Photo essay: A year of progress in global health equity

This year has been transformative, marked by innovative solutions, strategic partnerships, and PATH’s unwavering commitment to advancing global health equity. I'm continually inspired by the dedication of our teams and partners to address the most complex global health challenges. Working alongside experts and communities across more than 70 countries, we've demonstrated that collaboration, innovation, and advocacy can drive meaningful change.

I’m eager to share a few of our most significant achievements from the past year, representing just a fraction of PATH's efforts to build a healthier, more equitable world.

PATH staff started the year excited to celebrate 20 years of PATH’s Malaria Control and Elimination Partnership in Africa in Zambia. For two decades, PATH has worked closely with the Ministry of Health and the National Malaria Elimination Center in Zambia to design, implement, and evaluate impactful malaria control and elimination strategies, and to strengthen systems and responses with quality and timely malaria data. These collective efforts have resulted in drastic reductions in malaria in Zambia, in part due to the establishment of a rapid reporting system used nationwide to collect timely, reliable, and localized malaria data, as well as the development of a network of 25,000 community health workers trained to test, treat, and track malaria in their home areas.

Self-testing is a crucial tool for individuals to learn about their disease status, providing an alternative pathway to accessing treatment and preventive care. Through the HIV Self-Testing Africa (STAR) Initiative, PATH supported scale-up of rapid HIV self-testing efforts; generated evidence on the accessibility, feasibility, and effectiveness of COVID-19 services and delivery models; and evaluated the effectiveness of hepatitis C self-testing models. The combination of a targeted research agenda, global policy and guideline development, active market creation, and rapid implementation timeline to introduce and scale up self-testing around the world ensured that the STAR initiative, which concluded this year, will have a lasting impact.

Increased access to contraception is one of the best ways to build strong economies, create healthy families, and advance the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and adolescent girls. The PATH-led Injectables Access Collaborative provides data-driven technical assistance, coordination, resources, and tools to ensure that women and girls have increased access to DMPA-SC and self-injection as part of an expanded range of contraceptive methods.* In 2024, the Injectables Access Collaborative delivered technical support in 18 countries and brought together self-care champions from across Africa for two regional workshops as part of the Self-Injection Ambassadors initiative focused on increasing family planning access, including contraceptive self-injection.

The Tools for Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (TIMCI) project is ending after 5 years of collaboration with the governments of India, Kenya, Senegal, and Tanzania to improve access to critical tools that help health care providers identify and manage care for children who are severely ill. TIMCI prioritized the use of pulse oximeters and clinical decision support algorithms (CDSAs) to help detect low blood oxygen levels and prompt timely treatment, referrals, and access to lifesaving oxygen. Over the duration of the project, 302 pulse oximeters were introduced in 236 facilities, 189 CDSAs were implemented in 153 facilities, and 1,409 health care providers were trained in device use.

PATH and the Ghana Health Service have optimized antenatal care at nearly 70 health facilities in Ghana’s Bono East region through the Integrated Antenatal Care (ANC) project. ​This effort strengthened health care worker capacity, increased the availability of ANC services, and improved linkages between primary and referral facilities. The team engaged pregnant women and families through “pregnancy schools” and worked with traditional leaders and media channels to improve awareness of maternal infections. Ultimately, 700 providers received training, and 51,000 women received health screenings during their ANC visits through this project.

Community health agents are essential in bridging the distance between rural communities and health facilities and addressing the shortage of skilled health workers. Digital Square at PATH partnered with the Senegal Ministry of Health and Social Action to train approximately 1,000 community health agents in the use of the m-s@ntécom application, a digital tool designed to improve the quality of community-level health care. This training effort was part of the Digital Community Health Initiative, which aims in part to invest in the scale-up of digitally enabled community health platforms that equip frontline health workers with mobile tools to improve case management and empower community health workers as a valued aspect of national health systems.

PATH recently concluded the first large-scale randomized trial of the attractive targeted sugar bait (ATSB), a novel vector-control tool designed to attract and kill mosquitoes—including those that transmit malaria. Collaborating with the Zambia National Malaria Elimination Centre, the trial involved extensive entomological surveillance and over 80 community dissemination activities across Kaoma, Luampa, and Nkeyema districts in Zambia where the ASTBs were installed and analyzed. Results from the study highlighted the promise of the tool and the need for further research.

