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UK Government Pledges $66M to Implement SAFE
Children in Ethiopia wash their faces. UK funding will include hygiene education efforts. Photo credit: Bill Nigut for ITI

The UK government will invest �39 million ($66.25 million USD) to support implementation of the SAFE strategy (Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial cleanliness, and environmental improvements) to prevent and control trachoma in Africa. The International Coalition for Trachoma Control (ICTC) will implement the work, and ICTC member Sightsavers will manage the grant. ICTC is a consortium of partners working in trachoma prevention and control, and ITI is a founding member. The work will be done in Ethiopia, Zambia and Tanzania, where trachoma is highly endemic.

  

The new funds were announced this week by Lynne Featherstone, UK Department for International Development Minister. One person goes blind every 15 minutes from trachoma, the leading cause of infectious blindness in the world. Yet it is an entirely preventable disease. Stopping trachoma can make a significant difference to people's lives, especially women. Up to 90 percent of blind people cannot work, making their poverty worse and leading to lower standards of living.

 

Read the press release here. 

Mozambique Media, MoH Discuss Key Messages
on NTDs
Tom�s Viera Mario conducts interviews to demonstrate effective communication tactics. Photo credit: Elizabeth Kurylo for ITI
Simple language and compelling human stories will help raise public awareness of neglected diseases in Mozambique, officials from Ministry of Health and development organizations learned during an intense, two-day media training workshop in May. On the third day, they met with health journalists to explain which NTDs are endemic in Mozambique, their impact on communities, and what the government is doing to control and eliminate them. "We want to know how to report on these diseases that affect our people," one journalist said.       

ITI collaborated with RTI ENVISION to conduct the training, which was held at the headquarters of IREX, a nongovernmental organization funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to improve media coverage of health issues in Mozambique. The goal was to communicate brief, clear messages about neglected diseases to the public through the media. Participants said they gained confidence about talking to the media after practicing with facilitator Tom�s Viera Mario on camera. 

Read more here

ITI Joins Forum on Supply Chain Challenges

Supply Chain Manager Noah Kafumbe shares best practices in meeting of the NTD Supply Chain Forum
ITI Supply Chain
Click to watch Noah Kafumbe explain ITI's supply chain.

Earlier this year, ITI's Supply Chain Manager Noah Kafumbe attended a meeting of the NTD Supply Chain Forum (NTDSCF), a coalition of partners engaged delivering donated medicine. The meeting took place in Seattle, Washington, with the goal of addressing challenges related to the proper delivery of donated drugs. NTDSCF partners include GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Inc., Merck KGaA, Eisai, Pfizer, and the World Health Organization, as well as ITI and Children Without Worms (CWW), another program of The Task Force for Global Health. One of the major benefits of the meeting was the participation of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which expressed interested in supply chain for NTDs.

 

The NTDSCF focuses on the delivery of donated medicine from the manufacturer to the country central medical storage centers, known as the "first mile." More recently it has expanded the conversation to cover the "last mile," which refers to getting the medicine to endemic communities. The "last mile" focuses on supply chain management and distribution systems in country, where further support may be required.

 

Read more here.

 

ITI Staff Transitions

Goodbye to Deputy Director Colin Beckwith

and Information Analyst Rebecca Mann Flueckiger

 

Colin was with ITI more than two years, co-directing the strategic planning, development, and  implementation of ITI's operations. He managed ITI's technical and financial operations, and supervised program staff and associates at Atlanta headquarters and overseas. He supervised the management of the annual Pfizer donation of Zithromax� to beneficiary countries, including support to supply chain logistics (forecasting, supply chain audit, shipment planning) and programming projected growth. ITI is recruiting a new deputy director. Details are here.     

Rebecca had worked with ITI and other Task Force for Global Health programs since 2010, managing data and mapping trachoma prevalence and treatment. She had a significant role in the Global Trachoma Mapping Project and will continue working with the NTD Support Center.
  
 
 
 
Ana Bakhtiari joined ITI this month as Assistant Program Coordinator. She will assist in the development and implementation of program initiatives. She brings more than seven years experience in administrative support and project management. Her bio is here.
 

June 25, 2014
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A quarterly e-newsletter from the International Trachoma Initative (ITI), dedicated to the elimination of blinding trachoma, the world's leading cause of preventable blindness.
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