Our Mission

Innovation For Health and Development is a charity focused on improving public health through innovation and capacity-building in resource-poor settings. Our work creates and implements novel, affordable strategies that improve the lives of those in greatest need.

Ventanilla: a poor shantytown on the outskirts of Lima, Peru.

Since our inception in 2002, activity at IFHAD has been focused on tuberculosis (TB), the most frequent infectious cause of death worldwide. Two billion people are infected with TB, leading to eight million cases per year. In wealthy countries, TB is easy to diagnose and treat, but poor countries generally can only afford inadequate tests and treatments developed half a century ago. As a result, two million people each year die needlessly from this escalating global health crisis.

Our TB research is based mainly in Perú, a country disproportionately affected by TB and drug-resistant TB.    IFHAD has developed, evaluated and implemented innovative strategies to improve TB diagnosis, prevent transmission, reduce susceptibility and improve treatment outcome. Our goal is to identify approaches that can be immediately and affordably implemented in the developing world, with the potential to have an enormous impact on this public health crisis.

Lead: Sumona Datta BmedSci BMBS MRCP DTMH(Gorgas) MPH(Honors) PhD

Sumona Datta has been working with the IFHAD group in Peru for more than a decade. She is a UK trained physician, with interest in community health and in particular infectious diseases. She has expertise in clinical laboratory studies, large community based epidemiological studies, and measuring burden of disease.

Post: Senior Investigator, Asociación Benéfica Prisma, Peru
Associate, IFHAD, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Peru
Associate, international health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
Honorary fellow, adult infection, Imperial College London, UK

Our Legacy: Carlton A. Evans MBBS (Lond), BSc (Hons), FRCP (Lond), DTM&H (Lond), PhD (Camb)MBE for Services to Global Health, Order of the British Empire, New Year Honours 2021

Professor Evans founded and led the IFHAD group in Peru for over 20 years. He was a physician specialising in infectious diseases, with recognised expertise in antimicrobial resistance, laboratory sciences, biosafety, and large-scale community-based epidemiological studies. His vision and leadership laid the foundations of IFHAD’s work and continue to guide the group’s mission and values today, He sadly passed in 2025.

His key academic during his career is summarized in https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/articles/medicine/infectious-disease/2025/in-memoriam—professor-carlton-a-w-evans/ and each publication can be found in this website.

Post:
Professor of Global Health, Imperial College London, UK
Honorary Consultant Physician, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK
Professor, IFHAD, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Peru
Associate, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
Head of Innovation for Health and Development, Asociación Benéfica PRISMA, Peru