Grand Challenges Canada was unveiled in Toronto on Monday with the announcement by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty of the first challenge: the creation of test strips to diagnose diseases at a patient's bedside. Grand Challenges is getting $225 million in federal funding over five years - money announced in 2008. Malaria kills nearly a million people a year in developing countries, mainly children under age five in Africa. But currently, if a child under five comes to a clinic with a fever in the developing world, there is no way to tell whether it's caused by malaria, pneumonia or something else. Samples get sent to a laboratory 100 kilometres away, and by the time the results come back, it can be too late to make a decision about treatment, said Dr. Peter Singer, director of the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health in Toronto and executive officer of Grand Challenges Canada. "Little test strips help you test the cause of the fever so you can institute the appropriate treatment," Singer said in an interview with CBC News. "That's a way to save 100,000 lives [annually] from malaria alone." Singer likened the test strips to cellphones that bypass the need for landlines. In this case, the aim is to bypass the laboratory roadblock. Health workers would be able to perform a low-cost test and get a result at the patient's bedside that assesses the disease stage and provides information on prognosis for a range of diseases that plague developing countries. The test strip itself has not been developed. 5 projects to be funded Innovation is the key to improving diagnosis, a prelude to effective treatment that saves lives, and that is what the funding announcement is about, Singer said. Grand Challenges Canada will identify, fund and support a total of five such health projects, using money announced in the 2008 federal budget. "Grand Challenges Canada will lead the way in making a better, safer and healthier world," Flaherty said in a news release. "It is an ambitious new Canadian organization aimed at supporting global partnerships to solve the developing world's most difficult and pressing health challenges." Grand Challenges Canada calls itself an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of people in developing countries by integrating scientific, technological, business and social innovation. The mission is to identify global challenges, fund researchers and organizations to address them, support their implementation and commercialize solutions. The organization works with the International Development Research Centre, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and other global health foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to find sustainable long-term solutions.
http://news.sympatico.cbc.ca/Home/...etect=&abc=abc&date=True
Nun darf gehofft werden, dass heut Mittag was pos. für RBM dabei rausspringt.
Die Plattform ist vorhanden, nun fließen vllt Gelder für die Entwicklung des Tests |
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