Category: News

Politics & Policies

Nearly 100 years after the 1918 flu pandemic claimed as many as 50 million lives, many of us would like to think such devastating losses will never be seen again. Unfortunately, the experts say otherwise.

Even as parts of north India are caught in the throes of a major public health emergency, and there have been calls to take urgent steps to mitigate the toxic air, the problem lies with the existing framework. It’s time for some hard policy decisions

EU is pledging 8% of its annual humanitarian aid budget to education in emergencies, an increase from 6% in 2017.

Programs, Grants & Awards

Peter Sands, a former British banker has been named as the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

At the end of the first-ever WHO health minister meeting on ending tuberculosis held in Moscow, representatives from 114 countries agreed on a set of actions called Moscow Declaration to End TB.

On Sunday, November 19, the world turned its attention to the lowly—yet incredibly important—toilet bowl. World Toilet Day was created in 2013 by the United Nations General Assembly to inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis. Today, 4.5 billion people inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis. Today, 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste.

Research

Amish people in rural Indiana have a rare gene mutation that protects them from Type 2 diabetes and appears to extend their lifespan.

In South Africa, a country with the largest number of women of childbearing age living with HIV, authors of a new study identify perceived facilitators and potential barriers to implementing the Women’s Health CoOp in clinics and substance abuse rehabilitation centers.

Analysis of Swedish national records with over 3.4 million people and spanning 12 years showed that registered dog owners had lower rate of cardiovascular disease and lower risk of death.

Diseases & Disasters

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis and the international community must step in before it worsens, humanitarian agencies warn.

The world is in the midst of a global sanitation crisis – about 2.3 billion people lack access to even basic sanitation services.  Ensuring people around the world have access to basic sanitation services is vital to preventing the spread of infectious diseases and protecting our health.

The large plague outbreak that began in Madagascar in August appears to be waning, according to government case counts and local news reports.  The outbreak has infected about 1,800 people so far, killing 127 of them.

U.S. and Congolese scientists are tracking a virus. At a time when a deadly disease can cross the globe, they need to understand mysterious monkeypox.

The debate over taxing sugary drinks has turned into a ferocious global policy brawl.  In Columbia, proponents faced intimidation and censorship.

Technology

Around the globe, a staggering $455 billion intended for healthcare is lost every year to fraud or misuse.  Much of this abuse occurs in developing countries, where the loss of funds can have devastating consequences for health and development.

Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering faculty and graduate students, global health experts, and technology specialists will receive $100,000 to further develop a phone-based system enabling mothers in remote villages to spot serious health problems during newborn babies’ critical first week.

Environmental Health

More than 16,000 scientists from 184 countries have published a second warning to humanity advising that we need to change our wicked way to help the planet.

A handful of researchers in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere are methodically accumulating evidence suggesting that higher temperatures could be linked to a higher risk of premature births, stillbirths, or other negative pregnancy outcomes.

Equity & Disparities

Some nomadic communities in Africa are among the most challenging populations to reach with consistent health care. The World Health Organization estimates that there are at least 400 million people who lack access to at least one or more essential health services, leading to scores of preventable deaths worldwide.

Jeffrey Sachs, economics professor in Columbia University has said that the world’s richest are waging a war on the poor and has urged senators to not support the tax cuts or proposed changes to health care.

According to a new study, temperatures in slums in Nairobi were 5 -10℉ higher than the temperature reported by the city’s official weather station less than half a mile away.

Maternal, Neonatal & Children’s Health

Adverse childhood experiences are linked to health problems in teens, a new study shows.

While prevalence of stunting decreased in African nations between 2000 and 2016, the absolute numbers rose from 50.4 million in 2000 to 58.5 million in 2016.

In a new report released to coincide with World Children’s Day, UNICEF revealed that in 37 countries, some 180 million youth are more likely to exist in extreme poverty, be out of school or be killed by violence, than children in those same countries 20 years ago.

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Politics & Policies

At a meeting with African leaders during the United Nations General Assembly, President Donald J. Trump underscored his commitment to promote the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) by noting, “We cannot have prosperity if we’re not healthy.”

In a keynote speech in Washington, D.C., yesterday at the Grand Challenges network annual meeting, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson voiced support for US collaboration on global infectious disease issues, including ongoing efforts to battle threats such as HIV and malaria.

