Africa

In addition to advancing a malaria vaccine, preventing postpartum hemorrhage, and integrating HIV–TB services, PATH worked on multiple health priorities across Africa last year.

Burkina Faso

New meningitis vaccine clears regulatory hurdle

The Meningitis Vaccine Project—a partnership between PATH and the World Health Organization—has developed and tested a vaccine that could eliminate epidemic meningitis in sub-Saharan Africa. Manufactured in India, the new vaccine could avert the risk of disease for some 450 million people in the meningitis belt. In 2009, Indian regulatory authorities granted the new vaccine marketing authorization for use in Africa.

Learn more:

• Meningitis Vaccine Project website
• Stopping outbreaks before they start

Kenya

Team reestablishes oral rehydration therapy corners in Kenya to treat children with life-threatening diarrhea

Diarrheal disease, a leading killer of children under age five worldwide, causes nearly 1.6 million child deaths each year. Oral rehydration therapy is a cornerstone of treatment solutions.

Learn more:

• DefeatDD website
• Let’s Talk About It
• A Cup, a Corner, a Community

Malawi and South Africa

Informed by PATH research in Africa, the World Health Organization recommends that all national immunization programs include rotavirus vaccine

More than 85 percent of deaths from rotavirus, the most common cause of severe diarrhea in children, occur in developing countries in Africa and Asia. This new policy will help ensure access to rotavirus vaccines around the world.

Learn more:

• A Common Disease, A Promising Solution
• Real Progress for a New Generation
• Common Virus and Senseless Killer: A Briefing Paper on Rotavirus
• Equal protection against a common killer

Zambia

Malaria control interventions save lives

Zambia’s National Malaria Control Centre and its partners—including the Malaria Control and Evaluation Partnership in Africa (MACEPA) at PATH—are rapidly scaling up malaria control interventions. The results are inspiring: national surveys, for example, showed a 54 percent decrease from 2006 to 2008 in the prevalence of malaria parasites in young children.

Learn more:

• Taking malaria control to the next level
• I Will

More of our work in Africa:

• Researchers explore the most effective vaccination strategies against human papillomavirus
• Team develops new tool to help countries address multidrug-resistant TB