London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

As the world marks International Women’s Day, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is working with partners in more than 13 countries on the WOMAN trial, studying the effectiveness of tranexamic acid in reducing severe bleeding after childbirth.  More than 2,800 women from Nigeria, Albania, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Colombia, Ghana, Jamaica, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, Sudan, United Kingdom and Zambia are already taking part, and many more are planning to join.

In 2010, the CRASH-2 trial published in The Lancet found that tranexamic acid could save the lives of people with severe bleeding after injuries from car crashes and violence – more than 50 years after the drug was first invented by Japanese husband-and-wife team Shosuke and Utako Okamoto. In a new film about Utako Okamoto - now aged 93 and still working as a scientist in Kobe - she tells Professor Ian Roberts and Ayumi Naito about the challenges she faced balancing laboratory work with motherhood in 1930s Japan, and how her pioneering work has finally been recognised.

Improving maternal health is high on the agenda throughout the School in a wide range of other ways including increasing the evidence base for strategies aimed at achieving results, tackling specific diseases such as congenital syphilis and campaigning for equality.

Two areas of work feature in special International Women’s Day blogs.

Hope and health for women in rural India 

Menstrual hygiene: breaking the silence