Pneumonia Innovations Summit 2015
What do we need to do to accelerate declines in child deaths from pneumonia to the levels already achieved for malaria, AIDS and measles? To find out, we hope you can join us for the inaugural Pushing the Pace: The Pneumonia Innovations Summit on Thursday, November 12th, from 10:00am – 5:30pm in New York City. The Summit, which is being held on World Pneumonia Day, will bring together the growing community of innovators with new and improved technologies for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of childhood pneumonia in low resource settings. As the recent Pushing the Pace report found, reducing the 900,000+ child pneumonia deaths to the levels required by the new Sustainable Development Goals will depend on accelerated uptake of the innovations with the greatest lifesaving potential. To attend the Summit, please RSVP to Meghan Gilfillan at Meghan.gilfillan@mdghealthenvoy.org and Maddie Cleland at mcleland@mdghealthenvoy.org by November 5th. Click here to view the event’s itinerary.
The Pneumonia Innovations Team, a global network of more than 200 organizations and individuals committed to accelerating the development and adoption of new technologies with the greatest potential to reduce child deaths from pneumonia, is proud to be sponsoring this event in support of the UN Secretary-General’s Every Woman, Every Child movement.
Click here to download the Pneumonia Innovations Summit Social Media Toolkit.
Click here to access the Pneumonia Innovations Media Statement.
Check out the Innovator’s Profiles to find out more about their work!
In case you missed them, here are a few extra highlights from World Pneumonia Day:
1) Karin Källander et al in Lancet Global Health: Early identification and treatment of pneumonia: a call to action
2) Amy Ginsburg et al in Lancet Global Health: Undernutrition and pneumonia mortality
3) Nancy Fullman (lead author of Pushing the Pace Report) in Humanosphere: Progress against pneumonia lags behind other childhood killers
4) Orin Levine (one of the Founders of World Pneumonia Day) in the Huffington Post: World Pneumonia Day 2015: Stronger Than Ever
5) Philips press release on the launch of the new restoration monitor in Africa: Children’s Automated Respiration Monitor
Video – Push the Pace, World Pneumonia Day
Video – Breathing Away: The Impact of Pneumonia
Congratulations to the winners of the People’s Choice Award – Most Promising Pneumonia Innovation
1. Mohammod Jobayer Chisti – Bubble-Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (BCPAP): A robust, easy to use device that delivers oxygen to sick children at a fraction of the cost of mechanical ventilators through an oxygen cannula, intravenous tubing and a shampoo bottle – with gas flow provided by oxygen concentrators. A recent randomized trial in Bangladesh found that the BCPAP improved outcomes in children with very severe pneumonia and hypoxemia compared with standard low-flow oxygen therapy. View Lancet article here.
2. Pavan Dadlani – Children’s Automated Respiration Monitor (ChARM): An easy-to-use, automated breathing rate monitor to support the diagnosis of childhood pneumonia by community health workers in low-resource countries. ChARM is placed around the child’s belly and automatically measures the respiratory rate and classifies fast breathing according to the WHO guidelines. The device will also be able to measure temperature and oxygen levels.
3. Jim Black – Low Pressure Oxygen Storage (LPOS): LPOS (the Low Pressure Oxygen Storage system) makes oxygen therapy feasible in the smallest health facilities. Built around a standard oxygen concentrator, it stores oxygen locally at low pressure, and automatically turns to this store during electricity blackouts. No more pneumonia patients lost to the vagaries of the power grid.
4. Udantha Abeyratne – PneumoFone: An app that converts a smart phone to an instrument for pneumonia diagnosis without extra sensors or an external communication network, based on the analysis of cough sounds. A diagnostic decision of greater than 90% accuracy can be displayed in-situ on the phone within a few minutes of measurement of cough. The PneumoFone can also accommodate other observations such as the breathing rate and the existence of fever.
5. Coenie Louw – Oil-Based Amoxicillin Suspension: A suspension of amoxicillin in non-volatile oils eliminating the use of water for reconstitution during treatment of childhood pneumonia, This new delivery method prevents degradation of the reconstituted antibiotic which usually happens within 2 weeks after adding water and eliminates the need for refrigeration. it will have a shelf life of up to two years and will remain stable at very high temperatures.
