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Neglected tropical and infectious diseases receive limited investments from the global community, yet 90% of people are afflicted by them. You can help us make a difference.
Community Mobilization
30 theatrical performances were conducted in cooperation with a local NGO between December 2008 and February 2009 in kala-azar endemic district of Bihar, India. The initiative aimed to educate community members of their individual and collective vulnerability to kala-azar, and stress the importance of early diagnosis, available treatment options, and need for treatment compliance.
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Hookworm
The Global Challenge
Soil-Transmitted Helminth (STH) infection is highly endemic in tropical and subtropical areas of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. It is estimated that approximately 2 billion people (nearly one third of the world's population) have active STH infections. STH infection has remained largely neglected by the global health community because the people most affected are among the most impoverished and because the infection causes chronic ill health with insidious clinical presentations, rather than severe acute illness or high incidence of death. It is common for a single individual, especially a child, to be infected chronically with all three types of soil-transmitted worms.
Our Response
OWH's Helminth Program aims to develop a new safe and affordable drug against soil-transmitted helminthiasis, with a defined access strategy that supports global helminth control efforts. The Helminth Program has worked to establish collaborations with researchers at the Swiss Tropical Institute and the University of California, San Diego, to evaluate potential new anthelmintic drug candidates. The Program has conducted clinical capacity building and epidemiology training at selected sites in India and Vietnam. The training assured that the participants are now better equipped to conduct epidemiological studies. OWH provided equipment to research institutes in Vietnam to help expand laboratory capacity and aid in the proper diagnosis of helminth infections.
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Access
The Global Challenge
Today more than 1.2 billion around the world people live on less than $2 a day. When they fall ill, there's no money for medicine, treatment, or medical care. And that means treatable diseases go untreated, leading to needless suffering and for many, death.
Our Response
The Access Program works to ensure that the treatments OWH develops are available and acceptable to at-risk patients at an affordable cost via private and public sector markets and healthcare systems. This program aims to expand access to drug and diagnostics to patients by conducting epidemiologic and market research into the barriers to access and evaluating delivery models designed to expand access.
In 2009, OWH completed a study in India in collaboration with the government’s Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences (RMRIMS) and ten other Indian physicians, to demonstrate how to expand access to Paromomycin Intramuscular Injection (PMIM), a low-cost, safe and effective treatment for the deadly disease of kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), in private health clinics outside of the main urban centers and closer to the rural population most at-risk of kala-azar.
Doctors in five districts of the State of Bihar in India were trained to diagnose and treat rural patients on an outpatient basis, while making lodging and a healthy diet available during the course of treatment. The evaluation of the model demonstrated a significant reduction in the delay in time before patients received treatment from a qualified physician and a reduction in their expenditures on ineffective treatments.
The Access Team, in collaboration with RMRIMS, also completed field research on kala-azar in India. The team conducted a population-based survey of the annual incidence of kala-azar and its economic impact on rural households in one VL-endemic district in the State of Bihar, India.