Smile Train Vice President and Regional Director for Africa Dr. Esther Njoroge-Muriithi has been selected to serve as an Advisory Group Member for the Civil Society Engagement Mechanism (CSEM) for UHC2030.

Dr. Njoroge-Muriithi has represented Smile Train on several Civil Society Organization (CSO) platforms and events including the G4 Alliance, CORE Group and UNGA73 side events advocating for Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

The CSEM is a growing global civil society movement with over 1000 members from more than 850 organizations in 100+ countries. Membership in the CSEM is open to all civil society representatives advancing health, financing and governance agendas that relate to achieving UHC.

As a member of the Advisory Group, she will help strengthen a broad and inclusive UHC movement, which aims to influence policy design and implementation and facilitate citizen-led accountability. Her voice will join other strong CSO voices to contribute significantly to UHC2030, ensuring systematic attention …

The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) is announcing the second round of calls for a multi-million-dollar research programme led and implemented by African scientists, working collaboratively to address challenges faced by people in African countries.

A total $72M has been invested into the second phase of the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science in Africa (DELTAS Africa) programme, a flagship programme of the AAS.

A similar investment was made in the first phase of the programme was implemented with the support of Wellcome and the Department for International Development (DFID). AAS is announcing a second call with support from Wellcome with additional funding to be announced in the future. This second phase will run from 2021 to 2025.

This follows a successful first five-year programme with the second round extending its remit to new priority research areas including non-communicable diseases, public health research, social sciences and humanities, implementation science …

 Political goodwill and health advocacy programs have proven successful in reducing the number of teenage pregnancies in Kenya’s coastal region. This emerged at the Adolescent and Youth Health and Wellbeing Symposium in Kenya’s Kwale County organized by the Aga Khan University.

According to the Ministry of Health, there has been a decline in cases of teenage pregnancy in Kenya – from 404, 763 cases in 2018 to 326,072 as at October 2019. This holds promise for the girls at the Coast, which has been known to have the highest prevalence of teenage pregnancies in the country.

“We have since a drop in the number of teenage pregnancies in Kilifi County following intense engagements with youth at sub-county and ward levels through targeted social and medical campaigns. This follows the launch of a youth-led strategic plan on sexual and reproductive health that was launched in April. This has also enlisted political …

In March of 2013, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the commencement of a grant competition to facilitate innovative companies to develop condoms of the future. The idea was to develop the next-generation condom that significantly preserves or enhances pleasure, in order to improve uptake and regular use,” according to the foundation’s Global Grand Challenges website. The most promising designers would score $100,000 in seed funding, plus a chance at an additional $1 million to further finance their projects.

Years down the line, none of the recipients has come up with a condom worth noting. Only around 5% of men worldwide are estimated to use them — despite their 98% effectiveness at preventing unwanted pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. The main reason has been explained as lack of “enough pleasure” or reaction to latex-the main material for development of condoms.

As the world marks …

Shelf Life, the revolutionary pharmaceutical inventory management subscription service, has been licensed in Kenya by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board. The service, provided by Field Intelligence, is active in 50 retail locations in Kenya, with over 500 life-saving medicines and essential products being supplied on a pay-as-you-sell basis.

In Kenya there are about 5,840 privately-owned community pharmacies licensed by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board, compared to approximately 4,700 government health facilities. According to the company’s research, 60% of community pharmacies frequently stock out of essential medicines and 55% are without access to stable supply and finance.

With Shelf Life pharmacies achieve an average 96% availability on essential products from over 45 therapeutic areas – including medication for hypertension, diabetes and malaria. These improvements in accuracy are thanks to Shelf Life subscriptions, which gives pharmacists access to business insights to forecast and optimize inventory levels.

Pharmacies on Shelf Life sell …

IFC and IFHA-II Coöperatief U.A., a private equity fund focused on health care in Sub-Saharan Africa, have launched a $115 million holding company to acquire and integrate targeted health care service businesses in East and Southern Africa.

The project will boost access to quality health care services to help improve lives and achieve universal health coverage across the region.  IFC is investing $22 million in the Hospital Holdings Investment (HHI) holding company, an investment platform set up by IFHA-II, which is also supported by the European development finance organizations Swedfund, Proparco, Finnfund and IFU, Danish Investment Fund for Developing countries. HHI will be IFC’s largest equity investment in health care in Sub-Saharan Africa, outside of South Africa. IFC also mobilized $43.2 million from other investors.

“HHI is filling a critical gap in the health care sector by providing secondary and out-of-hospital care for middle to lower middle income patients in …