Science and tech for global health

[LONDON] We talk to Kandeh K. Yumkella, UN undersecretary-general for Sustainable Energy for All and chairman of UN-Energy, and formerly minister for trade in Sierra Leone’s government, about what action Sierra Leone should take to improve its response capacity and health infrastructure.

He explains how poor energy infrastructure has affected Sierra Leone’s ability to provide emergency healthcare during the Ebola outbreak. And he explains why investing in science, technology and a robust research sector is crucial to enabling Sierra Leone to move beyond “quick fixes”, towards a long-term public health strategy built on rigorous analysis of the country’s health and infrastructure needs. 

http://www.scidev.net/global/energy/multimedia/kandeh-yumkella-energy-ebola.html

Q&A: Kandeh Yumkella on energy's role in fighting Ebola

According to the WHO, bad air quality was responsible for 7 million deaths in 2012. In this interview Paulo Saldiva, dean of the department of pathology at the University of São Paulo, explains that there are no measures to protect people against air pollution, and so public health policies are vital to avoid serious consequences, particularly in large cities. He says the science needed to address the risks of air pollution is in place, but that poor countries lack the resources to implement it with solutions that work locally.

http://www.scidev.net/global/pollution/multimedia/local-science-tackle-air-pollution.html

Q&A: A call for local science to tackle air pollution

Find out how community-based drug outlets in the Philippines provide cheaper medicines and boost healthcare. 

How village pharmacies are aiding the Philippines’ poor

In this audio interview, economist Rana Roy discusses new evidence of the toll of air pollution in China and India.

Q&A: Putting a price on deaths from vehicle pollution

Public health responses to the Ebola crisis neglected to build trust among affected people, and more must be done to engage with the ‘human factor’ when disease outbreaks occur, anthropologist Heidi Larson warns in this audio interview. 

Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom, says crisis response programmes must address public fears around disease. One critical lesson to emerge from the Ebola epidemic, she says, is that failing to focus on communication and trust-building with communities early on can lead to heightened fears and misinformation that jeopardises safety and helps a disease spread.

Social scientists and medical experts need to work hand-in-hand to devise responses, Larson says, because “a public health or medical expert and an anthropologist will look at the same situation and notice very different things”.

The interview was recorded at ‘Ebola – The 21st-century plague?’, a conference at the Royal Society of Medicine, United Kingdom, on 6 February. 

http://www.scidev.net/global/health/multimedia/community-trust-epidemics-ebola-audio.html


Q&A: How building community trust helps combat epidemics

Although antiretroviral drugs are not a cure, they can stop people infected with HIV from developing AIDS by keeping the amount of virus in the body low.

This audio feature explores a UK trial that used the antiretroviral drug Truvada to prevent a group of homosexual volunteers, considered at risk of contracting HIV, from doing so. Although the drug was successful in the United Kingdom, experts warn that more effort will be needed to develop targeted campaigns to administer the treatment  in regions where HIV is endemic, such as Sub-Saharan Africa.

HIV trial holds promise for preventing infection

The Burmese pro-democracy leader won world-wide respect for her courage and resilience during her long imprisonment by the military government in Myanmar. But she's disappointed some people who think she should be more vocal in defence of other victims of oppression.  A radio essay by Jill McGivering, who's been following her career for decades.   

Aung San Suu Kyi and the disappointments of practical politics

[NAIROBI] Africa is said to be one of the fastest growing continents economically. But the continent still faces numerous challenges in addressing its developmental needs even as it strives to catch up with the developed world, according to IBM Africa’s Vice President, Kamal Bhattacharya.

In this podcast, SciDev.Net talks to him on the role of his organisation’s lab in data collection and analysis, and how this can translate into tangible solutions for Africa’s developmental challenges and policy making.

 “IBM opened this lab in Nairobi, Kenya, to help find solutions to the continent’s grand challenges in areas such as energy, transport, health and agriculture,” Battacharya tells SciDev.Net. He urges African governments to build local applications and solutions to the continent’s challenges.

IBM Research - Africa is the first commercial technology research facility on the continent conducting both applied and far-reaching exploratory research. According to Bhattacharya, the lab has been encouraging and strengthening an innovative culture, and building partnerships with businesses, research organisations, governments and universities across Africa and around the world.

For instance, IBM worked with Mobile Service provider, Airtell, to collect and analyse data on people’s perceptions of hygiene and Ebola in Sierra Leone.

