The Audiopedia Foundation is excited to announce a partnership with the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), a regional public health agency that coordinates the collective efforts of its twenty-six Member States to promote and protect the health and well-being of the Caribbean people. Established in 2011, CARPHA has been at the forefront of public health initiatives in the region, providing evidence-based policy recommendations, technical assistance, and research support.

The project “Enhancing Access to Health Education via Audiopedia” was awarded to our partner Red Aid Nigeria as part of the EU/BMZ #SmartDevopmentHack at bridging the health and development information gap among illiterate women and girls in Nigeria through the use of smartphones to access audio messages. Its implementation comprised a pilot phase and a 2nd phase.

To increase awareness on COVID-19, substance abuse and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) amongst refugees and those in the host communities TPO Uganda adopted the use of the solar-powered MP3 Audiopedia devices as part of the innovations to ensure continuity.

Trachoma is an infectious disease that affects the vision and is caused by Chlamydia trachomatis. The route of transmission is via direct contact, flies that have been in contact with an infected person, or sharing clothes. The consequence of trachoma is irreversible blindness - the leading cause of blindness of infectious disease.

Schistosomiasis, also called bilharzia, is an infectious disease that is caused by parasitic worms. Globally, more than 200 million people have been impacted by this disease. The causative agent lives in freshwater snails which eventually enter the water of rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds. People are affected by the parasite via skin contact - the parasite penetrates into the skin of people. Human diseases mostly occur with Schistosoma mansoni, S. japonicum, or S. haematobium. 

Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, is an infectious disease that is caused by the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus. The infection is transmitted by Simulium blackflies through a bite. It is the second leading infectious disease that results in vision loss. Unlike other diseases, this disease requires repeated bites for an infection to happen. The disease is also called river blindness because the fly breeds in streams and rivers and leads to vision loss. Onchocerciasis is prevailing in remote rural areas which makes those who live or work in these areas more at risk.

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are a group of communicable diseases and caused by pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites that continuously affect more than 1 billion people globally. Despite ongoing measures, NTDs are still prevalent in vulnerable and low-income countries such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. NTDs are comprised of 20 different medical diseases and mostly target women and children of susceptible communities.

Because of women’s unique biological characteristics and unequal cultural and social status, they are exposed to various reproductive and maternal health problems. In the past decades, the health situation of Sub-Saharan African women has improved significantly but it still lags behind that of other countries. For example, during the period from 2000 to 2017, Sub-Saharan Africa achieved a reduction of 39 percent of maternal mortality (from 870 to 533 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births). However, it still accounts for 68 percent of all maternal deaths per year worldwide (Unicef Data 2020).

As in many other developing countries, there are hardly any trained professionals for mental health care in Rwanda. Especially for people living in poverty or far away from urban centres, there is therefore no or hardly any suitable help. As a rule, many mentally ill people cannot be adequately supported.

Leprosy is still a thing. The number of new cases reported globally to the World Health Organization in 2019 was more than 200,000. An estimated 2 to 3 million people are living with leprosy-related disabilities globally. In 2019, the countries with the highest number of new diagnoses were India, Brazil, and Indonesia. Over half of all new cases of leprosy are diagnosed in India, which remains home to a third of the world’s poor, a group disproportionately affected by the disease.