Health

INTELLECTUAL PROPRERTY WATCH  by Hillary Muheebwa                                                    March 16, 2015

KAMPALA, UGANDA – In light of the persistence of the Ebola outbreak and the demands it has placed on global infection containment resources and processes, the United States government disaster response community recognised an opportunity to use open innovation to make significant strides in advancing the ability to combat Ebola. The results include a local success story.

“The United States Agency for International Development [USAID], in partnership with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Defense, created a Grand Challenge for Development to target Ebola because we faced the largest epidemic of this disease in history,” said Caroline Pepek, spokeswoman, USAID US Global Development Laboratory....

One of the chosen ideas is the next generation ergonomic tent design submitted by ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) and Makerere University, in Kampala, Uganda.

BIOSECTOR PRESS  by Chris Shilling                    March 9, 2015

As efforts intensify at all levels by international health organisations and on the ground by community health workers in providing treatment, supplies and preventive measures,  young people and children – perhaps the ones most affected – need to have access to good health education resources to help them better understand both the medical and health aspects of Ebola.

To address this issue, Afrelib is working in partnership with Medikidz, (http://www.medikidz.com/gb-en/) the world’s first medical information company aimed at children, to produce learning material in an interactive, comic book format. With this health education comic, it should be possible to provide easy-to-understand and engaging information so that it not only helps in disseminating good preventive measures as recommended by public health organisations but also helps them in dealing with the cultural and social issues surrounding this epidemic.

QUARTZ  by Grace Dobush                                         March 13, 2015

AUSTIN, Texas—Perhaps the most surprising and important product debuting at SXSW Interactive this year is a personal protective equipment (PPE) prototype for health care workers dealing with Ebola, a tangible result of the U.S. government adapting the culture of innovation and design thinking so key in the startup world.

A team from the U.S. Agency for International Development demonstrated the traditional Ebola suit and the new suit in a preview for Quartz....

TIME MAGAZINE  by Alexandra Sifferlin                                                                        March 13, 2015

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) may relocate its clinical trials of Ebola vaccines to Guinea, since there are no longer enough Ebola cases in Liberia for a proper efficacy trial.

On Feb. 2, the NIH launched an initial safety trial for two vaccines to protect against Ebola in Liberia. The plan was to test 600 people for overall safety and then launch a second phase of the trial in 27,000 people to see whether or not the vaccine prevents infection with Ebola virus compared to a placebo.

The safety test was successfully completed the week of March 9—but around the same time, Liberia announced that it had released its last confirmed patient from its Ebola treatment centers. ...