IH CONNECT

During the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, two historical High-Level meetings in the realm of health were held addressing ailments that afflict individuals from every corner of this fragile planet. The first UN High-Level meeting on Tuberculosis (TB), focusing on preventing and treating this elusive disease, was held on Wednesday, September 26th which finally put TB in a global spotlight. Additionally, the third UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), under the theme “Scaling up multi‑stakeholder and multisectoral responses for the prevention and control of non‑communicable diseases in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” took place on Thursday, September 27th. World leaders and their ministers, non-government organizations (NGOs), and other stakeholders partook in these crucial meetings to curtail the suffering these various diseases cause. For each of these meetings, governments approved drafts of political declarations that commit countries to follow through with health policy, funding, and a multisector approach to these disorders. The following summarizes key points and commitments from each of the high-level meetings:

UN High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis

• A commitment to mobilize $13 billion for universal access to quality prevention, diagnosis and treatment
• $2 billion for research and development of new drugs, diagnostics, vaccines, and other tools.
• Commit to provide diagnosis and treatment with the aim of successfully treating 40 million people with tuberculosis from 2018 to 2022 (including 3.5 million children, and 1.5 million people with drug-resistant tuberculosis including 115,000 children with drug-resistant tuberculosis)
• Pledge of 30 million people (including 4 million children under five years of age, 20 million other household contacts of people affected by tuberculosis, and 6 million people living with HIV and AIDS) to receive preventive TB treatment by 2022
• Promise to overcome the global public health crisis of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis through actions for prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, including compliance with stewardship programs to address the development of drug resistance
• Oblige to consider how digital technologies could be integrated into existing health systems infrastructures and regulation for effective tuberculosis prevention, treatment and care
• Commit to provide special attention to the poor, those who are vulnerable, including infants, young children and adolescents, as well as the elderly and communities especially at risk of and affected by tuberculosis.

UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs

• Commitments to reduce NCD mortality by one third by 2030, and to scale-up funding and multi-stakeholder responses to treat and prevent NCDs
• Health systems should be strengthened — and reoriented — towards the achievement of universal health coverage and improvement of health outcomes
• Greater access to affordable, safe, effective and quality medicines and diagnostics
• A commitment to ambitious multisectoral national responses, integrating action on prevention and control with promotion of mental health and well‑being
• Increasing energies to reduce tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity through cost‑effective, evidence‑based interventions to halt obesity
• To develop a national investment plan in order to raise awareness about the national public health burden caused by non‑communicable diseases and health inequities

While these are not all-inclusive of the commitments between nation states at these two meetings, they highlight the prominent concerns leaders in both the political and health dominion share. However, special attention should be brought to the dialogue held before and after the duration of the meetings. These discussions reveal the true apprehensions that world leaders fear affects their citizen’s health and well-being. The following are three observations from these two UN high-level meetings that may provide some significance in the future battle with TB and NCDs.

1. Is health trending towards being a right rather than a commodity among world leaders?

Before the UN high-level meeting on TB came to fruition, there was a highly controversial commitment in the declaration that concerned high-income countries like the United States. The commitment was centered around access to affordable medications, in particular, generic medications. The concerned countries had expressed reservations about language supporting UN member states’ rights to interpret and implement intellectual property rights in a way that defends public health and encourages access to medicines. Global health advocates believed this point as being essential to equitable access to medications across the world – treating health as a right rather than a product. In the end, health as a right was included into the declaration, through the leadership of South Africa and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), despite upsetting these powerful nation states. In addition, at the high-level meeting on NCDs, language was included that stated a similar commitment – to affirm the rights of UN member states to use intellectual property flexibilities to safeguard public health. Although the fight against these two devastating classes of diseases is certainly at the forefront of leaders’ minds, the seemingly endless interchange of health as a right and health as a commodity seems to be finally leaning towards the betterment for humanity – health as a right.

