Initiative: Lab in a Suitcase
Learn More
- Children—The Missing Face of AIDS, 2005 Report from UNICEF
- The Millennium Development Goals Report 2006
- African Premier Calls for More Funding, The Daily Monitor Aug. 29, 2006
- Donation in Afghanistan
Lab-In-A-Suitcase® Customers
- Clinics and Small Hospitals (primary and back-up use)
- Other Non-Government Health Organizations
- Government Organizations and Ministries of Health (surveillance and ongoing health services)
- Community Health Programs
- Medical Missionaries
Need
Undiagnosed and Untreated, HIV/AIDS Thrives and Spreads
Lack of diagnostic equipment and laboratory services results in undiagnosed AIDS/HIV cases that left untreated result in the kinds of epidemic tragedies occurring in Africa and Asia.
- The vast majority of the 38.6 million people living with HIV in 2005 are unaware of their status.
- Worldwide, less than one in five people at risk of becoming infected with HIV has access to basic prevention services. Across the world, only one in eight people who want to be tested are currently able to do so.
- In 2005 AIDS claimed the lives of 2.8 million people and over 4 million people were newly infected with the virus.
- At around 17.3 million, women make up almost half of the total number of people living with HIV, 13.2 million of which live in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Growing epidemics are underway in Eastern Europe and Central Asia where 220,000 people were newly infected with HIV in 2005.
--Source: UNAIDS Global Facts & Figures Fact Sheet
Diagnosis Imperative to Stop Spread of TB
- Nearly 2 billion people, one-third of the world's population, have tuberculosis.
- Tuberculosis is the world's greatest infectious killer of women of reproductive age and the leading cause of death among people with HIV/AIDS.
- Globally more than 23 000 people develop active TB and almost 5 000 die from the disease every day. * Left untreated, each person with active TB disease will infect on average between 10 and 15 people every year.
--Source: World Health Organization (WHO) Report
Solution
The potential impact Lab-In-A-Suitcase® can have on world health is enormous. This kit is a tremendous breakthrough for health workers struggling to care for the desperate, sick, and dying. And is currently being used in 160 countries.
Lab-in-a-Suitcase® contains basic laboratory instruments to conduct 70-80% of typical blood and urine analysis required to accurately diagnose the most common diseases. This inexpensive, portable kit can function without electricity, using power-producing solar panels.
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Lowell Larson, a special projects officer with the Combined Joint Task Force-76 Surgeon Cell with Afghan Lab Tech Trainee, Mohammad Ayoub, during training to use Lab-In-Suitcase®
