Grand Challenges Canada, Toronto
29 April, 2013
59 creative, out-of-box health innovations devised in 13 low- and middle-income countries, plus 43 from Canada, share $10.9 million in seed grants and a single goal: Reduce debilitating disease, save lives in developing countries
Shaun Morris, infectious disease doctor with Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, delivers a neonatal kit to a pregnant woman in rural Pakistan. Morris has received one of 102 $100,000 grants announced worldwide April 29 by Grand Challenges Canada to fund “bold global health ideas with big impact.”
Grand Challenges Canada, which is funded by the Government of Canada, today announced 102 new grants of $100,000 each for bold new global health ideas. Of these, 59 grants went to innovators in 13 low- and middle-income nations worldwide to pursue bold new imaginative ideas to tackle health problems in resource-poor countries.
Grants of $100,000 each were also announced for 43 Canadian-originated projects to be implemented in a total of 49 countries throughout the developing world.
The full global portfolio of 102 creative, out-of-the-box ideas, selected by independent peer review from 436 applications, include:
- An instant test strip to diagnose deadly diseases like Ebola and dengue à la litmus paper
- A vaccine for smokers against nicotine’s addictive effect
- A glucose meter cell phone attachment for diabetics
- A tool kit to save newborn lives
- Engineering gut microbiome bacteria to defend against waterborne diseases like cholera and thyphoid
- Teaching old drugs new tricks in the fight against HIV
- Saving mothers and children with affordable, needle-free anemia-screening
- Using mobile phones to monitor maternal and child health in rural Nepal
- * A fast track to safer pesticides via super-computer
- Tapping local businesses in Tanzania: Malaria drugs on wheels
- Reading ultrasound images of rural patients via cyberspace
- …and many others.
News release in full: click here
Sample coverage: Toronto Star, click here, Vancouver Sun, click here, CBC, click here, Daily Mail (UK / India), click here
Coverage summary: click here