Backed By A Band Of Philanthropists, Nonprofit Makes Dramatic Progress In Reducing Childhood Deaths

Doctors Without Borders treats malnutrition in areas of Nigeria facing food shortages due to violence and insurgency. When safe, it runs a mobile clinic to provide basic health care, including nutritional support, particularly to children. When communities are not safe enough to enter, the organization trains community members in basic patient care and provides them the tools to run basic tests and treat malnutrition. Community health workers are also trained to treat patients, dispense medications, and educate caregivers about child nutrition.

Being in a conflict zone, primary healthcare in the state of Borno in Nigeria has suffered in recent years. In response to the crisis, Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) centers provide Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) to treat children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM). The centers also work in tandem with Community Nutrition Mobilizers (CNMs) to follow up with mothers to ensure that the children are taking the medicine, to educate them on malnutrition in children, and to offer other primary care provisions like immunizations.

Legacy of Legends, a nonprofit that helps families overcome traumatic experiences that often stem from poverty, opened the Frayser Clinic to provide free wellness exams to children. The clinic is run out of a local church and is open twice a month to help families access care. At each visit a doctor assesses a child’s physical health, mental and behavioral health and the clinic provides families with information about social services and connects them with a healthcare navigator, who helps families understand their child’s health insurance and reconnect them to a primary care physician.

A private healthcare facility in Romania is helping to bring specialty surgeries to the region's children by arranging for doctors from other parts of the nation and world to convene on a rotating, but regular, basis. The surgeons, many of whom specialize in pediatric corrective surgery for congenital heart defects, perform hundreds of surgeries per year financed by the Polisano Foundation.

A pilot program in western Cambodia is taking a coordinated, localized approach to decreasing cases of malaria in remote, hard to reach areas. The U.S.-funded program called the President’s Malaria Initiative operates on two levels: rapid detection and reporting as well as training and paying local residents to detect, treat, and educate their communities about the parasite. The hyper-local approach helps receive buy-in and trust from residents, who are often fearful of officials coming into their towns.

Malaria vaccine distribution systems in Africa's Sahel region are facing bottleneck in their supply chains, but are working to get help from the government and to piggyback on other aid systems.

In light of a study published in BMC Medicine, authors Nancy Fullman and Alexandra Wollum take a deeper dive into Nigeria’s gains against polio and what they could mean for the country’s routine vaccine systems.

Slow test results make it difficult to stop the spread of tuberculosis. Using faster diagnostic technology and driving vans to rural areas in Tanzania, GeneXpert is making progress in treating this curable disease.

A nutrient powder can save anemic children, but the people who could benefit are distrustful. Having local mothers distribute the supplement was successful in Bangladesh.

mDoc's Garden in a Box initiative distributes biodegradable seed kits to pregnant women identified through nutritional screening as having critical dietary gaps. The women are enrolled through a structured coaching and referral system in primary healthcare facilities and community outreach points, and receive ongoing support via a digital health platform. More than 300 women have been referred to the initiative and 96% collected a seed box.