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Building A More Resilient West Africa - How Open Innovation Can Help

         

Improving local health workers’ access to real-time health information will enable a faster and better response to global health threats. / Neil Brandvold, USAID

medium.com/usaid-2030 - by Ann Mei Chang - February 11, 2016

. . . The next generation of health information systems have to not only quickly and accurately deliver the necessary information to healthcare workers, but they need to be able to communicate with each other. The wide range of people involved in combating epidemics such as Ebola need to be able to efficiently and seamlessly share information to ensure coordinated responses and better resource distribution. . . .

. . . To get the conversation started, USAID put out a call for innovative concepts for improving interoperability within health information systems in the developing world. We gathered over 40 organizations for a three-day co-creation workshop in Washington, D.C. in November. Almost 100 experts — including donors, engineers, software developers and implementers in the field — arrived to co-design a solution. . . .

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Hawaii on High Alert of Dangerous Mosquitoes

america.aljazeera.com - February 16, 2016

Dr. Gavin MacGregor-Skinner, the director of disaster response at Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital, weighs in on Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases.

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/morning-news/2016/2/hawaii-on-high-alert-of-dangerous-mosquitoes.html

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How to Survive a Global Disaster: a Handy Guide

         

Ubisoft’s role-playing shooter The Division wouldn’t be as much fun if players followed Nafeez Ahmed’s advice and stayed rural.  Photograph: Ubisoft

Whether it’s a natural disaster, bioterrorist attack or pandemic, experts reckon society as we know it will collapse within 13 days of a catastrophic event. So what do you do next?

theguardian.com - by Keith Stuart - February 10, 2016

On 22 June, 2001, Tara O’Toole and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, organised a war game like no other. The two researchers, working with an array of bodies such as the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, set out to simulate the effects of a biological attack on the US. The project was called Operation Dark Winter.

What they discovered was that the country was ill prepared to cope.

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Obama Asks for $1.8 Billion in Emergency Zika Funding

           

Anthony Fauci (R), director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease and Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention speak with reporters during a press briefing about the Zika virus at the White House in Washington February 8, 2016  REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE

CLICK HERE - The White House - FACT SHEET: Preparing for and Responding to the Zika Virus at Home and Abroad

CLICK HERE - CDC Emergency Operations Center moves to highest level of activation for Zika response

reuters.com - by Roberta Rampton and Ben Hirschler - February 8, 2016

President Barack Obama will ask the U.S. Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funds to fight Zika at home and abroad and pursue a vaccine, the White House said on Monday, but he added there is no reason to panic over the mosquito-borne virus.

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Bharat Biotech Says Working on Two Possible Zika Vaccines

           

A municipal health worker shows off a test tube with larvae of Zika virus vector, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, as part of the city's efforts to prevent the spread of the Zika, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, February 2, 2016.  REUTERS/JOSUE DECAVELE

in.reuters.com - by ZEBA SIDDIQUI - February 3, 2016

Indian biotechnology company Bharat Biotech said on Wednesday it was working on two possible vaccines to fight the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil.

The virus is spreading rapidly in the Americas, and WHO officials on Tuesday expressed concern that it could hit Africa and Asia as well. No vaccine has been developed so far.

One of the possible vaccines is "recombinant", which means it is created by genetic engineering, while the other was "inactivated", and will enter pre-clinical trials in animals in two weeks, Bharat Biotech managing director Krishna Ella told Reuters.

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The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics

submitted by Albert Gomez

ellenmacarthurfoundation.org - January 19, 2016

Applying circular economy principles to global plastic packaging flows could transform the plastics economy and drastically reduce negative externalities such as leakage into oceans, according to this new report.

The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics provides, for the first time, a vision of a global economy in which plastics never become waste, and outlines concrete steps towards achieving the systemic shift needed.

The report was produced by the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with analytical support from McKinsey & Company, as part of Project MainStream, a global, multi-industry initiative that aims to accelerate business-driven innovations to help scale the circular economy. It was financially supported by the MAVA Foundation.

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How Could Paris Climate Talks Change Africa’s Future?

          

Pilanesburg National Park, three hours from Johannesburg in South Africa, has been ravaged by drought. Zebras roam the game reserve on November 12, 2015.  PHOTOGRAPH BY WENDY KOCH, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

The UN meeting will focus on developed countries’ plans to curb global warming, but it could give Africa money to embrace clean energy.

nationalgeographic.com - by Wendy Koch - November 23, 2015

A landmark UN report says rising temperatures will “amplify existing stress on water availability” in Africa—a continent that’s contributed little to climate change but is reeling from its impacts. . . .

. . . Countries have pledged to cut their planet-warming emissions of greenhouse gases. Richer nations have also pledged $100 billion a year to help poorer ones adapt to climate change and adopt clean sources of energy.

“Africa could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of COP21,” UN’s Vincent Kitio said at National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge forum this month in Johannesburg on sub-Saharan Africa’s future.

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At Davos, U.N. Appeals For Final $1 Billion To Fight Ebola

             

Fabrice Coffrini via Getty Images

huffingtonpost.com - by Ben Hirschler

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 21 (Reuters) - United Nations agencies need a final $1 billion to fight West Africa's deadly Ebola epidemic as experts move to a new phase involving a massive detective operation to trace remaining cases, the U.N. Ebola chief said on Wednesday.

David Nabarro estimated that an overall total of $4 billion in new money, equivalent to all the aid committed so far, was needed by relief agencies and the worst affected countries themselves to end the epidemic and "help these countries to get back to the economic trajectory they had." 

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Community Resilience Center - Sri Lanka

communityresiliencecenter.org

Community Resilience Center is a community-based organization in Sri Lanka with the aim of promoting community level resilience to disasters.

Vision

A safe world where people will live in love, dignity and opportunities for growth.

Mission

To engage, enlighten and empower communities to promote resilience.

Objectives

1.To promote continuous professional development of membership towards enhancing resilience.

2.To engage communities and all relevant stakeholders in an inclusive manner towards promotion of community resilience.

3.To promote the understanding and application of community resilience.

4.To develop, disseminate and evaluate tools and techniques to assess and enhance community resilience.

5.To innovate, implement and evaluate methods to improve community resilience.

(SEE ATTACHMENT BELOW FOR A REPORT ON COMMUNITY RESILIENCE CENTER ACTIVITIES)

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A Billion in Pandemic Prevention Is Worth a Trillion in Cure

          

Photographer: Waldo Swiegers /Bloomberg

The world is warned to prepare now for health crises such as the Ebola outbreak, or pay a lot more later.

CLICK HERE - LINK TO REPORT AND OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION - The Neglected Dimension of Global Security - A Framework to Counter Infectious Disease Crises 

bloomberg.com - by John Tozzi - January 13, 2016

The world needs a . . . transformation to prevent outbreaks of infectious disease that threaten security and economic stability, according to a report sponsored by several major foundations. Pandemics—epidemics that spread across the globe—could cost humanity $6 trillion in the 21st century, or $60 billion a year, the authors estimate. They argued for investing $4.5 billion a year—or 65 cents for every resident of the planet—to prepare.

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