Programs, Grants & Awards

In recent years, Southeast Asia has surfaced as a “hotspot” for novel respiratory virus emergency due to dense populations of humans and domestic animals living in close proximity. The state of Sarawak in eastern Malaysia, where locals market and eat jungle products such as wild mammal meat, is one of these areas. This summer, six global health students traveled there to study viral pathogens and investigate their impact on humans.

Rosa Chemwey Ndiema, MBChB, MMEd, has years of bedside experience as a gynecologist in her native Kenya, and aspires to have an even greater impact on the health of her community through leadership and research.  Like many countries in eastern and southern Africa, Kenya has a high rate of pediatric HIV, with nearly 100,000 children living with the virus. Ndeima hopes to put Kenya on the path to virtual elimination of the virus through research on how to better involve community leaders to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Research

A new study predicts that the worldwide pattern of religious affiliation at the time of death will change over the next 50 years.

The malaria breath test prototype that detects six different volatile organic compounds to detect malaria cases seems to be promising.

Diseases & Disasters

As part of global efforts to end AIDS as a public health threat, UNAIDS, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and partners have launched a new roadmap to reduce new HIV infections. The HIV prevention 2020 roadmap was launched at the first meeting of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition.

A recent Lancet article calls for a clear strategy and partnerships for reduction in NCDs.

Mongolia has the highest rate of liver cancers and highest mortality rate from this disease in the world.In response to this crisis, the government is subsidizing hepatitis medication,and infusing money in prevention and screening efforts.

Technology

Solar suitcase provides light, heat, battery charging and a baby monitor in a health center in a remote  Nepalese village. Since its installation in 2014, there have been no maternal or neonatal deaths.

The possibility of Amazon entering the prescription drug market might already be disrupting healthcare.

Doctors and engineers at Duke and Stanford Universities have developed a $10 microchip that turns a 2D ultrasound machine to a 3D imaging device.

Environmental Health

Last year more than 50,000 people in 90 First Nations communities across Canada were affected by contaminated drinking water and 133 boil water notices were  issued. Now researchers are partnering with 2 communities to find out what is contaminating drinking water.

The Lancet’s annual Countdown is calling on governments to fight factors that are exacerbating climate change. According to the study, climate change could displace a billion people by 2050.

Equity & Disparities

David Williams, a professor at Harvard University, has found that discrimination, which is a stressful experience, has negative impact on health.

In 2015, lives of 920,000 young children was claimed by pneumonia, a disease of poverty. Only 4 out 30 high burden countries are on track to meet the SDG target by 2030.

In the past 5 years nearly 40,000 students committed suicides in India and about 70% of suicide victims had an yearly income of less than Rs 100,000.

Maternal, Neonatal & Children’s Health

Children in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps are taking on breadwinner roles exposing them to high risk of exploitation and abuse.

According to the new Global Report on Nutrition, nearly 155 million children under 5 years of age are stunted and about 41 million children under 5 are overweight. The report finds a significant burden of malnutrition in the 140 countries that were included.

About one in five pregnant women carry Group B Streptococcus bacteria, a major but preventable cause of poor health among mothers and babies worldwide.

Politics & Policies

Health groups joined forces on Sunday with the Conservative opposition to accuse the Liberal government of trying to raise tax revenue on the backs of vulnerable diabetics.

The new head of WHO, Dr. Tedros, has rescinded an invitation to the Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to serve as a goodwill ambassador for the agency.

Programs, Grants & Awards

The U.S. Senate has proposed $74.38 million to fund Fogarty in Fiscal Year 2018, about $2 million more than its current allocation.

The World Bank Group and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are establishing a joint data center on forced displacement to improve statistics on refugees, other displaced people and host communities.

WHO has for the first time published guidelines to help frontline clinicians provide high-quality, compassionate, and respectful care to children and adolescents who have or may have been victims of sexual abuse.

Research

A large outbreak of typhoid fever caused most likely by drinking contaminated water and street-vended beverages killed one person and sickened many in Uganda between January and June 2015.

A global study involving researchers from nearly 300 institutions has identified 72 new gene mutations that lead to the development of breast cancer.

New study using multiple mouse models of diet-induced and genetic obesity, shows that introduction of the GDF-15 gene reduced body weight, food intake and serum insulin levels in the animals. These results could pave a way of potential alternatives to bariatric surgery.

Diseases & Disasters

Doctors who have spent years fighting polio in the world’s most remote regions sit down over coffee with a World Health Organization representative to tell war stories.

