Guest Blogger: Amanda Hirsch
Saving Lives at Birth, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), hosted DevelopmentXChange, the fifth annual pitch competition held by the partnership to call upon innovators from around to identify and scale up groundbreaking prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in poor, hard-to-reach communities.
Fifty-three finalists from the pool of innovators joined this year’s DevelopmentXChange in Washington, DC to participate in the final stage of the competition. They gathered to actively network their ideas with innovators, investors and partners, display their innovations in an open Marketplace, and compete for grants to make their innovations reality.
Amongst the 53 finalists, the first to present was a representative of the Pumani by 3rd Stone Design. Half of premature babies struggle to breath upon birth. This product expands upon the existing Bubble Continuous Positive Airway (bCPAP) technologies that are commonly used in the developed world to treat neonates with compromised respiratory systems by maintaining positive airway pressure during breathing, preventing airway collapse and improving oxygenation.
The Pumani, named after the Malawian term for “breathe restfully,” is as cheaper, easily-transportable version of the original bCPAP. The Pumani is currently being used by 700 clinical staff in 40 hospitals in Malawi and surrounding African countires. 2,000 patients have been treated with 170 Pumani devices to date and have seen survival rates of 64.6% with usage compared to rates of 23.5% from the use of oxygen alone. Creators of the Pumani hope to receive sufficient funds to manufacture hundreds more devices and to develop a sales and distribution team.
Next, innovators of Emory University pitched their Skin Immunization Microneedle Patch. Each year 1.5 million babies and children die of vaccine-preventable diseases. Low socioeconomic status, little-to-no access to healthcare facilities to receive vaccinations, and difficulty transporting and storing vaccines to remote and rural populations have severely impacted vaccination rates in hard-to-reach communities.
The vaccination patch, a small square covered in microneedles that will vaccinate a subject against one or multiple diseases within minutes is proposed to be the solution to this problem. The Skin Immunization Microneedle patch can be stored in unfavorable elements, transported easily, requires minimal storage space, and eliminates the burden of biohazard sharps. So far, the patch has successfully provoked immune responses to H1N1 and tetanus. Innovators of the Emory University team wish for funding to begin conducting human studies for the patch.
Third, innovators from the University of Toronto sought to address iron deficiency in pregnant women, particularly in Southeast Asia. Iron deficiency causes 150,000 maternal deaths each year. To address this problem, the Toronto teamed proposed food fortification- to fortify tea with iron. Tea was chosen to be fortified because it is the sole product that is universally purchased across Southeast Asia. People from all walks of life- rich, poor, urban, rural, must go to purchase tea.
Mimicking the iron fortification of salt which has cured one million people of anemia, it was proposed that iron be microencapsulated into tea that can be processed in the body. Innovators of the iron-fortified tea seek funds to work on managing the taste, distribution, and exploration of their product.
The remaining of the 53 innovators also presented at the DevelopmentXChange pitch competition. To learn more about the innovators, products, competition, and organization, visit http://www.savinglivesatbirth.net.
Amanda Hirsch is a summer Global Health intern for APHA. She is starting her final undergraduate year at the GWU Milken Institute School of Public Health. Her passion for global health began in rural Honduras, and she is particularly interested in disparities in healthcare systems that affect the Latino community. She intends to pursue an MPH degree with a dual concentration in Community-Oriented Primary Care and Global Health. You can follow her on Twitter at @amandahirsch12.
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