Tag: Africa
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Interactive Map Shows Off-Grid Energy Technology Sites
Santa Clara University in California and social-enterprise information company Ayllu have created the Energy Map Web site that offers graphs and analyses of 40 social enterprises in 16 countries that bring electricity or alternative fuel to communities of 500 to 500,000 people each. All 40 of the sites involve energy produced or consumed outside of…
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Unregulated Drug Market Hurting TB Public Health Efforts
The campaign against tuberculosis is generally considered a public health responsibility, but a new study indicates that private, unregulated TB drug sales may be hurting rather than helping those efforts. Results of the study appear in the new issue of the journal PLoS ONE. The research, conducted by the organization TB Alliance and health care…
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Grant Funds Cross-Border Illegal E-Waste Tracking
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded a $2.5 million grant to help international efforts that curb improper disposal of hazardous electronic waste. EPA estimates that only about five percent of the more than 40 million metric tonnes of annual global e-waste are being recovered. The five-year grant to the United Nations University (UNU)…
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African Plants Tested as Malaria Therapies, Insecticides
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, near Oslo, are studying and testing plant extracts that have been used in traditional African medicine to fight malaria. The team hopes the project leads to supplements and replacements for today’s conventional medicines. Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite. People with malaria often experience…
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Database to Track Substandard, Counterfeit Medicines
U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention, a pharmaceutical industry standards body in Rockville, Maryland, unveiled its Medicines Quality Database (MQDB) that provides information on the quality of medicines in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. The database, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, has more than 8,700 records of tested samples collected in Ghana, Laos, Vietnam,…
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World Bank Contract Awarded for Off-Grid LED Tests
The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York received a World Bank contract to perform laboratory testing of LED-based, off-grid lighting products. The LED-based lights are developed for Lighting Africa, a joint initiative between the World Bank and International Finance Corporation. Over the next 18 months, the LRC will lab…
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Journal Highlights African Health Innovations
A supplement to the open-access journal BMC International Health and Human Rights devotes its entire issue to health innovations in sub-Saharan Africa, which offers case studies of local initiatives. The papers, relating the experiences of projects by institutes and companies in Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda provide lessons from successful…