By August 2016, just over a year after the Zika virus epidemic began in Brazil, the number of live births in Pernambuco declined by nearly 10%, according to a study released in June 2017

A team of scientists at Washington University School of Medicine, digging down to the molecular roots of the Alzheimer’s have come across a good and a bad news.  A gene named as TREM2, is found out to be one of the key player, whose mutations can substantially increase the risk of this disease in that person.

Taking the right antibiotics for just nine months may be as effective against drug-resistant tuberculosis as taking  them for two years, as is currently recommended, according to preliminary findings from an international study.

Technology

Researchers have developed a smartphone based detection instrument with a credit card sized test kit to identify infectious disease-causing agents at the point-of-care.

Majority of new e-health startups in the African subcontinent do not use mobile phones to reach customers, according to a new report.

Medical equipment worth billions of naira has been found to be abandoned at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) and 13 other federal health institutions in Nigeria.

Environmental Health

According to an in-depth study published in The Lancet, pollution contributes to 9 million deaths each year globally.

China is shutting down entire industrial regions in an effort to inspect the facilities and enforce environmental regulations.

Equity & Disparities

Sao Paulo (Brazil) and New Delhi (India) came out at the bottom as worst megacities for sexual violence against women.

Hate and discrimination is probably associated with the rise of HIV in Russia.

In response to rampant alcoholism among men living in a village in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India, their young teenage daughters have made remarkable strides by taking over the running of the place.

Maternal, Neonatal & Children’s Health

While the under-5 mortality among children has dropped by more than half between 2009 and 2016, nearly 5.6 million children under 5 years of age still die each year.

With an 84% reduction in maternal mortality ratio between 1990 and 2015, Cambodia is one of 9 Southeast Asian countries to have met the UN millennium development goals.

Politics & Policies

Former CDC director, Tom Frieden, launches a new global health initiative to tackle epidemics and cardiovascular diseases.

Global health is set to be center stage at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly being held in New York.

Bill and Melinda Gates are spending a lot of time in Washington speaking with members of Congress about the importance of foreign aid.

Bill and Melinda Gates released a report called Goalkeepers, a large-scale statistical effort that assessed progress on 18 global health indicators.

Programs, Grants & Awards

Seven new grants have been awarded to fund research on tobacco control and prevention in low- and middle-income countries.

A new online course  called “(PH425x) MalariaX: Defeating Malaria from the Genes to the Globe,” provides a basic toolbox of knowledge and skills to help advance malaria eradication efforts both locally and nationally.

Four finalists have been announced for the MacArthur Foundation’s $100 million award. The four teams will present their final proposals on Dec. 11.

Research

A new report launched by WHO shows a serious a lack of new antibiotic development to address the growing issue of antibiotic resistance.

There are nearly 200,000 new cases of leprosy each year, including 25,000 in children and about half of all new cases are in India.

Mycobacterium avoids getting degraded by hiding in a separate compartment inside the macrophages, the very cell that is meant to destroy it, a new study shows.

Diseases & Disasters

Hearing loss has been on the rise over the last 25 years and a team of experts are now calling for a worldwide initiative to address this issue.

Researchers in the UK report a successful production of polio vaccine using a tobacco-related plant.

Data from the Population-based HIV Impact Assessments (PHIAs) show that five African countries are nearing control of HIV epidemic.

Distribution of nearly half a million doses of cholera vaccine has begun in Sierra Leone to prevent a cholera outbreak following the flooding and massive mudslides that killed hundreds.

Technology

According to results from a new study,  basic facial-recognition software can detect sexual orientation.There is a considerable amount of controversy about the purpose, methodology and ethics of this study.

Scientists have developed a smartphone-based HIV test that is capable of producing a positive test within 10 seconds using just a single drop of blood.

A new paper-based test that can diagnose Zika infection in about 20 minutes has been developed by researchers at MIT.

Environmental Health

A new study shows that 5000 premature deaths occur in Europe annually due to excess emissions from diesel cars.

A new study by IPEN reveals alarmingly high levels of mercury in women of child-bearing age. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can cause serious damage to unborn children.

According to a new study, atmospheric changes are potentially resulting in a drop in the amount of different nutrients produced/stored in food crops.

Equity & Disparities

Global Adolescent Study identifies themes in global adolescent development that span across many countries and income levels. According to the study, “the onset of adolescence triggers a common set of rigidly enforced gender expectations associated with increased lifelong risks of mental and physical health problems.”

According to a new report, nearly 3.9 billion people still don’t have access to the internet and the digital divide is growing between the developed and developing nations.

