15 May 2008, 11:10 Comments

A focused, local and innovative programme for preventing HIV/AIDS in young people is proving helpful to teenagers displaced by conflict in Colombia. Funding is coming to an end, but a demonstration project could prove its worth for future donors – and other countries.

15 May 2008, 10:46 Comments

Mexican businessman Carlos Slim has given half a billion dollars to set up an institute to seek new approaches to primary health care in Latin America. The mobile phone – one of the sources of the benefactor’s wealth – may play a leading but not exclusive role. RealHealthNews interviewed its Executive President, Julio Frenk.

15 May 2008, 08:37 Comments

Developing countries tell EAGLES, the European Action on Global Life Sciences, and RealHealthNews, the research that’s really needed.

15 May 2008, 08:25 Comments

A vaccine in Phase 1 trials in South Africa has shown the highest CD8 responses – which are important for TB protection – of any TB vaccine candidate so far. The trial was small, but preliminary data from animal studies suggest the vaccine does protect against childhood TB.

14 May 2008, 17:39 Comments

The aromatic herb Artemisia is the sole source of artemisinin, which is the essential ingredient of WHO-recommended treatments for malaria. Diversification is the key to improving quality sources of artemisinin supplies, hence stabilizing the market and making ACTs more affordable. The Artemisinin Enterprise is a collaboration of three projects seeking new sources of artemisinin and antimalarial compounds.

14 May 2008, 15:04 Comments

The US$ multi-billion a year GAVI Alliance is spending a fraction of its budget to help its vaccines get to the end of the track, by strengthening health systems in a group of countries in central America, Africa and Asia. But what does it mean by ‘innovative’? Does that mean science?

28 April 2008, 14:26 Comments

A series of nine country reports, in addition to a comprehensive regional reports, will set agendas for health systems research in much of the the Middle East and North Africa. The Principal Investigator tells RealHealthNews what he’s learned.

28 April 2008, 13:59 Comments

Even countries in deep conflict can unite behind the idea of science to improve health, Palestine shows.The first of a series of studies on connecting health research with policy-making low- and middle-income Arab states has Palestine lighting a beacon for others to follow. RealHealthNews Editor Robert Walgate interviewed its author, Joan Jubran of the Center for Continuing Education at Birzeit University.

28 April 2008, 13:00 Comments

Multiple health programmes – as many as 68 in Nigeria alone – are using unpaid or low-paid community volunteers, and other sectors such as environment, water and agriculture are doing the same. A new study of reimbursement of health volunteers is revealing the need for an internationally agreed strategy

28 April 2008, 12:00 Comments

The WHO research strategy team has just finished its global consultations, in a democratic approach to setting a new focus and role for WHO in health research: leadership and convening power to help other bodies set agendas, and an internal focus on ‘making a difference’ – getting care to where it’s most needed. RealHealthNews talked to team leader Robert Terry.

1 March 2008, 06:45 Comments

A war of words over AIDS vaccines can determine whether you are an optimist or a pessimist.

23 February 2008, 16:37 Comments

US$350 million over five years to control seven neglected tropical diseases, which might be eliminated from 30 high-burden countries if G8 in July comes up with another US$650 million. That’s what the US is promising in a new Presidential Initiative for NTD control”. And – it is science-based, even though the research was done on the cheap.

24 October 2007, 18:54 Comments

China is undergoing a radical shift in its health policy towards the poorest, particularly in rural areas, and research is playing a major role. Here Gerald Bloom, visiting Professor at Beijing Normal University, co-chair of the China Health Development Forum, and Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, UK, tells the story, with lessons for the world about the relation between research and policy-making.

23 October 2007, 11:17 Comments

Evidence leads to a radical conclusion – even when care is provided, empowerment matters. WHO’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health is due to report in 2008. Its Chairman, Sir Michael Marmot, here tells RealHealthNews his apolitical, but radical philosophy based on evidence, his hopes, and broad conclusions.

23 October 2007, 10:17 Comments

Norway’s ‘Global Business Plan’ will put countries in control of reaching the Millennium Development Goals – but funding will depend on success measured by ‘evaluation research’. On 26 September 2007 Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway, announced plans for a radical transformation of international development funding, with a ‘Global Campaign for the Health MDGs’. Developing countries will prepare their own national plans to achieve Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6 to reduce child and maternal mortality, and combat AIDS and other diseases, while donors will relate their support to the countries’ plans; and support will depend on measured results. The Campaign could be extended to the whole of health, and even development, and become each country’s truly Global Business Plan. We talk to the plan’s principal architect, Tore Godal.