【推荐2】A drug used to treat severe bleeding could save thousands of lives for mothers giving birth. A global trial of the drug found it reduced the risk of bleeding deaths during childbirth by nearly one-third. The study involved 20,000 women in 21 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. The trial was carried out by London's School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The drug is called d tranexamic acid (氨甲环酸). It is low-cost and researchers said it does not cause serious side effects for mothers or babies.

The drug is used to treat mothers for severe bleeding during childbirth, also known as postpartum hemorrhage (产后出血).It is the leading cause of mother’s death worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

Haleema Shakur is the project director of the trial. She says despite medical advances in many countries, severe bleeding after childbirth remains a big problem in some parts of the world. “It's one of the biggest killers of mothers. In Africa and Asia. about 10 percent of women will end up with severe bleeding. " The drug works by stopping blood clots(血凝块) from breaking down after a mother gives birth. The treatment can prevent the need for doctors to perform surgery to find the source of bleeding.

Shakur said the best results were reported when the drug was given to women as soon as possible after childbirth, “The earlier you give it- so within the first three hours of giving birth—the better the effect is. ”

The next step will be to get the drug where it is needed provide training for doctors and nurses on how to use it. During the trial, women were given the drug in a hospital. But researchers are looking for easier ways to administer the drug so it can be more widely used in small clinics and rural areas.

【推荐3】Fatima Bushin was losing her sight and was scared. She said what worried her most wasn’t the fear of a long, painful journey to blindness. She feared being unable to feed her family because blindness would keep her from working, as mothers do. The tragedy is that Bushin’s condition was preventable and, if caught in time, stoppable. She was among thousands of women in Tanzania who suffered from trachoma (沙眼), an infectious disease affecting largely poor communities in developing countries. Trachoma is one of neglected tropical diseases, or NTDs, so named because they receive less attention than other tropical diseases.

All NTDs can be controlled or cured entirely with known public health approaches and interventions. Improved sanitation (环境卫生), medicines and medical procedures have produced truly remarkable results in preventing and controlling NTDs, including trachoma, in some of the world’s poorest communities. Preventing, controlling and curing these diseases puts out poverty’s fire at its base.

We know it can be done. Through long-term efforts, several of these NTDs have been stamped out in some countries such as Laos. To wipe out extreme poverty around the world. many countries continue to invest in what is one of the most successful foreign assistance programs. For example, U.S. Agency for International Development programs to combat NTDs have reached nearly 300 million people affected by diseases that can spoil the patients’ appearance or weaken the patients physically.

For Bushin, the story ends well. Through foreign assistance program, she was able to lave the surgery needed to treat trachoma and save her eyesight. The surgery is relatively simple, performed in an hour at an outpatient clinic, and costs less than $300. In return, Bushin avoided a lifelong disability that would have recondemned her family to poverty with little hope for escape.

Jan. 30 marks the World NTD Day, a day that global public health experts say is needed to focus attention on the fight against tropical diseases. The success of the global fight against NTDs is good news for millions of people. It has been life-changing for a mother in Tanzania who continues to be able to provide for her family thanks to the constant efforts being made that kept her family out of poverty by saving her eyesight.