Swaziland – IH CONNECT

POLITICS AND POLICY

Human Rights Watch has urged the Bahraini authorities to halt what it said was a “systematic campaign” to intimidate doctors and other medical staff suspected of sympathising with recent anti-government protests.

PROGRAMS

The GlobalPost has been doing an excellent series of stories examining President Barack Obama’s Global Health Initiative (GHI) is focusing on in Guatemala. Slow in its implementation and hampered by little new money, GHI was supposed to be an example of Obama’s new, innovative commitment to global health.
The King of Swaziland has called for all of the men in the South African nation to get circumcised in order to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Results from a pilot program in Philippines have shown that deaths from rabies can be dramatically reduced when taking a community driven bottom up approach.
A child in Khartoum, Sudan is the first to receive a rotavirus vaccine, kicking off a campaign to vaccinate children in 40 low and middle-income countries.

RESEARCH

A recent report from UNAIDS cites data from a recently released South African study that shows the effectiveness of male circumcision reducing HIV prevalence in men.
A campaign to encourage African men to get circumcised to prevent infection by HIV gained a powerful boost on Wednesday by three new studies unveiled at an international AIDS forum in Rome.
A new study has found that women in conflict areas want to utilize
contraceptives, but only 4 to 16 percent are able to gain access.
At the International AIDS Society, one of the big stories is a CDC study showing the drug Truvada prevented HIV transmissions in more than 60 percent of heterosexuals. The study’s author Dr. Michael Thigpen discusses how much Truvada costs, why HIV is so pervasive among women in Botswana, and how much people must take the drug for it to be effective.
Researchers have discovered that chloroquine, often used to treat malaria, may be effective in treating other autoimmune diseases.
An antiviral drug to combat HIV/AIDS synthesised by genetically modified plants is being tested on a small number of women in the UK to establish its safety, reports the Guardian.
A recent study has shown that stress experienced by a pregnant mother can have a negative impact on the development of the child in the womb.
Researchers presenting at the 6th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogens, Treatment, and Prevention in Rome, say that they have inched closer to a vaccine by leveraging a genetically altered version of SIV.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

The World Health Organization is sounding the alarm on hospital safety and infections acquired while patients are in a health care facility, saying that a hospital stay is riskier than air travel.
Researchers have determined that Hepatitis C can be transmitted sexually, after performing a 5 year study on HIV positive MSM.
Famine in parts of southern Somalia has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly children, the UN said Wednesday in an official declaration of what aid officials describe as the worst humanitarian crisis in the troubled country in two decades.
A new study warns that Pakistan “risks becoming the last global outpost of [polio], this vicious disease.” The disease has also resurfaced in four other countries.
Even in developing countries where child mortality is falling, the poorest under-fives are at high risk of dying from entirely preventable diseases because they do not receive basic immunization and have no treatment for diarrhea.
Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, says new studies indicate a parasitic infection, schistosomiasis, may be one of the most important — and least recognized — co-infections increasing the risk of HIV transmission.
An All Africa editorial examines how the price of drugs leads to deaths that could be otherwise averted.

POLICY

Amanda Glassman discusses the debate surrounding a new proposal by the United Network for Organ Sharing to prioritize younger, healthier donors for kidney transplants instead of their current “first come, first served” approach.
The highly-anticipated new UN agency, UN Women was launched on Thursday. It will be headed by former Chilean President, Michelle Bachelet. Women’s rights advocates argue that domestic violence should be the agency’s top priority.

RESEARCH

A paper published in Science by a research group at the University of Maryland demonstrates that a fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae, can be used to combat the malarial parasite inside the mosquito. Another promising study suggests that a compound produced by a seaweed in Fiji could be used to combat malaria.
A new study has shown that that Internet kiosks providing information on prenatal and postnatal care have helped reduce infant, child, and maternal mortality rates in rural India.
A study published by the Harvard School of Public Health last year found that the poorest third of the world’s population account for only 4% of surgeries worldwide, and that over two million people in low-income countries have no access to life-saving surgery.
The first phase trials of the HIV vaccine developed in India were completed with no side effects reported. Meanwhile, a three-year research trial on a vaginal anti-HIV gel has been launched in Rwanda.
The Trachoma Atlas, an open-access resource on the geographical distribution of trachoma, was launched by a team of collaborators from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the International Trachoma Initiative at The Task Force for Global Health, and the Carter Center. It is funded by a generous donation from (you guessed it!) the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The European Solutions Enterprise for Neglected Diseases (euSEND), a new initiative, based in the Netherlands, was launched to aid in the fight against neglected tropical diseases. The organization’s goal is to “take the role of matchmaker” to facilitate partnerships in research for NTD treatments and vaccines.

PROGRAMS

Swaziland has a large-scale circumcision drive in an attempt to lower HIV rates.
Cash-transfer programs as a means of assisting the poor are beginning to gain attention and popularity from development and economic professionals. Mexico’s and Brazil’s have captured particular attention and are credited with poverty reduction and GDP growth.
The first methadone maintenance program in sub-Saharan Africa recently opened in a hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Heroin use is a growing problem in port cities, where the drug passes through en route from Afghanistan to Europe.

DISEASES

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan and IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano published a joint editorial on the growing burden of cancer on the world’s poor and disadvantaged populations.
H5N1, colloquially known as bird flu, is making a comeback: a report of a Cambodian mother and her infant dying after eating meat from a contaminated chicken is the latest in a series of cases in Indonesia, South Korea, and India.
here has been an increase in reported cholera cases in three regions in Ghana, where 34 deaths have occurred over the last five months. In Haiti, the WHO has warned of a high risk of cholera during Carnival in the absence of strict hygiene measures.

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