Infectious Disease

Increasing contraceptive uptake is a key strategy in decreasing Zambia’s high maternal mortality rate. In order for Zambia to meet its target of increasing contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) from 33% to 58% by 2020, cost effective and scalable solutions to increasing access to family planning (FP) are required. Due to a resource constrained health system, there are many nurses that are retired, under- and unemployed that wish to continue serving their communities.

Improving safety of infusion is a neglected component of child health in humanitarian contexts. Data from the FEAST trial estimates that over 10% of children admitted to East African hospitals are in shock and require immediate infusion therapy. Approximately 11-12% of these children die, often within hours of admission. Existing infusion sets on the Ugandan market are imported and cost between 2500-6000 USD, making them incredibly expensive to procure and maintain.

In sub-Saharan Africa, healthcare delivery for HIV developed almost exclusively through vertical infrastructures. Research has found families affected by HIV face numerous challenges not addressed by current vertical structures, which alone struggle to promote ART adherence. Food security, income, family functioning, and social support among HIV+ caregivers, and higher levels of abuse, neglect, school dropout and street-migration among children in HIV-affected families threaten family well-being.

In 2014, there were an estimated 1 million incident cases of tuberculosis (TB) in children younger than 15 years of age, while as many as 140,000 children died of TB. About 75% of all childhood TB cases occur every year in the 22 high burden countries, most of which are in sub-Sahara Africa. Differentiating TB from other respiratory diseases (ODs) in children with suspected TB disease is difficult, especially if diagnosis relies on clinical and radiological features or microbiological assays, since children often cannot produce sputum.

The mid-western region of Uganda, specifically the districts of Kibale and Hoima that are targeted for this grant have the poorest Reproductive Maternal Newborn and Child Health (RMNCH) indicators in the country with unmet need for Family Planning (FP) 52%, skilled birth attendance 56%, Post Natal Care (PNC) for mothers and newborn within two days of delivery 29% and 9% respectively and 4th Antenatal Care (ANC4) attendance 32.4%. In 2009, Malaria Consortium with funding from Canadian CIDA introduced integrated community case management (iCCM) in all districts in the region.

Kenya uses civil registration and vital statistics(CRVS) surveillance without integrating into its citizen’s lives, resulting in low birth registration rates [1, 2]. We introduced a cloud-based electronic medical records system(EMR) to register mothers and infants at maternal and child healthcare(MCH) clinics called WIRE. Our system registered 9274 mothers and infants while recording MCH activities. However, the system does not track infant’s vaccination histories or calculate immunization rates