after pressure from public health activists and its own nascent pharmaceutical industry who say that the law could hamper access to affordable drugs in the country More>>  

Brian Greenwood: “Living in exciting times”

29 Jun 2009, TropIKA.net

It was 1980 and Professor Brian Greenwood, a British researcher who had just taken over directorship of the UK’s Medical Research Council Laboratories in the Gambia, noticed something rather interesting.

Despite being much less well-off, people in this tiny West African country – and Guinea Bissau and Senegal as it turned out – used bednets far more regularly compared with the people he had worked with in northern Nigeria some years before.More>>

Firms target nutrition for the poor

BBC News Interactive, June 24, 2009

The nutrition sachets have saved countless children's lives. Rip the top off a small sachet, the size of a hand, and inside is a delicious, creamy peanut goo that you suck from the packet. It is messy and delicious. And it has already saved the lives of countless children on the brink of death from starvation around the world. Inspired by a hazelnut chocolate spread eaten by children throughout Europe at breakfast time, these sachets are used to treat children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. They contain a high-energy food crammed with high-protein peanut, milk, sugar, oils and fortified with extra vitamins and minerals. The sachets have revolutionised emergency feeding in humanitarian emergencies because they can be eaten directly from the packet, do not require refrigeration or mixing with clean water - often in short supply - and can be stored for years More on BBC website>> .

Tracking the spread of resistance to malaria drugs

Jun 10, 2009, TropIKA.net

The need to track resistance to artemisinin, the only effective drug for the mass treatment of malaria in many endemic countries, has become a top priority, as worries mount over evidence streaming in from the border between Thailand and Cambodia. (See recent TropIKA.net news stories and blogs) Artemisinin resistance could be catastrophic if it spreads.

The Thai-Cambodia border has been the epicentre of emerging drug resistance to malaria drugs since the 1970s. Resistance to older drugs – chloroquine and components of sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) – also started here and then spread to Africa. More on Dr Christopher Plowe profile>>

Beating the brain drain: West African research centre shows it can be done

Jun 3, 2009, TropIKA.net

The brain drain is a term that fails to convey the staggering number of trained professionals who leave developing countries every year. In Africa, estimates in recent years have put the number at 20,000 annually. Ethiopia lost 75 per cent of its skilled workforce between 1980 and 1991.

Such a massive exodus of qualified Africans is widely seen as stifling both economic and human development. But an innovative strategy embarked upon by a research institution in the West African state of Mali has managed, at least in a small way, to reverse the tide.

The Malaria Research Training Centre (MRTC) runs a scheme, with international collaborators, that has created a critical mass of African scientists able to study malaria and provide evidence to influence control strategies in a country where malaria kills more children under five than any other disease. More on TropIKA.net.

Global Fund looks to boost private sector contributions

The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9675, Page 1594, May 9, 2009

 

Original Text

With donations from governments falling because of the economic downturn, the Global Fund is hoping that an innovative product for the private sector can fill the gap. Tatum Anderson reports.

 

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is entering the world of high-finance to raise funds for global health projects.

 

It plans to issue innovative financial products called Exchange Traded Funds in the coming months and by the end of the year to try to tap into the stellar wealth of the glo ...More>>>

Grand Challenges project ready to enter its next phase

TropIKA.net, May 6, 2009

The Grand Challenges in Global Health project, a research funding initiative that is worth almost half a billion dollars – is at a crossroads as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation decides its future.

Next year, funding for 43 projects that received US$436m in grants back in 2005, will finish. The grants were awarded to projects seeking to solve 14 of the greatest scientific hurdles in global health – dubbed the Grand Challenges – that might lead to advances in combating diseases of the developing world More>>

Novartis under fire for accepting new reward for old drug

The Lancet, Volume 37, April 25, 2009

Swiss drug firm Novartis has been accused of abusing an award system designed to encourage innovation for diseases that mainly affect developing countries. Tatum Anderson reports. More>>

Malaria research: putting African scientists on the front line

TropIKA.net, April 23, 2009

World Malaria Day this year marks a moment when the international community has intensified its battle against malaria. More>>

Vaccine charity weathers downturn by raising £50m through the banks

Evening Standard, April 15, 2009

A charity is to raise £50million for vaccines in undeveloped countries by approaching the financial markets. Read more>>>

Rural medics to get mobile advice 'hotline'

Scidev.net April 7, 2009

A pilot initiative to provide rural community health workers, nurses and doctors with advice on diagnosis and treatment via mobile phones is to launch in Ghana later this year. Read more>>