New Small Grants Mechanism For Maternal Health Seeks Applications

Severe bleeding after childbirth—postpartum hemorrhage (PPH)—is the leading cause of maternal mortality world-wide. Each year, about 14 million women experience PPH resulting in about 70,000 maternal deaths globally. The majority of PPH-associated complications could be avoided by the use of prophylactic uterotonics just following delivery*. Even when women survive, they often need urgent surgical interventions to control the bleeding and may be left with lifelong reproductive disability.

The RHSC Maternal Health Caucus is pleased to announce a new small grants mechanism to increase access to new and lesser-used medicines for postpartum hemorrhage (NLUM-PPH) capable of preventing and treating PPH. This will include heat-stable carbetocin (HSC) for prevention of PPH and tranexamic acid (TXA) for the treatment of PPH.

By building on the lessons of the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s (CHAI) successful regranting model—the Catalytic Opportunity Fund (COF)—and leveraging our own experience of managing small grants through our own Innovation Fund, we are offering five to seven grants, each valued up to $100,000, during the first year of this initiative.

This initiative is supported by funding from MSD, through MSD for Mothers, the company’s global initiative to help create a world where no woman has to die while giving life. MSD for Mothers is an initiative of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. This initiative is also supported by funding from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the United Kingdom Government.

We expect activities funded by this initiative to increase efficiency and effectiveness of HSC and TXA introduction and scale-up through the development of a costed introduction plan (i.e., forecasting and quantification), training of health care providers, or implementing pilot studies to inform a scale-up approach. The goal of this initiative is to ensure that health providers and women in low- and lower-middle-income countries have access to a high-quality drug for effective PPH prevention and treatment—regardless of the level of the health care system in which she chooses to give birth.

*https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241550420

Category: Maternal Health Supplies Caucus