November 14, 2019
Focused program of partnerships, collaboration, funding and volunteering addresses the community-level prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a disease that takes the lives of around 800,000 under-five-year-olds each year, mostly in disadvantaged communities.
Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Royal Philips, with its mission to reduce healthcare inequality by providing access to quality healthcare for disadvantaged communities, today announced the achievements of a year-long program of collaborations to reduce infant mortality rates for childhood pneumonia, a disease that currently claims the lives of around 800,000 under-five-year-olds a year [1] - equivalent to one every 39 seconds.
Combining the volunteering activities of Philips' 80,000 employees, local stakeholder engagement, accessible and affordable technology, and the scale-up capabilities of international NGOs, this childhood pneumonia program exemplifies the Philips Foundation's commitment to drive and support initiatives that deliver long-term system change and achieve lasting impact. During the past 12 months, the program is estimated to have created access to better care for more than 700,000 people, in countries as widespread as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Malawi and India.
"The mission of the Philips Foundation is to reduce healthcare inequality by providing access to quality healthcare for disadvantaged communities," said Ronald de Jong, Chairman of the Philips Foundation Board. "Focusing our year-long volunteering efforts on a single global healthcare issue that disproportionately affects disadvantaged communities, created a multiplier effect, supporting ways to overcome the challenges, and ensuring long-term impact."
Childhood pneumonia
Pneumonia in children under five was chosen as the 2018-2019 topic for Philips' employee volunteering, due to its many casualties, and the fact that respiratory disease is one of the expert fields of Philips that the foundation can tap into. Caused by viral, bacterial, or fungal infection of the lungs, childhood pneumonia can be prevented by immunization, a healthier diet and improved environmental conditions [2] - for example, better (indoor) air quality. Although bacterial pneumonia can be effectively treated with low-cost antibiotics, only a third of children receive them in time [2]. The accurate determination of rapid breathing, which is the principal early indicator of childhood pneumonia, can be achieved by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in affordable diagnostic devices.
Examples of the supported and initiated activities of the Philips Foundation over the past 12 months, conducted through global partnerships, local projects and support of social entrepreneurs, are listed below:
- Save the Children and ZMQ (http://www.zmqdev.org/) in India - VISHWAAS (Breath of Hope) project: This program is aimed at developing and proving a low-cost innovative approach in India for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of childhood pneumonia, including an app-based solution to improve awareness of the means of prevention and care-seeking practices in affected communities.
- Partnership with Ashoka Fellow Hilmi Quraishi, ZMQ - the MIRA Channel project on childhood pneumonia (http://www.zmqdev.org/stories-childhood-pneumonia/): This project addresses the knowledge gap in childhood pneumonia through a series of short digital stories embedded in a larger 'Maternal & Child Health' mobile-based platform called MIRA (http://www.zmqdev.org/mira-channel-2/).
- The Malaria Consortium BREATHE (Breath REcognition Aid to Health Experts) project (https://www.malariaconsortium.org/what-we-do/projects/108/breathe-breath-recognition-aid-to-health-experts): This study aims to assess the reliability of a video annotation tool for counting respiratory rate, which has the potential to be used as a new reference standard for measuring the performance of new automated respiratory rate diagnostic aids to support the diagnosis of pneumonia in children under five in low resource settings.
[1] data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/pneumonia
[2] www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/pneumonia
For further information, please contact:
Ben Zwirs
Philips Global Press Office
Tel.: +31 6 15213446
E-mail: ben.zwirs@philips.com
Yannick Eshuijs
Philips Foundation
Tel. : +31 6 18526633
E-mail: yannick.eshuijs@philips.com
Twitter: @PhilipsFDN
About the Philips Foundation
The Philips Foundation is a registered charity that was established in July 2014 as the central platform for Philips' CSR activities. Reflecting our commitment to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 3.
About Royal Philips
Royal Philips.
Attachments
- ICRC - Treating children with pneumonia in Afghanistan (https://ml-eu.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/5a23a1ca-0871-4f62-aeb2-9593240b17dc)
- Philips Backgrounder_Philips Foundation's volunteering program (https://ml-eu.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/ed1ddf22-43ca-4d9d-93ca-1d709704bff3)
