Building unlikely alliances to save children's lives
This is just a quick blog post to let everyone know that I will be in live debate with John Hilary, the CEO of War on Want on the BBC’s You & Yours programme on Monday 12/3/12. The programme starts at noon (GMT) and you can listen online here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/you-and-yours/
With a bit of luck the debate will be available after the programme as a podcast.
Who knew that packaging could be so exciting? We’re delighted with the way PI Global has taken our ideas and made them into a functional reality. In fact, there is a chance that our original innovation, that has captured everyone’s imagination – the piggy-backing of simple medicines on the Coca-Cola secondary distribution system – may be over-shadowed by the innovations we’ve packed into the design of the latest AidPods.
Here’s the list:
Mock-ups of the proposed 4g/200ml ORS sachets (not approved)
Once again, we’d like to thank our packaging partner, PI Global, for helping make our ideas work in the real world, and to Pharmanova for their work preparing to produce the 4g sachets for us and preparing the ground to the application for approval the PRA (Pharmaceutical Regulatory Authority).
And finally, here’s an early artist’s impression of how the AidPod might be used as a SODIS device. The artist in question is Andrew Jackson.
First image caption: Draft artwork for the reverse side of the 4g/200ml ORS sachets (not yet approved)
The AidPod moved to a new level of refinement this week in response to the challenge presented to us by Zambia’s Pharmaceutical Regulatory Authority (PRA). We had shown them the previous version (pictured) which I featured here. The PRA had an issue with soap being in the same kit as ORS and Zinc. There are precedents for public health kits containing medicine and non-medicine; one even contains bleach alongside tablets. The slideshow below features examples of this:
The PRA are not happy with these kits either. But we want to engage all the local institutions in what we are doing to maximise the possibilities for adoption and future sustainability. We want PRA endorsement.
So, how have the people at PI Global responded to this challenge? And it was a real challenge. In fact, a ‘Tardis Challenge’: we wanted to keep the outside dimensions essentially the same while making the inside bigger to accommodate a separate compartment for the soap.
Tim Llewelyn describes what they have done in the video clip below. Essentially, our clever design team have remodelled the base of the AidPod slightly and deepened the lid to form a tray for the soap, which now sits across the top of the AidPod. Tim explains:
Clever eh? In the next video Tim explains some of the features of the new AidPod:
Needless to say we are delighted with this and can’t wait to show it to the PRA – hopefully, they will be delighted too.
Women Deliver are seeking to create a Top 50 of ideas that are . . . delivering for women. The Women Deliver 50 list will be announced on 8 March, International Women’s Day, and will feature prominently at the Women Deliver 2013 conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Out of hundreds of submissions, a selection committee of experts and advocates from leading global NGOs and foundations has chosen a top 125. ColaLife has made it into this top 125.
The ones that make it to the Top 50 will depend on a public vote which runs until 2 March. So we’ve got just seven days! Please vote for ColaLife and encourage your friends to vote too.
Here’s how. Voting is being done through Facebook – click here to vote. You’ll need to vote for at least one project in each of the five categories. ColaLife is in the fifth category ‘Technologies and Innovations’ and we are number 4.
Once you’ve voted, please go that extra mile and invite your friends to vote for ColaLife too. The url for this page is:
http://www.colalife.org/2012/02/24/we-need-your-help-to-get-colalife-on-the-women-deliver-50-list/ (Right-click > Copy link).
I know voting can seem a bit trivial but awards like this really add to ColaLife’s credibility especially with organisations like Ministries of Health which we need on our side to make ColaLife a reality.
If you want more details of the Top 125, a paragraph on each one is given in this document: International_Womens_Day_Profiles_FINAL (PDF, 641 KB). I’ve made it available here as I had difficulty getting it from its original source.
Happy voting and campaigning! And thanks.
ORS sachets bought in Zambia – note that they all make up 1 litre
I never tire of telling people that Open Innovation is an amazing phenomenon. Happily, it disproves the old adage: Ask a silly question… Because, in fact, you don’t get silly answers.
Nearly a dozen people, including several international experts in Oral Rehydration for diarrhoea, answered the question I posed last week – and we got some great responses. Fascinating reading. Well, I would say that . . . but you don’t have to be interested in diarrhoea to learn a few lessons on product development and marketing from the valuable insights people sent in.
When you start to question why things are designed as they are, it’s surprising how often the design suits the manufacturer or the supplier or the scientist or the packaging people and not the customer. Either that, or it still conforms to an original brief that doesn’t fit the new status quo.
So, why do ORS packets come in 1 litre sachets? What is the recommended dosage? And how do you make the instructions clear? Here are some of the things that our experts (and common sense non-experts) suggested.
Cost
But hang on – that’s about the cost/benefit to the supplier, not the customer.
Convenience and ease of mixing
Again – these points look convenient for institutions, not the home-based customer in a remote village – who may not even know what a litre is, or have a litre measure to hand, and certainly doesn’t want to throw away what she doesn’t need, but, at the same time, shouldn’t leave the mixture standing around in the heat and the flies.
Minimising the possibility of errors
Ahhh – but surely the answer to this one is to give them a measuring vessel? And… in spite of all the instructions, everyone agreed that the particular packet we were looking at was easy to misunderstand.
