For Stronger HIV Services in South Sudan, This Team Looks to the Data

What does it take to keep HIV services available despite limited resources, political unrest and violence, and a pandemic? For Alfred Okiria, IntraHealth International’s project director for the Strengthening National Capacity for Integrated HIV/AIDS Health Data Collection, Use, and Dissemination in Support of an Evidence-based Response in South Sudan project, and his team in South Sudan , the answer is data. Okiria and his team have been...

What Does It Take to Keep HIV Services Available in Tanzania during COVID-19?

Lucy Mphuru and her team have been providing HIV services to hundreds of thousands of clients in Tanzania for 14 years. But when COVID-19 hit the country in 2020, the pandemic threatened to halt these services. So Lucy and her team pivoted quickly. They developed their own creative new approaches to make sure their clients could still access high-quality health care while ensuring the safety of frontline health workers, staff, and the clients...

10 Global Health Issues to Watch in 2021

COVID-19 stole the headlines in 2020—and revealed that most countries were vastly underprepared for a pandemic. But it also shed light on incredible human ingenuity and fortitude. We saw frontline health workers navigate a deluge of COVID cases while also trying to keep crucial services available. We saw the fastest vaccine development in history. And we saw more clearly than ever our need for stronger supply chains, better mental health services...

Strong Data Systems Are Crucial during Coronavirus

Data systems are crucial for health care all the time, but during a natural disaster, war, or pandemic like COVID-19, functioning data systems can mean the difference between life and death. Data help us know what the health needs are, what capabilities each nearby hospital and clinic has, and where health workers should be deployed. Essential for responding to a pandemic, these data help monitor the spread and intensity of disease and help...

Nurses Can Bridge the Divide between the Clinic and the Policymaker

Pamela McQuide started her career as a nurse. Then she was a community organizer, a public health legislative aide, a family planning and reproductive health researcher, an assistant professor, and the country director for IntraHealth International’s Namibia projects. Now, she’s a leading expert on health workforce programs at IntraHealth. Her expertise in digital health, nursing, and international development gives her a unique perspective on...

What Happens When Global Health and Data Science Collide?

Data scientist Amy Finnegan’s job is to ask the right questions to get new answers. She uses machine learning to solve global health puzzles like “Why do women who use contraception in low-income countries stop using if they still want to avoid pregnancy?” and “What elements of populations and geography can determine whether a health program is successful?” We sat down with her to ask how this work is shaping the future of global health—and what...

The Future of Health Care in Rwanda Starts with a Strong Government Partnership

Just a decade ago, Rwanda struggled to provide high-quality health services. But when the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals pushed for change, Rwanda was focused, proactive, and determined to provide better for its 12 million people. Now, the country is an example of how hopes for better health care can become a reality. In the past two decades, the maternal mortality rate in Rwanda has dropped from 1,071 to 210 deaths per 100,000 live...

The Future of Health Care in Mali Starts with Women

More than half of Mali’s residents live in rural areas. Add to that the country’s shortage of health workers and high-quality training programs, plus political instability, and high-quality health care becomes much harder to access. But over the past two decades, IntraHealth International’s Mali country director Cheick Touré and his team have worked to change that. We sat down with him to discuss the changing landscape in Mali and what the future...

Is This Health Worker Ready to Prevent HIV? There's a Game for That

Around 1.4 million people are living with HIV in Tanzania. While there’s been a 49% decrease in the number of AIDS-related deaths since 2010, the country is still a long way from epidemic control. Training health workers to mitigate the spread of the disease is crucial. The World Health Organization estimates that we need over 7 million additional skilled health workers to meet just the basic health care needs of the world’s 7.6 billion residents...