The Hummingbird. Unitaid News – November 2019
Unitaid seeks to support new approaches to tackle Chagas disease
Brasilia – Unitaid has launched a call for proposals for new projects that can help eliminate congenital infection of Chagas disease through better diagnosis and treatment, within the context of its work in maternal and child health. The new call reflects increased global attention and country commitment to fight Chagas disease.
Today’s announcement in Brazil puts a focus on fighting this neglected tropical disease that infects 6-7 million people and kills more than 10,000 each year. Worldwide, 75 million people are at risk of Chagas disease.
“Attacking this silent killer through early diagnosis and improved treatments will not only change the lives of women of child-bearing age by curing them of Chagas disease but also protect the future of millions of newborns by preventing the transmission from mother to child,” said Unitaid’s Executive Director Lelio Marmora.
Chagas is endemic to 21 Latin American countries, including Brazil, where it causes more deaths than any other parasitic disease, including malaria.
“Chagas disease infects millions of people in Brazil and in Latin America. The Government of Brazil welcomes this initiative and will collaborate closely with Unitaid to eliminate this neglected tropical disease,”said Brazil Minister of Health Dr. Luiz Henrique Mandetta.
While most cases occur in Latin America, often in the poorest and most marginalized communities, the disease is increasingly spreading to other geographies.
Mother-to-child transmission is a key infection route for Chagas disease, with at least two million women of child-bearing age estimated to be chronically infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease. Evidence has shown that active screening and optimal treatment can prevent congenital transmission. Furthermore, given the success of treatment in newborns, during prenatal or at-birth care, early detection of infection in infants is critical to preventing the number of hospitalizations and deaths related to Chagas disease.
The deadline to submit a proposal is 27th February 2020, at 17:00 Geneva time.
Through its calls for proposals, Unitaid finds smart new ideas to help relieve the burden of diseases, to break down access barriers, to enable scale-up by partner organizations and countries and to reach people in need. A review committee of independent experts in global health helps choose the best proposals to fund through a competitive selection process.
For media enquiries:
Priyamvada Chugh, chughp@unitaid.who.int
New projects aim to better identify critically ill children
Geneva – ALIMA, PATH and Unitaid today announced a US$ 43 million initiative to put affordable, easy-to-use diagnostic devices into the hands of frontline health workers in Asia and Africa to help better identify critically ill children and refer them for treatment without delay.
The projects will focus on technologies that simultaneously address multiple diseases—including pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria—aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goals’ push for integrated approaches to global health.
The projects will span nine countries. PATH’s US$ 28.4 million grant runs through 2023, and ALIMA’s US$ 14.9 million grant through 2022.
“Too many children are dying each day because their medical condition goes undetected,” ALIMA Executive Director Augustin Augier said. “ALIMA is proud to work with Unitaid to bring devices that are critical to improving health services and identifying children at risk, with the greatest needs in West Africa.”
Frontline health workers in low-income countries often lack essential tools to assess which children urgently need hospital referral. Danger signs are often overlooked or not adequately treated. The lack of quick, accurate diagnostics sometimes leads to the misuse of malaria medicines and antibiotics, which in turn causes antimicrobial resistance and preventable deaths.
In 2017, an estimated 5.4 million children died before their fifth birthday, most of them from diseases that can be prevented and treated.
“A successful project will empower primary health care workers with tools that improve their ability to identify and treat a range of severe diseases impacting a given community,” PATH CEO Steve Davis said. “This cross-cutting approach is an important step towards more integrated health systems.”
Devices that measure multiple vital signs, such as oxygen saturation in the blood and respiratory rate, are essential for alerting primary health workers to signs of severe disease, regardless of the cause. But existing devices are not adapted to the needs of low-income countries, and little guidance is available on how to use them at the primary health care level.
The PATH and ALIMA projects will pilot easy-to-use devices known as pulse oximeters that measure the amount of oxygen in the blood. Low oxygen saturation indicates that a child is very ill and must be urgently referred to a hospital.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the use of pulse oximeters at the primary health care level, but they are rarely used. The projects with PATH and ALIMA will generate important data—on feasibility, cost-effectiveness and impact—to help these devices be widely adopted by countries and funding partners.
“We need more of these integrated approaches to continue advancing universal health coverage, to confront antimicrobial resistance, and to make health systems a lot more efficient,” Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora said.
PATH will work with the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) in India, Kenya, Myanmar, Senegal and Tanzania, while ALIMA will team up with Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), Solthis and Terre des Hommes in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger.
PATH’s project will also evaluate new handheld devices that can detect multiple vital signs, such as respiratory rate, hemoglobin and temperature.
Our projects:
- Better technology to identify critically ill children
- Better tools to detect danger signs in children
For more information: Carol MASCIOLA, masciolac@unitaid.who.int
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New project will dramatically increase pediatric TB prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in Zimbabwe
Harare – The Zimbabwe government in partnership with Unitaid and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) today launched a four-year project to fight tuberculosis among children, a long-underserved group that bears the burden of TB illness and death worldwide. TB, a preventable, curable disease, is the second biggest killer of children in Zimbabwe.
The project will scale up better diagnostic tests, easier to take, better-tasting medicines and new strategies for finding children with undiagnosed TB or in need of prevention.
Funded by Unitaid and carried out by EGPAF, the project expects to double diagnosis of pediatric TB in Zimbabwe, and greatly increase the number of children who receive appropriate treatment and prevention. The project is called CaP TB, which stands for “Catalyzing Pediatric Tuberculosis Innovation.“
“CaP TB is an important contribution to our continued efforts to address childhood TB,” Zimbabwe Minister of Health and Child Care Dr. P. Parirenyatwa said. “Achieving our collective goal of zero TB deaths among children requires sustained advocacy, greater commitment, mobilization of increased resources and a joint effort by all stakeholders.”
The burden of TB in children is much higher because many are undiagnosed.
“Every day, more than 200 children under the age of 15 die needlessly of TB worldwide,” Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora said. “Unitaid is investing heavily in programs like CaP TB that integrate TB treatment into existing HIV and maternal and child health services. It’s a wise strategy for reaching more children with lifesaving treatment, and reaching them faster.”
Children with undiagnosed TB are often mistakenly treated for other ailments. Those exposed to TB are more likely than adults to develop the active form of the disease and to die from it. Other factors, such as age, HIV infection and malnutrition make TB more immediately life-threatening for children.
“As defenders of children’s health, we at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation are determined to help the MOHCC find and implement innovative solutions to the TB epidemic’s impact on children and their families,” Dr. Agnes Mahomva, Country Director for EGPAF in Zimbabwe said.
According to the World Health Organization, children should account for about 15 percent of reported TB cases in high-burden countries. In Zimbabwe, children account for only eight percent of notifications, suggesting that half the children with active TB are not being diagnosed.
A strategy central to the project is to decentralize pediatric TB services and integrate them into the wider healthcare system, bringing care closer, and earlier, to the children who need it. The project will also train healthcare workers to collect samples from children and to perform clinical diagnosis when children cannot provide samples.
CaP TB is being implemented in eight other sub-Saharan African countries and India.
EGPAF will establish services in 20 pilot sites in Zimbabwe during the first two years of the project, and 30 more sites in the last two years.