Red tape
The crux of the issue
Then we got a really good insight from a person-who-knows at WHO:
“When the one litre package was designed and promoted by WHO and UNICEF, it was intended for use essentially in health facilities. For home treatment of diarrhoea, the emphasis was put on homemade solutions. However, it is clear that more and more often ORS is being used at home and for home treatment a one litre package is clearly inadequate.
“For home treatment of diarrhoea, studies have shown that the average consumption of ORS is 400ml per day for an average of two days…. And what we see in many countries is that mothers, especially in a very poor environment, who do not like to discard leftover solution, do not dissolve an entire packet of ORS in one litre of water, but just pour a little bit of powder in an undetermined amount of water, making a solution of unknown concentration, sometimes too diluted to be effective, and sometimes too concentrated to the point of aggravating diarrhoea through osmotic diarrhoea.
“Realising this, WHO and UNICEF are now recommending the use of smaller ORS packets for home use (200ml ORS packets and 500 ml ORS packets), which are now being supplied by UNICEF.”
The implications for us
We are seeking to increase home use of ORS for the treatment of diarrhoea and so smaller sachets of flavoured ORS would be ideal. If the average consumption in the household situation is 400ml, then, on average, 600ml will be thrown away each day if we use sachets that make up a litre. The problem is that I have never seen smaller sachets for sale in Zambia except for a product called REHIDRAT. REHIDRAT makes up 250ml of non-WHO approved solution and is marketed as a ‘life style ORS’ for sports people and the like and sells for between three and nine times the price of the 1 litre sachets pictured above.
Why don’t we use UNICEF ones?
Zambia does not procure ORS from UNICEF and even if it did they would be distributed through the public sector free of charge. The ORS we distribute will be part of a kit with a recommended retail price on it. If it contained a readily recognised ORS sachet which was free from clinics people are likely to get suspicious. Ours will be a commercial product and so needs to look like a commercial product.
Next move
It’s time to pound the streets to see if we can find someone who can make them! This is not part of our carefully thought out plan.
Yesterday (15/2/12) I received an email from the journalist Andrew Marshall to say that the ColaLife article that he had been researching for several months had been published in Issue 12 of Development Asia. The article starts on page 50 of the Scribd document here (and displayed on the blog below – note that it will take a while to load if you skip through the pages quickly). The article includes the first official quote ever from Coca-Cola on ColaLife and it’s from Sebastian van der Vegt, Group Communications Manager.
The article includes some interesting views from others on the role of Public/Private Partnerships in the area of public health as well as other things.
This is a really well researched article that was thoroughly and independently fact-checked and it shows. Top marks and thanks to Development Asia and Andrew Marshall.
You can download the article from the Development Asia website here (PDF, 315 KB)
First, can I ask you to study the above photo of the instructions on a packet of ‘WHO approved’ ORS which makes 1 litre of solution. First, you’ll note that you should discard any unused ORS solution after 24 hours. Next you’ll note that the recommendation that a child below 2 years should be given between 50 to 100ml a day (so you’d throw 900-950ml away). Then you’ll see that children between 2 and 10 years should be given 100 to 200ml a day (so you’d throw 800-900ml away).
Now I think these recommended dosages are misleading. I think the recommendation is that you give the solution ad-lib, but even then you are not going to get 1 litre of ORS solution into a small baby in 24 hours.
So why are the majority of ORS sachets of a size that makes up 1 litre? Surely it would be better to make the sachets a quarter of this size? Why make up a whole litre and allow flies to land on it etc etc and then throw most of it away? Why not make up smaller amounts? Little and often?
Update 17/3/12
This blog post generated a lot of email traffic containing some really helpful insights. These have led us down the road of producing smaller sachets and using the AidPod itself as the measure. See:
The ORS Question answered . . . by you
and
Pack of innovation – your ORS: shaken, not stirred
This image shows the latest version of the AidPod (Version VIII) and its component parts:
We went through this with the PI Global team last night over Skype. Enhancements in this version include:
We are looking forward to receiving samples for field testing next week.
The previous post describing the latest prototype packaging for the Anti-Diarrhoea Kits (ADKs) generated a lot of interest so I thought I’d post this video of us trying them out in the new format Coca-Cola crate with the new ‘ultra-light’ bottles. Please excuse the rather excited voice . . .
The Friday before last (27/1/12) a package arrived at the ColaLife project office containing the first prototype of the ADK packaging from our packaging partner PI Global. Earlier in the week, during a much anticipated Skype call, PI Global presented the prototype to us with supporting 3D images and the movie below showing the how the ADK would be assembled.
The image below is from the presentation given to us by PI Global and shows some of the features of the new prototype:
The new packaging differs significantly from the simpler AidPod models that we have been working with to date in the following ways:
As you can imagine, we are all pretty excited about this new AidPod, but it is still a prototype. There is still a bit of work to do to broaden the compatibility of the packaging with all the possible combinations of crate and bottle types and the re-usable lid still has to be designed.
So, PI Global have delivered beyond our expectations and on time. This has been a great motivator to other partners as the project gets underway. We have had great difficulty holding on to the 10 samples we have because everyone wants one! A good sign.
Comments anyone?
