By Nsikan Akpan
A third of the world’s population is at risk of catching the Zika virus, according to a new study led by scientists at Oxford University in England.
A recent graduate's striking photography was honored with a Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Mark of Excellence Awards. Paul Nevin (MPH ’15) was awarded first place prize for feature photography in Region 10 for his photography that documents maternal health issues in Kenya. A 2014 Pulitzer Center student fellow from the University of Washington and recent Master in Public Health graduate, he will continue as a finalist for the national award.
China’s role in global health is expanding rapidly due to a confluence of factors, including its role as a major economic force, support from the Chinese Ministry of Health, and growing interest among Chinese university faculty and students.
By Kirk Johnson
SEATTLE — Inside the factory buildings at Cascade Designs, just south of downtown Seattle, camping and hiking gear for the rugged outdoor life of the Pacific Northwest has been manufactured since the early 1970s. But turn a corner and something new is coming off the shop floor: a compact, no-frills water purifier designed to bring clean water to struggling populations in rural Africa.
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By Prachi Patel
...Paul Yager, a biochemist at the University of Washington, meanwhile, has developed a handheld plastic device the size of two stacked card decks that contains strips of patterned paper and wells containing reagents and dyes, and into which a user would insert a fluid sample. The patterns of dots that appear after 20 minutes could be read by a clinician or sent via smartphone camera to a physician elsewhere. Yager says that the box could cost as little as $1 to manufacture in bulk.
By Chelsea Gish
The ASPIRE trial and The Ring Study, two large scale clinical trials, have found that microbicides can safely reduce the risk of new HIV infections in women.
A microbicide is any compound capable of destroying microbes and infectious agents. Recently, this method of prevention has become particularly relevant in reducing the transmission of HIV when applied to the vaginal or rectal region as a topical gel.
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This year’s Global Innovation Fund awardees represent a number of disciplines across 29 schools, colleges and programs. The funds are managed by the Office of Global Affairs, who had to choose from a record 95 applications. Only 26 applications were awarded funds, and of those, eight involve Global Health faculty.
Awardees were selected through a highly competitive process managed that awards seed grants to projects in two areas: a) innovation in study abroad and b) innovation in global engagement and partnerships.
By Karin Huster, MPH ('14)
This month marks two years since the first Ebola cases were confirmed in Guinea. The time has come for recollection and reflection, frank opinions and lessons learned. What did we do well? What should we have done differently? What has Ebola taught us? I spent 6 weeks in Liberia, 4 1/2 months in Sierra Leone, and 6 months in Guinea during the epidemic, working with Ebola patients and focusing on strategies to fight the disease. These thoughts come from the experiences that I had working in the field.
The University of Washington received a $250,000 grant this week to continue a project that allows pregnant women in remote Africa to access health care through text message.
Second year MPH student Maria Artunduaga, MD, competed in the University of Washington’s Health Innovation Challenge in March as part of an interdisciplinary team of students from across campus including business, human centered design, occupational medicine, and health information management. Her team created a business proposal for an app that would help reduce fatal traffic accidents. She was inspired to focus on traffic injuries because of her field work in an emergency ward in Colombia last summer through the Thomas Francis Jr.