2. Technology and Policy – Finally Uniting to fight TB & NCDs

Throughout the UN General Assembly last week, several reports, policies and studies were released or highlighted that may prove to shape the future treatment of TB & NCDs. The following list are just a few of the major contributions that various sources released:

• The New England Journal of Medicine released a report supporting the use of delivering non-resistant TB and MDR-TB treatment according to DNA sequencing results.
• Johnson & Johnson announced a 10-year initiative with a molecular diagnostics company that could help better identify and treat TB
• South Africa’s passage of a tax on sugary drinks and Chile’s ban on junk food ads aimed at children
• Interventions that include a tobacco tax, restrictions on alcohol advertising and cervical cancer vaccinations for girls

Health care professionals throughout the world realize that diseases need to be undertaken in a biosocial manner – utilizing both technology and policy. The outcomes that resulted from last week’s reports reaffirm that political leaders realize that the true way to overcome these burdens is to address them through this manner.

3. Multi-Sectoral Approaches – How should they be conducted?

One of the biggest initiatives in global health is the necessity to bring together all stakeholders in disease management in order to properly address the situation. With a vast array of input and ideas, different perspectives, and an atmosphere of collaboration, global health is trending rapidly in this manner – with a significant portion of the world partaking in multi-sectoral approaches already. However, the manner in which these are conducted can vary within countries and between NGOs and governments. Although these remarks may not apply to every country, the following statements made by world leaders may provide some insight into how a country could carry out these approaches:

• A representative from the Netherlands state that including all stakeholders into the approach may cause conflict of interests – “The days are gone when the tobacco industry has a seat at the table” while also stating “multi-sectoral approaches are good, but governments should be in the lead” in reference to NCDs.
• An NCD Alliance representative mentioned “it is for governments to determine their own priorities” and “civil society is ready to support, but governments must lead the way.” while simultaneously reaffirming her support for multi-sectoral approaches.
• Finally, Gerda Verburg, coordinator of Scaling-Up Nutrition Movement explained that “Bigger companies are part of the problem, but we won’t succeed unless we make them part of the solution,” while also adding that she realizes that this is often difficult for civil society, and that “too often, they stand with their backs to the table where we need a critical dialogue with the private sector.” In addition, she supports the priority to “strengthen national systems.”

In a global society where the healthcare landscape is in constant motion, the ability to gather world leaders to commit to significant leaps of change is promising to all those who inhabit this planet. However, these commitments need to be followed up with action, funding, and the political will to properly solve the world’s number one killer and the deadliest infectious disease. The global health community should inspire and encourage their governments while correspondingly holding them accountable to adorn these commitments and continue to battle these overwhelming diseases.

September 28th is World Rabies Day! This day of observance was created by the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) to spread awareness about the disease and educate others on how to prevent it. This year’s theme is Rabies “Share the message. Save a life.” 

Rabies is a preventable viral disease that affects only mammals and is transmitted through the saliva, cerebral spinal fluid or brain tissue of an infected host. If untreated, rabies is fatal. Most commonly, the disease is transmitted through a bite, but can also be transmitted if the infectious material gets directly into the eyes, nose, mouth or an open wound.  Rabies infects the central nervous system and causes a “disease of the brain.” Early symptoms of rabies can include fever, headache and fatigue – symptoms that are similar to many other illnesses such as the flu or common cold. However, as the disease develops, symptoms specific to rabies begin to appear: insomnia, paralysis, hallucinations, agitation, hypersalivation, difficulty swallowing and hydrophobia. The disease typically results in death within a few days after the onset of these rabies-specific symptoms.  

In the United States, reported rabies cases have shifted from mainly domestic animals to predominantly wildlife animal reports. Specifically, more than 90% of all rabies cases today are from wild animals. In addition, the number of rabies-related deaths in humans has decreased dramatically from 100 cases per year in the 1900’s to 1-2 per year. Our efforts to encourage prophylaxis after an exposure and the effectiveness of the vaccine have proven successful in decreasing rates of rabies in the United States.

