Politics & Policies
As the United States offers crucial humanitarian aid to Venezuelan migrants, it is doubling down on its opposition to Venezuela’s president.
The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) applauds yesterday’s Senate passage of the Global Health Innovation Act, a bipartisan bill to support efforts by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop affordable, appropriate technologies to advance the health of people in the world’s poorest places.
According to the UN health agency, “countries are spending more on health, but people are still paying too much out of their own pockets.” The agency’s new report on global health expenditure launched on Wednesday reveals that “spending on health is outpacing the rest of the global economy, accounting for 10 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP).
The 2019 spending bill passed by the House and Senate Thursday that the President has announced he will sign, reflects a meaningful commitment to moving our country forward and to continued U.S. leadership of the fight against the world’s most devastating infectious disease killers.
The United Nations says North Korea’s government has asked for help from international humanitarian groups to combat food shortages.
Programs, Grants & Awards
Speakers at a conference organized by students at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health questioned the ways that global health is taught and practiced from the scholars studied in classes to the agendas set by mega-funders like Bill Gates. They urged the packed audience of students and researchers to consider the ways that unequal power relationships between the global north and south affect the health of formerly colonized people, and to work toward a “decolonized” global health field.
With only 10 years left to reach Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7), which calls for ensuring “access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”, including universal access to clean cooking, an estimated 2 billion people are in danger of being left behind.
The first International Global Health Security Conference will he held in Sydney, Australia on June 18-20, 2019.
UCSF will host one segment of the first ever “Pan Global” live streamed World TB Day Symposium, with London, San Francisco, and Hanoi participating in a 24-hour baton passing effort to raise awareness about and share research on TB. The UCSF World TB Day will be held on Friday, March 22 in the Oberndorf Auditorium at Mission Bay.
In Liberia, GHSA supports a multi-sector coordination mechanism for smoking and testing animals; builds capacity of animal health professionals for risk-based epidemiology and response; and implements behavior change communications to influence risky behaviors.
Research
In the 21st century, increases in immunization coverage and decreases in under-5 mortality have substantially reduced the global burden of measles mortality. However, the assessment of measles mortality burden is highly dependent on estimates of case-fatality ratios for measles, which can vary according to geography, health systems infrastructure, prevalence of underlying risk factors, and measles endemicity.
The 2019 edition of the Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index ranks 169 economies according to factors that contribute to overall health. The index grades nations based on variables including life expectancy while imposing penalties on risk such as tobacco use and obesity. It also takes into consideration environmental factors including access to clean water and sanitation.
Diseases & Disasters
In September, public health officials in South Africa finally declared victory over the world’s worst-ever outbreak of listeriosis, a foodborne illness that had sickened more than 1,000 people and killed more than 200 there since January 2017.
Experts have warned of an epidemic of diseases such as malaria and dengue on an unprecedented scale in Latin America following the collapse of the healthcare system in Venezuela.
The World Health Organization says that an epidemic of measles in Madagascar has caused more than 900 deaths.
Technology
The GHIT Fund is pleased to endorse the Khartoum Call for Action, announced in Khartoum at the Sixth International Conference on Mycetoma. The Call for Action urges the global community to work together with multilateral agencies, partners, research institutions and pharmaceutical companies to address the devastating consequences of this disease.
Environmental Health
Plastic pollution is a “threat to human life and human rights” and, in order to stem this problem, we have to overhaul how we produce, use and dispose of it, according to an international report released today.
The filling and draining of meltwater lakes has been found to cause a floating Antarctic ice shelf to flex, potentially threatening its stability.
The idyllic Micronesian island of Kiribati, next door to French Polynesia (Tahiti) and boasting one of the largest marine sanctuaries in the world, is a tropical paradise. It’s hard to believe that it’s people are expected to become some of the world’s first climate change refugees.
Equity & Disparities
Between the 24-hour news cycle, the internet, and the smartphone the world has never been so saturated with information. Yet a new report by CARE International finds that humanitarian crises affecting millions of people around the world snagged relatively few headlines last year.
Women, Maternal, Neonatal & Children’s Health
Cohn and colleagues showed recently that pre-puberty exposures to DDT may have increased the breast cancer risk for women through their early postmenopausal years.
Death rates for asthma in 10 to 24-year-olds was highest in the UK among all 14 European nations included in an analysis of 19 high-income countries. The UK also had the highest obesity rates for 15 to 19-year-olds among the European nations.
An obstetrician experience and knowledge on how women are treated in labor and delivery in the United States and internationally leads to a pursuit of a global health PhD.
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