Gates Foundation grant award to Family Health International

Family Health International (FHI), a US-based non-governmental international organization working on implementing sustainable health programs for vulnerable communities in developing countries has been awarded with the Grand Challenges Explorations grant, which was the open competition initiated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seeking innovative solutions from just anyone around the world for improving global health in low and middle-income countries. This was the second round of the competition in which FHI received more than US $100,000. The research project, “Just Milk” under FHI was led by Dr. David Sokal and his team that looked at preventing HIV from mother to child during breastfeeding by modifying an existing nipple shield. This research project was part of the 3,000 proposals submitted to the Foundation from all parts of the world. Interestingly, the application form was not more than two pages and the project managed to convey the idea through it and won the grant award. Dr. Sakol and his team will be researching many other potential uses of the device developed in this project. Source.