Nigeria
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Can Africa’s Mobile Phones And Maps Usher In A Governance Revolution?
For crime victims in the Kenyan town of Lamet Umoja, where before there was silence, now there is Twitter. Read More »
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Can We Engage Private Pharmacies To Help Control Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis?
Antibiotic resistance and infectious diseases have long been high on my list of things to worry about, with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis vying for top honors. In 2015, 10.4 million people became ill with tuberculosis, and 1.8 million died, making TB one of the top causes of death globally. Six countries account for 60% of the cases: China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa. As I noted in a previous post, India is critically important to control of drug resistance as well as tuberculosis, as it has the highest TB burden, with 2.2 million infections annually, as well as the largest antibiotic consumption...
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Chaotic Drug Distribution Threatens Nigeria’s Health Sector
As counterfeit medicines continue to impact negatively on consumers, exposing them to dangerous and ineffective medical products, industry experts have expressed concern over the chaotic drug distribution system and sale of drugs in the open market, which is eroding the confidence of Nigeria’s pharmaceutical sector and threatening the health sector. Read More »
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Dedicated Engineering Team in South Africa Deploys Open Source Tools, Save Lives
In 2006, a groundbreaking TED talk used statistics to reveal surprising insights about the developing world, including how many people in South Africa have HIV despite free and available anti-retroviral drugs. Gustav Praekelt, founder of Praekelt.org, heard this TED talk and began tenaciously calling a local hospital to convince them to start an SMS program that would promote anti-retrovirals. The program that resulted from those calls became txtAlert—a successful and widely recognized mobile health program that dramatically improves medical appointment adherence and creates a free channel for patients to communicate with the hospital...
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Developing Nations Improving Health Communication Through the Use of DHIS2 (Part 1)
DHIS2 implementations are spreading steadily among national health services in developing countries as well as among international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to improving health in the developing world through the use of health information technology. As an open source solution, DHIS2 offers developing countries the advantage of adopting a cost-effective and flexible solution for aggregate statistical data collection, validation, analysis, management, and presentation as well as for data sharing between healthcare professionals and facilities. Organizations and individuals who work with humanitarian software solutions will need to know what DHIS2 is, how it works, and how it might be implemented by national health services and other health-related projects across the globe...
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DIY Lab Technique to Revolutionise Training for Neuroscientists
A team of international researchers have come up with an inexpensive way to self-manufacture lab equipment, which could revolutionise the way neuroscientists across the world are trained. In a study published in the open access journal PLOS Biology, Dr Tom Baden from Sussex Neuroscience and André Maia Chagas, from the University of Tübingen, have devised a new imaging and microscope system called “FlyPi”. The equipment needed for modern neuroscience experiments can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds, which often means only institutions in rich countries can undertake top-level research and scientific training...
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E-Learning In Africa: Massive, Online And Free
Coming to a laptop near you, the Brazilian model of free online learning that could revolutionise African education.
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Ebola Crisis: How Health Workers On West African Frontline Are Paying With Their Lives
...That Nigeria has so far emerged relatively unscathed from its brush with Ebola owes much to the quick-thinking staff at an ordinary family clinic, who put themselves in the firing line for six days before the government was ready to relocate him. And, as elsewhere in this epidemic, those on the frontline paid the highest price: four of the seven fatalities were health workers, including Adadevoh...
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Ebola Outbreak: UK Border Not Prepared For Virus Warns Immigration Service Union
General Secretary of the Immigration Service Union (ISU) Lucy Moreton says the border is not prepared to deal with the Ebola outbreak and staff do not know what to do if they suspect someone of being sick...
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Ebola Spreads Exponentially In Liberia, Many More Cases Soon: WHO
Liberia, the country worst hit by West Africa's Ebola epidemic, should see thousands of new cases in coming weeks as the virus spreads exponentially, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. The epidemic, the worst since the disease was discovered in 1976, has killed some 2,100 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria and has also spread to Senegal...
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Global Bio-Disaster Response Urgently Needed In Ebola Fight
World leaders are failing to address the worst ever Ebola epidemic, and states with biological-disaster response capacity, including civilian and military medical capability, must immediately dispatch assets and personnel to West Africa, the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced today in a special briefing at the United Nations organized by the office of the UN Secretary General and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Read More »
How FrontlineSMS, SFCG Nigeria Created A Conflict Early Warning System For Nigerians
...SFCG Nigeria is part of Search for Common Ground, one of the first and largest conflict resolution-focused NGOs. In Northern Nigeria, SFCG partnered with Community Action for Popular Participation (CAPP) to develop an Early Warning System (EWS) funded by the US Institute for Peace (USIP)...
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How WikiFundi Is Helping People in Africa Contribute to Wikipedia
In developed countries, the ability to access and edit Wikipedia easily is taken for granted, but in many African countries, where access to reliable electricity and broadband are limited, that's not the case. I recently interviewed Florence Devouard, who is working on several open source projects to help close gaps caused by poor access to online information. She is co-leader of the WikiFundi project, as well as other projects related to Wikipedia and Africa, including Wiki Loves Women, a women's information initiative, and Wiki Loves Africa, a media contest that invites the public to contribute photographs, videos, and audio to Wikipedia. All projects are part of the WikiAfrica movement...
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iHRIS Helps Cure Backaches in Nigeria
I’ve been writing about the open source iHRIS software for years, explaining how it can help with health workforce management and planning, and praising the advantages of open source for country ownership and sustainability. A recent e-mail conversation about iHRIS in Nigeria reminded me of some of the important benefits of the software, and shed light on a new one. Read More »
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Ken Banks and FrontlineSMS: How 'Reluctant Innovators' Offer Hope to the World
Ken Banks might, in some respects, be described as a reluctant innovator. In 2005, he created FrontlineSMS, a simple piece of software that enables a cheap laptop to use a mobile phone to send, receive and collate group text messages, effectively creating a communication network. It’s an idea that has helped many NGOs connect with isolated populations.
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