Tomorrow is World Pneumonia Day. Pneumonia is the leading cause of death among children under the age of five in the world. GHealth Research is an Irish research project, part funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, at the forefront of trying to change that. GHealth's multi-disciplinary team of researchers is primarily focused on global health issues in low and middle income countries where it is developing new strategies for diagnosis, treatment and management of disease.
Dr Joe Gallagher, one of the leaders of the project, said that almost one million children die from pneumonia every year, more than the deaths from HIV, malaria, measles and ebola put together. Dr Gallagher explained that GHealth Research is looking at new ways to better diagnose pneumonia in the community so as children can access care quicker and identify the seriousness of their illness quicker. Working with colleagues in Malawi, the group has collected blood and urine samples from over 500 children who presented with pneumonia at health centres there and these samples have been shipped over to Dublin. These samples are being analysed at UCD and at Queen's University Belfast in the hope of identifying new markers for pneumonia, which can then be used to develop a new blood test which can be deployed anywhere around the world to help health workers to determine who needs to go to hospital sooner or who just needs antibiotics.
GHealth wants to develop a simple pin-prick test can be analysed using a mobile phone app. Dr Gallagher pointed out that mobile phones are all over the developing world, with more people in Malawi having access to mobiles phones than electricity.
The Gates Foundation sets priorities for improving health across the world, and one of their major priorities is childhood pneumonia. Each year the foundation makes two calls for "grand challenges", where they seek "high risk, high value" proposals which will dramatically improve outcomes for these medical conditions. The group applied in 2015 for the grand challenges fund and it was granted $100,000 to run the project, and now that it is coming to an end, Dr Gallagher said he hopes it will be granted further funding.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Share in emerging markets across Asia fell overnight. One of the MSCI indices of shares across Asia-Pacific, excluding Japan, was down 1.4%. Investors are concerned US president elect Donald Trump's economic plans will boost inflation in the US, making dollar denominated assets more attractive and luring capital away from emerging economies. There are also fears the protectionist policies he has espoused and pledges to impose tariffs will hit trade and investment.
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