WOW,
finally someone has said something about innovation not being synonymous with high cost and or high technology

...just when I was starting to decrease my levels of hope in the abilities of the "great minds" in the world to work towards sustainable solutions to the many problems facing the developing world I come across this article:

Simple solutions for complex health problems
By Edwin Colyer
Published: November 25 2005 02:00 | Last updated: November 25 2005 02:00

For many of the world's most pressing medical problems, innovation is about much more than technology. This is especially true in the developing world, where the fundamentals of basic healthcare are often lacking. As a result, innovation needs to be seen as more than developing new technologies. For example, in Africa, about 80 per cent of people use traditional healers for their primary healthcare. But just like anywhere else, improvement comes from innovation, albeit in a very different form. Maseno University in Kenya has spent the past two years engaging with traditional healers from around Lake Victoria. Under the guidance of university staff, the healers learn hygienic methods for preparing their remedies, and how to weigh and measure ingredients so their preparations are standardised - and their effects more predictable. They are encouraged to pack their medicines in bottles rather than old newspaper and to provide their patients with written prescriptions. They even learn the basics of keeping patient records. In Zimbabwe, meanwhile, rural communities have been transformed with some very simple technology: a motorcycle and sidecar. Developed by UK charity Riders for Health, the Uhuru (Swahili for "freedom") is a lightweight and extremely robust vehicle, designed to cope with the rough terrain. It can carry a stretcher or a pop-up seat and is ideal for ferrying urgent cases to health centres which can be more than 20km away. The Uhuru has saved the lives of people with snakebites, bee stings and women with complications in labour. Danish company Vestergaard Frandsen has developed the LifeStraw, a device that purifies water as you sip. The straw filters bacteria that cause waterborne illnesses, such as typhoid and diarrhoea, thus making it possible to drink water directly from a polluted lake or river. At the same time, many developing countries still aspire to build up their technological inventiveness. Brazil, for example, has an impressive pharmaceutical manufacturing base and Cuba has developed a vaccine for meningitis B. But how do you foster this kind of healthcare innovation? According to a group of 26 global health professionals, the secret lies in networking. Writing in the journal Science, they argue for networks to promote "policy research, local innovation, South-to-South learning, and information sharing.... More frequent robust exchanges of know-how among an expanding universe of public- and private-sector players would accelerate innovation and expedite the translation of knowledge..." A variety of networks already exist, such as the Developing Country Vaccine Manufacturers' Network and the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum. In addition, there are many North-South partnerships that also aim to build up the developing world's capacity for research and innovation. The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) is a particularly novel structure. It was created two years ago following numerous reports and the G8 emphasis on the burden of HIV, malaria and tuberculosis on the economic growth and welfare of African countries. "EDCTP has a unique model of partnership," explains executive director Odile Leroy. "First, 15 European states used Article 169 of the EC Treaty to join forces. Moreover, our African partners design EDCTP's scientific strategy. They analyse the medical needs of African nations and this is what drives our work." The main aim of EDCTP is to build Africa's capacity for conducting clinical trials. It provides grants for networking and for training African scientists in clinical trial methodology. It also supports the cost of pre- and post-registration trials of drugs in Africa. "Most of the research and product development for [HIV, malaria and tuberculosis] are now done by public-private partnerships," Dr Leroy explains, "but clinical trials are expensive. By supporting the clinical trials, EDCTP helps to lower the overall cost of R&D, thus making the drugs more affordable and accessible to the countries that need them most." EDCTP is not just supporting the development of new drugs, however. One of the clinical trials already under way, for example, is looking at HIV treatments for children in Zambia, particularly how to adapt standard treatment protocols to make them easier for children to follow. Another trial (with an already-approved malaria drug) will identify how government policies could be changed to slow down the development of resistance to anti- malarial compounds. More basic research is looking at how to simplify HIV diagnostics so they are better suited to African environments. "EDCTP is addressing the needs of African countries," states Dr Leroy. "We are investing in and building up Africa's expertise and skills in clinical trials. Everything from the design of clinical trials to the final reporting should be coming from African teams." Just as EDCTP focuses on clinical trials, the Centre for the Management of Intellectual Property in Health Research and Development (MIHR), a UK-based non-profit organisation, hopes to improve IP management in developing countries. "For middle-income countries, our training in technology management practices is geared at assisting the commercialisation of local innovation," says Robert Eiss, MIHR's chief executive officer. "In low-income countries, our major concern is enabling laboratories to negotiate with research partners on equal terms. We are hoping to contribute to a cadre of strong technology transfer managers. "Technology transfer is not really a discipline or profession in these countries. Negotiating North-South contracts or with public-private partnerships is still an emerging skill set." Through workshops and a "best practice" manual, MIHR helps the growing number of technology transfer officers in developing countries to push for retention rights, volume deals and to optimise the public and social benefits from their contracts. But the likes of MIHR are small and even the EDCTP, with its ú600m budget, can only have a limited impact. CPTech, a US-based NGO, proposes something far more reaching: an international medical R&D treaty. It flies in the face of current patent legislation (which provides monopoly rights to the holder to reward innovation). Modelled on the Kyoto protocol on climate change, the treaty would oblige signatories to invest a certain percentage of GDP in globally relevant medical research. The results, and any ensuing inventions, would be openly accessible. A tradable credit system would enable countries to meet their requirements. In February, CPTech sent a letter to the World Health Organisation Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH), asking it to consider the treaty. Signed by an array of MEPs, IP specialists, drug researchers and charity representatives, the letter argued that "a growing web of... trade agreements and policies focus nearly exclusively on measures that expand the scope and power of intellectual property rights, or reduce the effectiveness of price negotiations or controls". Stronger intellectual property rights and high drug prices do create incentives to invest in medical innovation, the letter continued, but they impose costs, too. These include problems of access to medicine and "scant investment in treatments for the poor, basic research or public goods". The proposed treaty is certainly a radical way to make medical R&D more accessible to developing countries. But would the R&D be any more relevant to these countries than it is today? After all, if healthcare in the developing world still relies on medicine men and the Uhuru, perhaps the greatest innovations will need to take these types of low-tech solutions into account.

for more on the article:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/075f0076-5d8a-11da-be9c-0000779e2340.html