However, rabies is found on every continent other than Antarctica and some continents struggle with the burden of rabies more than others. The overall death rate for rabies around the world is estimated at a staggering 59,000 people a year. Countries in Africa and Asia are affected by rabies disproportionately than the other continents and almost half of the victims of rabies in these countries are children younger than 15 years.

A main reason that such a young population affected is due to uncontrolled canine rabies in these countries. Canine rabies – which spreads from dog to dog – is actually the cause of 98% of human deaths globally. In the United States it has been eliminated because many people keep their animals vaccinated to prevent this type of rabies from re-entering our environment.  However, in many other countries, stray dogs roam around neighborhoods freely and when they contract rabies, they likely spread it to many people (primarily children) they come in contact with. Scientists predict that if 70% of dogs are vaccinated for rabies in an area, rabies can be controlled and human deaths will decrease.

Haiti has the highest number of human deaths by rabies – around 2 deaths per week. CDC and the Government of Haiti have started an animal rabies surveillance program (2013) to detect and have situational awareness of which regions of the country are greatly affected by rabies. In 2015, CDC also evaluated how many dogs were vaccinated in the country and found that only 45% of dogs received their shots. In addition, the total amount of dogs in the country was actually double the number they initially predicted. After these studies were done, the CDC helped train animal health workers to conduct large dog vaccination campaigns and continue rabies prevention efforts.  Many children started bringing their puppies to the events and were proud of their certificates ensuring their dogs had been vaccinated. It is CDC’s (along with the Government of Haiti) hope to reach a 70% vaccination rate among their dog population and sustain it for five years – long enough to create a ripple of effect among human deaths due to rabies.

CDC has helped establish similar campaigns in other countries. For example, they have trained animal control officers in Ethiopia to capture, vaccinate and release stray dogs as well as monitor human exposure cases and keep track of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) treatments.  In Vietnam, while there is not a high human death rate for rabies – 91 per year, the government spends an extraordinary amount of money on expensive PEP. It is much more feasible to vaccinate dogs than provide the costly post exposure treatment – $1.32 dollars vs one course of PEP at $153 dollars.  The CDC has helped support Vietnam in improving their rabies surveillance and coming up with new approaches to vaccinate their dogs and achieve the 70% canine vaccination goal.

The World Health Organization has been having meetings to discuss ways to eliminate rabies in Africa too. This past month, representatives from 24 countries in Africa met in Johannesburg to share information from a study they conducted regarding rabies.  The representatives pitched ideas for implementing the new recommendations for human rabies vaccines and how to improve surveillance dog vaccination campaigns. These meetings are exciting as they provide new insight for the global plan to achieve zero deaths from rabies.

Single countries like the Philippines, have proved to be great examples for national campaigns organized against rabies. The Philippines holds a nationwide World Rabies Day celebration as part of its educational outreach campaigns each year. The celebration has continued to grow yearly as more and more events are added to the agenda. It’s success emphasizes the importance of a program that is led and supported by their own national government and how the topic of rabies elimination is valued by the country’s leaders.

Overall, targeting the countries where rabies poses a significant risk and coming up with goals, campaigns and new tactics to eliminate rabies are substantial goals for the globe and many lives will be impacted by the CDC, the WHO and its many public health partners. But what can YOU do on a personal level that can also impact many lives? Here’s a quick checklist to follow:

1. To start, you should always take your pet to the vet to get vaccinated for rabies regularly.
2. Spaying or neutering your pet can also help with decreasing the amount of stray and potentially dangerous animals into your pet’s environment.  
3. Always supervise your pet when they are outdoors. Wild high risk animals for rabies such as raccoons, coyotes or opossums can be in your backyard.
4. Lastly, avoid contact with wild or unfamiliar animals (including dead animals). As tempting as it is to pet a stray cute kitten or dog, it is in your best interest to not feed or handle them.
5. Continue sharing the message and saving lives!  Happy World Rabies Day!