This article has been produced by SciDev.Net's Sub-Saharan Africa desk.

http://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/data/multimedia/data-ibm-research-africa.html


IBM's Lab Role In Data Collection And Analysis

This week the UN released a report revealing that 17,000 homes and other buildings in part of the occupied Palestinian West Bank known as Area C are under threat of demolition by Israel. It reiterates the shocking vulnerability of Palestinians living in Area C, which covers 60 per cent of the West Bank and is under full Israeli control.

Life in Area C can be brutal for Palestinians. The UN reports that over 70 per cent of communities are not connected to the water grid, many have no electricity, and around six thousand people live within Israeli ‘firing zones’ used by the military. An Israeli-Palestinian NGO sets up small-scale renewable energy and clean water systems for Palestinians living high in the hills of Mount Hebron, in the southern West Bank. Elad Orian, the cofounder of Comet-ME, tells me “the Israeli authorities have been trying for a long while to drive these people off their land”. Withholding energy and water is part of this “political campaign”, he says.

The off-grid energy systems Comet-ME builds tap into this arid region’s intense sunshine and strong winds to produce clean, sustainable energy for homesteads and villages. As Orian explains in this audio interview, access to a small amount of energy each day can transform lives and livelihoods, particularly for women, who carry out the bulk of domestic tasks and who take care of cheese production that is the staple of livelihoods here. 


Battle for basic services in occupied Palestine

In the podcast this week, a language map of the brain, listening for landslides a year after the Nepal quake, and the Soviet internet that never was.

Nature Podcast: 28 April 2016 – brain dictionary, Soviet internet and Nepal one year on.

This week’s ‘UN Gender Focus’ from the United Nations is presented by Janie Cangelosi.

She brings you the following stories:
- Geneva takes diplomatic approach to gender equality 
- Health needs of women and children in conflict zones neglected 
- Future “catastrophic” unless climate action is taken

UN Gender Focus: gender equality, SDGs and climate change

This week’s ‘UN Global Perspective’ from the United Nations is presented by Dianne Penn.

She brings you the following stories:
- UN embraces concept of “sustaining peace” 
- 60 million people worldwide affected by El Niño phenomenon
- Palmyra archeological site has “maintained its integrity and authenticity” 


UN Global Perspective: focus on peacebuilding, El Niño and Palmyra archeological site

For most people a doctor is probably the first port of call when it comes to informFor most people a doctor is probably the first port of call when it comes to information about how to keep in good health. Still, much guidance gets broadcast by the media, and in developing countries the radio remains a major source of public health advice.

But just how much is the impact of the mass media? Do they save lives, and at what cost? 

For five years, the West African country of Burkina Faso has been a testing ground for a media campaign designed to answer these elusive questions using the gold standard of scientific study, a cluster-randomised clinical trial. The trial targeted child mortality, treating the media as any other health intervention and measuring lives saved after three years of continuous radio programming with information about behaviours that can prevent disease, such as taking a child to a health centre.

SciDev.Net spoke to the project’s leader, Roy Head, CEO of the social enterprise Development Media International. Head explains the rationale behind the study and offers a preview of the results, due to be published later this year. 

The interview was recorded on 23 February at the 2017 ISNTD Festival organised by the International Society of Neglected Tropical Diseases in London, UK.
ation about how to keep in good health. Still, much guidance gets broadcast by the media, and in developing countries the radio remains a major source of public health advice.

But just how much is the impact of the mass media? Do they save lives, and at what cost? 

For five years, the West African country of Burkina Faso has been a testing ground for a media campaign designed to answer these elusive questions using the gold standard of scientific study, a cluster-randomised clinical trial. The trial targeted child mortality, treating the media as any other health intervention and measuring lives saved after three years of continuous radio programming with information about behaviours that can prevent disease, such as taking a child to a health centre.

SciDev.Net spoke to the project’s leader, Roy Head, CEO of the social enterprise Development Media International. Head explains the rationale behind the study and offers a preview of the results, due to be published later this year. 

The interview was recorded on 23 February at the 2017 ISNTD Festival organised by the International Society of Neglected Tropical Diseases in London, UK.

http://www.scidev.net/global/health/multimedia/mass-media-save-lives-the-evidence.html

Do mass media save lives? The evidence is in

SciDev.Net podcasts look at key global development issues and the ways in which science can have a positive impact on equitable and sustainable development and poverty reduction. 

Q&A: Kandeh Yumkella on energy's role in fighting Ebola

SciDev.Net

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