On our last full day in Zambia (10-Jul-2023) we decided to clear the last thing on the MUST DO list and investigate retail prices for ORS, Zinc and co-packaged ORS and Zinc. As time was short, we decided to conduct an informal ‘Mystery Shopper’ exercise: as we drove from one commitment to another, we stopped […]
Amcor donate packaging for one million ORS/Zinc co-packs
28 September 2020 by
Amcor, our scale-up packaging partner, has donated the packaging for a further 1 million ORS/Zinc co-packs. These will be used by Pharmanova in Zambia to assemble ORS/Zinc co-packs for the government – branded as the GRZ ORS/Zinc co-pack – and for the private sector – branded as Kit Yamoyo. The shipment will leave London on […]
Latest figures on the use of zinc for diarrhoea treatment in Zambia
7 July 2019 by
Zambia: Commercially branded co-packaged ORS and zinc – Kit Yamoyo (left) | Government branded co-packaged ORS and zinc (right) The latest Demographic & Health Survey (DHS, 2019) has just been published for Zambia. These surveys are undertaken every five years under the DHS Program. The report just published for Zambia (PDF 1.4MB) shows a dramatic […]
DfID Secretary of State and UNICEF provide letters of support
25 November 2018 by
On 12-Nov-18 we submitted our application to WHO to add co-packaged ORS and zinc to the WHO Essential Medicines List for Children and this was reported here. Our application was submitted with ten letters of support. The application and the letters of support are now available on the WHO website here. Letters of support have […]
The Man from the Ministry, the Shopkeeper and the Nutritionist
28 February 2018 by
Hon Minister of Health – Dr Chitalu Chilufya As we study the impact of our two big projects in Zambia – developing the market for Oral Rehydration Salts and Zinc for childhood diarrhoea – uppermost in our mind is one word: ‘self-sustainability’. OK, maybe that’s two words. Put it another way: Have we done enough […]
ColaLife – the problem, the solution, the impact, the future – 4 minute Ashoka video
30 November 2017 by
View this video on YouTube In 2015 I (Simon Berry) was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship. There are now 39 UK Fellows and some 3,500 Fellows worldwide. Ashoka builds and cultivates a community of change leaders. Together, they collaborate to transform institutions and cultures worldwide. Ashoka Fellows support changemaking for the good of society. […]
Kit Yamoyo wall painting
31 October 2016 by
Pharmanova, the company that manufactures and assembles Kit Yamoyo in Zambia, have started painting shop keepers’ walls in the Lusaka compounds (townships). I was pleased to capture this image with the Kit Yamoyo advert right next to a Coca-Cola one which takes us right back to where we started in our mission to make diarrhoea […]
Cholera and Chlorine – two stories from Zambia
14 April 2016 by
Here are two stories written by me, as an outsider looking in, as a vaccination campaign starts in Zambia to control the Cholera outbreak that started in Feb-16. 1. The Chlorine story Ruth adds Chlorine to water to make it safe to drink at home in Chigwilizano Village in Kafue District, Zambia Image credit: […]
Moving from development to sales – from trial to scale-up
31 March 2016 by
We were warned. People said to us: “Scale-up is completely different to running a trial. You’ve run a successful trial, do you really want to get involved in the scale-up?” The truth is that we had no burning desire to get involved in scale-up. In fact our original strategy was to generate the evidence that […]
Kit Yamoyo on Shoprite shelves
6 January 2016 by
It was very heartening to have received these pictures over the last couple of days of Kit Yamoyo on the shelves of Shoprite stores in Mongu and Chipata. Somehow, seeing Kit Yamoyo on the shelves, with its own label, gives it the legitimacy it deserves! Image credits: Akufuna Ngenda (Mongu) and Elias Lungu (Chipata) Mongu is 612 km […]
