Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Medicine Mondiale

Medicine Mondiale is a New Zealand-based NGO dedicated to making quality medicines and medical technologies available to the poorest of the poor in developing countries. Rather than going down the familiar path of providing AID to countries in Africa and in other parts of the developing world, Medicine Mondiale is striving to create sustainable solutions. Some of the work that they are investing heavily in, includes (but is not limited to) cholera/diarrhoea treatment devices, affordable pediatric HIV/AIDS medication, cataract surgery for people who live in Nepal, and a pharma manufacturing plant in Eritrea.

We would like to applaud Ray Avery, inventor of the Acuset - an example of a device that is not very "sexy" but yet extremely useful in many healthcare settings. The Acuset is an IV dripset, but it has been designed to be re-usable, work with several different IV bags, is external, and provides the ability to easily monitor and control the flow from the pump. Mr. Avery is also the wizard behind humanitarian eye specialist Fred Hollows. One of my favorite Avery quotes "I see the world in terms of what $2 or $10 can do." Read more about Ray and Medicine Mondiale here

No comments: