Tag: Tuberculosis

Global Health News Last Week

by ihsection, posted in APHA IH Section, News

SECTION NEWS

APHA’s 2011 Section elections are coming up soon! Online voting will open on May 16 and ends on June 20. Section members should receive an e-mail on May 16 (next Monday) which will include:

  • Your online election validation number
  • Your APHA membership ID number
  • Voting instructions
  • A direct link to your voting Web site

All you have to do is click on the direct link and VOTE!

APHA’s Trade and Health Forum has released its first newsletter! The Forum has established a quarterly APHA Trade & Health Forum Newsletter that includes brief reports from forum members regarding recent work and analyses of issues related to trade and health, as well as announcements for trade and health advocacy opportunities and events. The first spring issue can be viewed here (PDF).

David Sencer, the longest-serving director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and one of the leaders of the U.S. contribution to the smallpox campaign, passed away at age 86 on May 2.

May 5 was International Day of the Midwife.

POLICY

  • The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have joined forces to assist Asia Pacific countries in identifying priority actions for dengue prevention and control.
  • On May 11, dozens of countries around the world will kick off the first global Decade of Action for Road Safety, from 2011-2020.
  • Starting last week, China’s Ministry of Health is strengthening its tobacco rules to require 28 types of businesses, including bars, coffee shops, hotels and stadiums to become 100 percent smoke-free.

PROGRAMS

  • After a sensationalistic (and rather silly) report from the AP on corruption and graft, the Global Fund has assembled a high-level panel of independent experts to assess the risk of fraud in the current portfolio. The review should be concluded by mid-September
  • Sri Lanka commemorated 100 years of its National Malaria Control Program, which has brought the death toll from malaria from 80,000 per year to 0, on May 5. In 2010, only 684 cases of malaria were reported in the country.
  • Health officials in India have taken up a pilot project at taluka places to identify areas with less number of institutional deliveries to bring down maternal deaths.
  • UNICEF has found that boreholes drilled in response to the Zimbabwe cholera outbreak in 2008 have not been adequately supported by the government in Harare.
  • USAID announced that it will be launching a $10 million mobile health program which will deliver information and tips to mothers via SMS.

RESEARCH

  • Protease inhibitors used to treat patients with HIV looks to provide an effective treatment to malaria as well and are being hailed as ‘superdrugs.’
  • Headaches are the most common health disorders across the world, yet they remain neglected and under-treated, according to a UN study.
  • Researchers warn that East African plants that could cure malaria could disappear before scientists have a chance to study them.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

Thanks, as usual, to the Healthy Dose and Humanosphere.

The Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn: Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis on the Rise

by Jessica, posted in Infectious Disease

On most days, tuberculosis only crosses the average American’s awareness radar when he or she is watching Moulin Rouge! for the fifth time. Even then, the sight of the courtesan Satine (played by Nicole Kidman) coughing up blood after singing about diamonds gives the impression that TB is the problem of sex workers living in elephants in 19th-century France. All of this changed in 2007, when Georgia lawyer Andrew Speaker snuck back into the U.S. through Canada after honeymooning in Europe – and being diagnosed with extensively-drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).

As if regular TB were not bad enough, global health professionals are now grappling with the rising incidence of multi-drug-resistant (MDR-TB) and extensively-drug-resistant (XDR-TB) tuberculosis. MDR-TB is resistant at least to isoniazid and rifampicin, the two most powerful first-line antibiotics used to treat TB. It typically develops when patients being treated for fully sensitive TB stop their treatment course or do not follow it regularly (either because they feel better or forget to take their drugs, or because treatment supplies run out). When the treatment is interrupted before all of the bacteria are killed, the microbes develop resistance to the drugs. XDR-TB has all of this and more: it is also resistant to any fluoroquinolone and at least one of three injectable second-line drugs (capreomycin, kanamycin, and amikacin). If these drugs sound scary, it is because they are: most second-line drugs are less effective than isoniazid and rifampicin and can be moderately to highly toxic.

While the incidence of drug-resistant strains of TB is low for the moment, it is on the rise: a recent report by the WHO found that over two million people will contract some form of drug-resistant TB by 2015. The frequency of these infections is increasing fastest in India, China, and the former USSR. The WHO is asking countries to put their money where their mouths are and step up to fight the disease. “Commitments by some countries are too slow off the mark or simply stalled,” said Rifat Atun, director of strategy, performance and evaluation at the Global Fund. In the meantime, the greatest thing you’ll ever learn…is to finish your antibiotic course.

Global Health News Last Week

by ihsection, posted in News

Note: I apologize for the hiatus in the news round-up; I went to a major conference for work in April and was very busy with preparations and then wrap-up afterwards.

April 25 was World Malaria Day. According to the WHO, world malaria deaths have fallen 20% from 2000 to 2009.

The Global Health Hub has developed a really nifty global health timeline. It is interactive and open – meaning it can be edited by anyone.

POLICY

RESEARCH

  • Scientists have isolated the tuberculosis enzyme that destroys lung tissue, MMP-1. The discovery could speed up the search for treatments, as current regimens do not prevent the lung damage caused by TB infection.
  • Results from a recent study indicate that advances in antiretroviral therapy over the last 15 years have considerably improved outcomes for children with HIV who are entering adolescence and young adulthood.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

  • Aging populations on Japan’s northeast coast are struggling to recover from last month’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, and health officials are concerned about increased incidence of pneumonia, influenza, respiratory illenss, and blood clots in the legs of older individuals.
  • The first WHO Global Status Report on Non-communicable Diseases found that these diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide.

Global Health News This Week

by ihsection, posted in Maternal and Child Health, News

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.