Indian innovator selected for international funding

An Indian company is among 12 global innovators who will receive millions in funding from the US and its partners for their promising ideas to save lives at birth in developing countries.

Bempu Health Private limited has been recognised for developing the APNEBOOT, a boot-shaped foot monitor that alerts healthcare providers while stimulating the baby to prevent potential health ramifications during an apnea event, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said.

Preterm babies often suffer from apneas, temporary cessation of breathing. In low-resource settings where nurses are few, these apneas can often go unnoticed or detected late, which could lead to irreversible injury to the newborn.

After fierce competition, 12 of the world's most promising ideas to save lives at birth in developing countries have edged out nearly 650 other applicants, securing millions in new funding to develop and refine their innovations, it said.

The 12 global innovators would receive USD 3.4 million in funding from Saving lives at Birth which is aimed to accelerate innovations that prevent maternal, newborn deaths and stillbirth in the hardest to reach regions of the world.

The announcement was made last week at the sixth annual DevelopmentXChange here, an event that has served as the premier launching pad for global entrepreneurs to develop transformational solutions for maternal and newborn survival, and prevention of stillbirth, with the goal of making them accessible to the poorest, most remote communities in the world.

Some other awardees included Yale University for validating PremieBreathe, a low-cost breathing aid for infants suffering from respiratory distress, Monash University from Australia for facilitating rapid adoption of inhaled oxytocin by providing an evidence base and strategy for effective and efficient implementation.

Save the Children Federation from the US received the award for validating a point-of-care device that measures and interprets key vital signs among young infants and children to improve the quality of pneumonia case management and serious bacterial infections at community and health facility levels.

The Saving lives at Birth partnership, launched in 2011, includes the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada (funded by the Government of Canada), the U.K's Department for International Development (DFID) and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). It is a global call for groundbreaking, scalable solutions to end infant and maternal mortality around the time of birth.