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Another Nail in the NTD Coffin: END in Africa Project in Cote d’Ivoire
After surviving a very difficult twelve years following the new millennium, including a civil war between 2002 and 2010 and a post-electoral crisis in 2011-2012, Cote d’Ivoire’s health systems are still recovering from severe nationwide health service disruptions. Most of the country’s health facilities (an estimated 52%) were closed during this period. Many hospitals and
END in Africa Project Launches in Côte d’Ivoire: USAID Hosts Opening Ceremony at US Embassy
USAID marked the official launch of its END in Africa project in Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast), with a ceremony at the US Embassy in Abidjan on Monday, December 7, 2015, presided by Andrew Haviland, US Chargé d’Affaires and Dr Conombo Diabaté, Côte d’Ivoire’s Deputy Director General for Health. The END in Africa project works
Strategic Social Partnerships Take Hold at the Ghana Health Service and NTD Program
Partnerships are hardly unusual in the public health arena. More often than not they spring up organically, are limited in scope, and focus on achieving a specific, predefined goal. Once the initial goal has been achieved, these partnerships tend to simply disintegrate. Yet what if the organizations involved, rather than relying on happenstance, took the
Eliminating Trachoma in Ghana: Are We There Yet?
One of the world’s oldest diseases, trachoma still causes more preventable blindness than any other infectious disease today, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Caused by a bacterial (Chlamydia trachomatis) infection, the painful eye disease is spread by flies or other insects, or through contact with an infected person. Found across Africa, trachoma affects
Good news on NTDs
END in Africa congratulates scientists on winning the 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine for advances in NTD and malaria drugs. The project also salutes Mexico for becoming the third country to have eliminated river blindness, joining Colombia the Ecuador. On Monday, October 5, 2015, the Nobel Committee of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm announced that three
Helen Keller International and TOMS: Motivating Community Drug Distributors in Sierra Leone
“My old shoes are worn out and I was thinking if my parents can afford to buy me another pair of shoes before the opening of school.” – Fatmata, age 8. Efforts to fight Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are truly massive undertakings, since their success hinges upon the ability of national NTD programs to literally
Using TIPAC Data to Drive Resource Mobilization
Getting people excited about the prospect of learning how to sift through and analyze complex data can be a tough sell. However, they tend to become more interested in getting trained once they begin to understand how data analytics and visualization can help them solve difficult problems. In Togo, such training has helped the national
Down But Not Out: Sierra Leone’s NTD Program Restarts Activities as the Ebola Threat Subsides
It all started a year and a half ago in Guinea, West Africa, when in December 2013, the country reported several cases of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). By March 2014, the outbreak had spread to neighboring Liberia. In May, it reached also Sierra Leone, dealing a huge blow the country’s public health system, including
Benchmarking Organizational Capabilities: Where to Begin?
NTD Program Management and Sustainable Impact Experience has shown that developing a Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) finance strategy that’s aligned with the country’s NTD Master Plan strengthens the latter and has a sustained, measurable impact. But effective finance strategies don’t happen overnight! Devising one requires a solid understanding of organizational capabilities as they related
On the ground during Niger’s eighth annual integrated MDA for NTDs
Niger’s National Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) Program launched its eighth annual mass drug administration (MDA) campaign in Niamey in March 2015. His Excellence Mano Aghali, Minister of Public Health of Niger presided at the launch event, which was held at the Collège d’Enseignement Général (CEG 5) middle school in Niamey and attended by an estimated
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Photo Credit: Yaobi Zhang, Helen Keller International
