Month: December 2010

Richard Holbrooke, an American diplomat who worked for peace in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and the founding President of the Global Business Coalition against AIDS, passed away on Monday due to complications in surgery.

The State Department has launched the Foreign Assistance Dashboard (v. 1.0), which allows visitors to see how the government’s foreign aid money is being spent. The website is still in its beginning stages and there is a lot that has not yet been published, but it is a step in the right direction. In related government news, Secretary Clinton announced the full release of the first QDDR on Wednesday.

The Gates’ seem to be establishing themselves as the new “Big Brother” of global health, which makes some journalists uncomfortable – most recently with regard to ABC’s new “Be the Change” global health series. The Gates Foundation (along with the WHO, UNICEF, and NIAID) has also recently announced the “Global Vaccine Action Plan,” following the Gates’ call this past January to make the next ten years the “Decade of Vaccines.” They also provided funding for the development of a new polio vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Leeds.

The Canada-based organization Aids-Free World is accusing the UN of endangering women and children in their push to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Swine flu (H1N1) has reared its ugly head again in the UK, shocking doctors by its severity and spread.

An article in the Lancet revealed that TB cases have risen by 50% in London in the last ten years, making it the tuberculosis capital of Western Europe.

The WHO released its 2010 World Malaria Report this week.

Doctors in Germany claim to have cured a man of both cancer and HIV, though critics maintain that the treatment – a transplant of bone marrow and stem cells from a naturally HIV-resistant individual – is not a reasonable option for the general population.