Support for frontline health workers to standardize care and treat more patients is needed as many countries struggle to provide high-quality primary health care and achieve universal health coverage because of a shortage of trained clinicians. Increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools, including large language models (LLMs), are being used to assist health care workers with diagnosis and treatment, providing expert-level medical knowledge and advice in response to health care workers’ queries. PATH is working with a consortium of academic, government, technology, and implementing partners to conduct research, produce evidence, and advance knowledge on the safe and effective use of LLM-enabled tools in African health care settings. In September, PATH furthered its commitment to exploring how to ethically and equitably leverage AI to advance global health outcomes by appointing Dr. Bilal Mateen as its inaugural Chief AI Officer.

PATH continues to facilitate and amplify conversations focused on identifying financing to ensure that every patient, everywhere, has access to medical oxygen. In October, we co-hosted an event in Berlin, Germany, alongside the World Health Summit with the Every Breath Counts Coalition, the Gates Foundation, Unitaid, and the Global Oxygen Alliance. During the event, the Global Oxygen Strategic Framework and Investment Case, 2025-2030, was launched highlighting how oxygen prioritization can help shape global, regional, and national policies and is a key step toward achieving universal health care and ensuring pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.

Early Childhood Development Action Network partners organized multiple events that spotlighted the critical role of early childhood development and caregiver support in ending violence against children worldwide at the inaugural Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, held in November in Bogotá, Colombia. These events, ranging from a session on the impact of trauma on early brain development to a discussion on strategies to expand access to effective parenting programs, underscored the essential role of caregivers and early years services in creating safer, nurturing environments for children and advancing global efforts to end violence against children.

PATH participated in a number of conversations with the G20 this year on topics ranging from the importance of digital connectivity, cybersecurity, data governance, and digital public infrastructure in making digital health accessible for all, to the need for a unified mpox response that includes regional manufacturing, improved disease surveillance, and increased acknowledgement of the climate-health connection. The G20’s recognition of these priorities is an important step forward. The G20 has the unique ability to galvanize international support and secure the investments needed to build a more equitable and sustainable global health system. As South Africa prepares to take on the G20 presidency in 2025, PATH hopes to see continued momentum in strengthening critical areas that are essential to improving health for all.

The rise in malaria cases during and after the rainy season, when mosquitoes thrive, creates significant health risks for children under 5 years old. To protect these children, the National Malaria Control Program of Togo conducted the first annual seasonal malaria chemoprevention campaign supported by the PATH-led U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative Reaching Every At-Risk Community and Household with Malaria Devices project. Over 1,500 community distributors were trained to deliver preventive medication to eligible children between 3 and 59 months, reaching 113,600 children with lifesaving treatments.

In Senegal, the fight against meningitis has gained momentum thanks to the Enhancing Global Health Security project. In collaboration with the Senegal Ministry of Health and Social Action and FHI360, PATH has worked to improve the quality of meningitis data by integrating laboratory results with surveillance data through a DHIS2 Tracker module that enhances real-time data availability and quality controls. These efforts have bolstered Senegal's capacity to track meningitis cases, respond to outbreaks, and prevent the spread of the disease outside the country.

In December, PATH announced a new Women’s Health Initiative, bringing together efforts across the organization to close the women’s health gap. The initiative has a two-part mandate:

1. advancing research and development to better understand how women and girls are affected by diseases and health challenges, and
2. facilitating innovative solutions, approaches, tools, and systems specifically designed to address the health needs of women and girls.

This commitment builds on PATH’s work to advance women’s health over the past five decades. PATH’s approach to women’s health combines community-centered innovation with rigorous research and end-to-end product development, commercialization, introduction, and scale-up to deliver health services and products created by and for women and girls—improving women’s health and well-being across all life stages.

As we close out 2024, the stories and achievements highlighted here are a testament to what’s possible when innovation, collaboration, and equity come together. From advancing cutting-edge technologies to empowering communities with the tools they need to thrive, PATH’s work this year reflects our steadfast commitment to a healthier, more equitable future for all. Together with our partners and dedicated teams, we’ve made incredible strides—but the journey continues. Here’s to building on this momentum in 2025 and beyond.