A Q&A with Kiley Workman Diop, technical advisor for the SIAPS Program You took courses in gender studies in college. How has that shaped your work? It has shaped my work a lot! My background in public health is rooted in the social aspects of health. Social determinants like income, gender, race, class, faith, sexuality, … Read more
By Francis Aboagye–Nyame, SIAPS Program Director On this day in 2014, the global health community made a commitment to universal health coverage (UHC) throughout the world. Although progress has been made, more than one billion people still lack access to basic health care. Further, as a Lancet Commission report, Essential Medicines for Universal Health Coverage, said … Read more
Editors’ Note: This is the first of a special series called Voices, in which SIAPS staff share their views on global health issues and their work in the field. This interview is with Kelly Sawyer, SIAPS technical advisor for tuberculosis. What sets TB apart from other health areas? TB is now the number one infectious … Read more
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the world’s most pressing and urgent global health threats— one that could erode the current progress against tuberculosis (TB), malaria, HIV/AIDS, and many other infectious diseases. In conjunction with World Antibiotic Awareness Week (14-20 November), the SIAPS Program has published a technical program update on Combating Antimicrobial Resistance with Stronger Health … Read more
By Jane Briggs, Principal Technical Advisor More than 900,000 children die of pneumonia each year (more than malaria, measles, and HIV/AIDS combined), according to the World Health Organization. Many of these cases go undiagnosed and untreated. How can this be when we know what works? A five-day, twice-daily amoxicillin regimen—in either dispersible tablet (DT) or oral … Read more
By Aubrey Clark, SIAPS Technical Advisor, and Mohan P. Joshi, SIAPS Principal Technical Advisor and Cluster Lead for Pharmaceutical Services “Medicines don’t work in patients who don’t take them.” – Former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop Today, medicines exist to treat many of the world’s most pressing health threats. Deaths from HIV/AIDS have fallen by … Read more
The SIAPS team has helped the Ethiopian Food, Medicine, and Health Care Administration and Control Authority (FMHACA) and many health facilities in the country incorporate product quality reporting into its national adverse drug event (ADE) reporting system. This has proven to be an efficient and cost-effective measure to detect products with problems in quality and … Read more
By Kelly Sawyer, Technical Associate – TB The SIAPS program, in collaboration with the Challenge TB project in Ethiopia, organized a national forecasting and quantification training on the QuanTB tool in September in Bishoftu town, Ethiopia. QuanTB, which SIAPS developed in 2013, is a downloadable electronic tool designed to improve Tuberculosis (TB) medicines procurement processes, ordering … Read more
By Stacy Lu, SIAPS Technical Writer Based on USAID/Angola’s Gindungo Newsletter by Paul McDermott, Acting USAID/Angola Mission Director, and Gastao Figueiredo, Editor The Angolan Central Procurement Agency for Medicines and Medical Supplies (CECOMA) has developed a draft strategy to reform and strengthen the country’s pharmaceuticals system. CECOMA developed the strategy during a hree-day workshop in June … Read more