Maternal, Neonatal & Children’s Health

According to the 2012-2016 global estimates, there are nearly 152 million children still engaged in child labor. While the number has decreased, the rate of decline has slowed significantly in the past 4 years.

Using a  mapping system created for the Local Burden of Disease project at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) researchers were able to examine communities in a 5- by 5 km block. This methodology has revealed significant differences in child death rates in African nations.

With a large burden of TB cases among children, India is set to roll out the Universal Drug Sensitivity Test, a molecular diagnostic test that takes about 100 minutes to complete.

Of the 25 million unsafe abortions that occurred between 2010 and 2014, 97% of these occurred in African, Asian and Latin American countries.

Politics & Policies

In identical language, the House and Senate bills explicitly prohibit the Trump administration from changing the formula used for decades to calculate and pay indirect costs of research financed by health institutes.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in her remarks at the conference’s opening plenary on Thursday noted President Trump’s proposed budget for the 2018 fiscal year would cut … [funding for] the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and … the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria…”

Programs, Grants & Awards

Duke receives $12.5 million to study children with Autism and ADHD.  NIH funds will be used to improve early screening, develop biomarkers and test therapies.

The University is considering founding a new Global Health Institute, pending the approval of Yale Corporation, as part of a joint effort of the deans of the schools of Public Health, Nursing and Medicine.

The Medical University of South Carolina Center for Global Health has received a $3.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study an integrated approach to screening and treatment for HIV, diabetes and hypertension in Tanzania.

Research

Tungiasis or jigger infestation is a parasitic disease caused by the female sand flea Tunga penetrans. Secondary infection of the lesions caused by this flea is common in endemic communities. This study sought to shed light on the bacterial pathogens causing secondary infections and their susceptibility profiles to commonly prescribed antibiotics.

Diseases & Disasters

The Conch Republic is still here, if dark, dirty, trashed, and weeks away from being what it was before Hurricane Irma blew in. It wasn’t devastated because, for some reason, this massive storm punched below its weight.

Hurricane Irma pounded the Bahamas before making landfall Friday night in the northern part of Cuba as it cycled toward Florida.

Hurricane Irma lashed the Caribbean today, causing at least 10 deaths, while in the U.S., Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are facing states of emergency as residents brace for the monster storm.

Hurricane Irma has landed in the Caribbean and left a path of destruction in its wake.  Images have emerged from Caribbean islands such as Puerto Rico, Antigua and Barbuda that show the powerful Category 5 storm bringing heavy winds, high water and devastation.

More than one million people have been displaced in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, according to estimates reported by Reuters. The storm is shaping up to be one of the costliest disasters in US history.

September has already been a rough month.  Over the past week, catastrophic flooding hit Texas, an unprecedented tide of refugees entered Bangladesh, a nuclear test sent tremors across Asia and a monster hurricane ravaged the Caribbean.

Women going through midlife aren’t getting enough sleep, according to a new government report.

Brazil, which has recently suffered serious outbreaks of Zika virus and yellow fever, now faces a new threat, according to reports from local scientists: Oropouche fever.

Chagas is a deeply misunderstood disease that affects about 8 million people around the world, primarily in Latin America, and is responsible for for 10,000 deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization. It is estimated that 300,000 people in the United States have it, per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This past year China had the largest outbreak of a deadly bird flu since the virus was first detected in March 2013.

Technology

Tuberculosis kills almost two million people a year. A perfect vaccine could save many of them, but the one now in use — invented in the 1920s and known as BCG, for Bacillus Calmette-Guérin — has so many flaws that some countries, including the United States, have never adopted it.

Environmental Health

A new report reveals the widespread microplastic contamination in tap water in countries around the world.

Equity & Disparities

The psychological problems and related influential factors of left-behind adolescents (LBA) in Hunan, China: a cross-sectional study.

When it comes to living a long life, Italy is the place to be.  The high-heeled boot surrounded by five seas is ranked the healthiest country on Earth in the Bloomberg Global Health Index of 163 countries. A baby born in Italy can expect to live to be an octogenarian. But 2,800 miles south in Sierra Leone, the average newborn will die by 52.

Maternal, Neonatal & Children’s Health

Having been awarded a $120 million grant from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH has launched a new maternal immunization initiative aimed to provide pregnant mothers vaccines to protect their newborns from infectious diseases.

Researchers have identified six gene regions linked to preterm births, including a new gene area that suggests a role for selenium.