What went wrong for Bridge Academies in Uganda?
Uganda’s Ministry of Education is set to shutter the 63 schools run by Bridge International Academies, whose pioneering model for low-cost, private education has drawn significant attention — and investments — from major international players, including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Bridge has expanded quickly since opening its first schools in Uganda in February 2015, […]
At last, an HIV prevention tool women can control?
There is a need “for self-initiated products that women, especially young women, can and will use consistently. Women need practical and discreet tools that they can use to protect themselves from HIV infection,” said Dr. Flavia Matovu, an epidemiologist and investigator with the Makerere University-Johns Hopkins University Research Collaboration, based in Uganda. Now, researchers including […]
Aid groups grapple with stigmatization in HIV prophylaxis roll-out
The success of a promising HIV prevention intervention in sub-Saharan Africa — the region with the highest burden of HIV — will hinge more on the social than the scientific. Researchers and advocates will have to strike a balance in how they market and roll out pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). They have to ensure that it reaches […]
Ethiopia’s state of emergency silences aid workers
The Ethiopian government’s recently imposed state of emergency, which followed months of clashes between political protesters and security forces, has imposed new curfews, limited the movement of civilians and diplomats and outlawed opposition media. It has also largely silenced the extensive international aid community operating in the country from speaking about what effect the current […]
How to build on what works to improve health markets
Despite the many challenges to developing health markets in low- and middle-income countries, there are programs — often efforts to treat specific illnesses — that have shown enormous success in meeting the needs of some health consumers. Now, to improve markets, innovators in some places are looking to layer additional services onto those systems — […]
AIDS funding is in crisis. Who will step up?
Scientists say the tools are available to end the AIDS epidemic. But public health interventions are running out of money. And even as officials talk about the approaching end of a pandemic that has killed more than 35 million people, the goal of eradicating AIDS is looking ever further away. Funding has dropped before, but […]
Funding shortfall threatens ‘test and treat’ for HIV and AIDS
Global funding shortages and challenges in ensuring adherence to treatment are threatening to delay or even derail new recommendations that all HIV patients begin antiretroviral drug therapy as soon as they are diagnosed. Read more.
A new era in digital health
More than a decade of experimentation in digital health has seen the rise of a range of innovations that build on the promise that emerging technologies can dramatically improve health care, especially in low- and middle-income settings. What has also emerged is a range of challenges, as innovators have wrestled with everything from building partnerships […]
Despite improvements, Burundi refugees still at risk
Despite some progress, the nearly yearlong Burundian refugee crisis — in which more than 250,000 people have fled the country’s ongoing political instability — continues to threaten to overwhelm the East African region amid scant signs the situation will improve soon. Read more.
Looking for new funding models to address an ancient problem
The global tuberculosis response has consistently suffered funding shortages, which contributed to the disease surpassing AIDS in 2014 as the world’s leading infectious killer. Now — in a bid to end the pandemic by 2035 — a new strategy is looking to alternative funding sources and new spending models that will help officials better take […]