This issue of PATH’s programmatic
e-newsletter spotlights our newest publications, program announcements, and advocacy efforts. We’ve updated our look with some new designs
and features, including a new banner (above) and PATH in Focus—a section where, now and then, we will showcase our important work in specific health areas.
Join PATH at the Global Health
Council
PATH staff will discuss our work during presentations and panel discussions at the Global Health Council conference, which takes place in
Washington, DC, from May 27 through 31. Visit us at exhibit booth 201. Our recruiters will be on hand through May 30 to talk about our projects and
career opportunities.
New publications and resources
The May 2008 issue of Directions in Global Health features a fresh, new
look and highlights our work with safe drinking water, nutrition for infants and children, thermostable vaccines, strengthened Japanese encephalitis
surveillance, and reproductive health supplies. Tell us what you think
of our new design.
Two project briefs about safe drinking water summarize PATH’s analysis of the global water
sector and provide a literature review of
commercial approaches to safe water in India.
New workshop materials produced by PATH, the World Health
Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) provide a training guide on the WHO Prequalification Programmes for male latex condoms and procurement practices.
A fact sheet explains how
using the hormone oxytocin in the Uniject™
device can prevent postpartum hemorrhage.
A document summarizes PATH’s work in Indonesia to sustain best practices among health workers through a supportive supervision
program.
PATH’s 2007 annual
report highlights how we are bringing global health solutions from innovation to impact.
Battling malaria
 Last
month, PATH joined people around the globe to mark the first World Malaria Day. PATH staffer Todd Jennings’ multimedia blog documents the
week’s events in Zambia, which has ramped up its malaria control efforts, while Dr. Christian Loucq, director of the PATH Malaria Vaccine
Initiative, offers an optimistic
perspective on the steps toward a world free of the deadly disease. A new fact sheet describes PATH’s multifaceted approach to helping
developing countries combat malaria.
Program
highlights
PATH is protecting newborns and mothers in India with simple, effective measures. Our Sure Start project, which launched in 2007, guides pregnant
women to necessary health services and helps new mothers learn to care for their babies. The project will reach more than one million mothers and
newborns.
WHO acknowledges safety of co-administering live Japanese encephalitis (JE) and
measles vaccines. Based on data from a PATH-sponsored clinical trial among infants in the Philippines, WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety
concluded that the vaccines can be safely co-administered in children aged nine months and older.
PATH assists India with massive JE immunization campaign. PATH continues to provide
technical assistance to India as the country kicks off its third year of a JE immunization strategy, aiming to reach more than 20 million children and
adolescents by August. Launched in 2006, campaigns have already immunized nearly 30 million people. Learn more about PATH’s work with JE.
New
partnership will develop temperature-stable vaccine formulations for diarrhea. PATH and ACE Biosciences, a Danish biotechnology company, will
work together to develop spray-dried or freeze-dried vaccines that don’t require refrigeration and will protect against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, one
of the leading bacterial causes of diarrheal disease.
Partnerships will support development of new pneumococcal vaccines for developing-world populations. PATH
is collaborating with the Infectious Disease Research Institute in Seattle and the Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit at the University
of Witwatersrand in South Africa on research efforts to advance development of vaccines against pneumonia.
PATH
convenes first conference on “femicide.” PATH and our partners—InterCambios, the South African Medical Research Council,
WHO, the Interagency Gender Working Group, and the Population Reference Bureau—hosted the two-day “Strengthening Understanding on Femicide”
technical meeting for researchers, activists, and forensic professionals from around the world. Participants discussed documenting
femicide—the killing of women simply because they are women—and developing a research agenda. PATH will develop two documents to spark
action around femicide and strengthen documentation of its nature and extent.
Procurement training will help countries obtain
reproductive health supplies. PATH, in collaboration with WHO and UNFPA, has completed a procurement capacity toolkit to strengthen
countries’ efforts to procure contraceptives and other essential reproductive health supplies. We are currently piloting the new resource in
Malawi and Zambia. Read more about PATH’s
procurement work.
Tuberculosis (TB) support efforts reach Republic of Macedonia. PATH is providing technical assistance to
the Republic of Macedonia’s Global Fund TB Project as it launches an operations research project to understand treatment default among people
being treated for TB and barriers to timely diagnosis of the disease among new patients. PATH also works in Cambodia, Kenya, Tanzania, Ukraine, and
Vietnam to support health services for people with
TB.
Advocacy and policy notes
“Too many mothers die
needlessly,” PATH and partners tell Congress. PATH co-sponsored a briefing on Capitol Hill to garner political support and funding to
prevent maternal mortality during
pregnancy and childbirth.
PATH praises new Congressional Malaria Caucus. The caucus, co-chaired by US Reps. Donald Payne (D-NJ) and
John Boozman (R-AR), provides an important forum for US leadership in the global fight against malaria.
PATH, other NGOs urge G8 commitment to global health issues. PATH joined 200
international nongovernmental organizations in Kyoto, Japan, last month to discuss policy recommendations for world leaders who will convene for the
G8 summit in July. PATH and other health-focused organizations urged G8 countries to fulfill previous commitments for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and
malaria, while also committing new resources to improve maternal, newborn, and child health. Read more about PATH’s work in global health.
Uniject
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