All Kinds of Belated News (Week of September 18-24)

SECTION NEWS

The Fall 2011 Newsletter has been posted!  Be sure to check out recent announcements, section updates, links to recent blog entries, and lots of fellowship opportunities!

The Advocacy/Policy Committee would like to invite you to participate in our first Advocacy Day, led in partnership with the Global Health Council. The day, scheduled for Thursday, November 3rd, 2011, immediately following the annual meeting in Washington, D.C., will be an opportunity for us to voice support for a continued focus on international health to our elected officials. With the intense Congressional pressure to cut the budget, our voices can make a real difference. As a participant during this exciting day, you will be provided with training materials on effective advocacy techniques to ensure your message is clearly heard. Even if you do not have advocacy experience, you need not hesitate to sign up because you will be teamed with others. Please consider joining your fellow International Health Section members on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 on Capitol Hill to advocate for a healthy globe. Interested parties should register here. Please note that registration will close on October 14th. Any questions should be directed to Peter Freeman, Advocacy/Policy Committee Chair, at pffreeman@gmail.com or 773.318.4842.

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The G+ Vaccines Challenge has been launched!  G+, a new online community launched by Gerson Lehrman Group, has partnered with IndieGoGo and StartUp Health to solicit early stage ideas for tackling problems and inefficiencies in vaccine delivery  in-the-field, distribution and development. Finalists will have the unique opportunity to present their ideas to a panel of investment, NGO and corporate and life sciences professionals with the influence to advance those ideas towards realization.  You can find more information about the challenge here.

APHA NEWS

Dr. Benjamin is currently on a teaching sabbatical at Hunter College in NYC. Alan Baker (former Chief of Staff at APHA) returned to serve as Acting Executive
Director in the interim.

UN HIGH-LEVEL MEETING ON NCDs

• The UN held its first-ever meeting on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.  Global health journalist Tom Paulson provided some great coverage of the event on the Humanosphere blog.
• World leaders unanimously adopted the NCD Summit Outcome Document at the General Assembly in New York.
• On the sidelines of the General Assembly meeting in New York, the United States and WHO signed a memorandum of understanding to help developing countries boost capacity to meet the International Health Regulations.
• The cost for the developing world to address NCDs, based on the WHO’s recommendation to increase budgets by 4%, will be $11.4 billion.

POLITICS AND POLICY

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates appears poised to endorse the adoption of a controversial financial transactions tax (FTT) to be used as a new source of development aid for poor countries.

PROGRAMS

• The multibillion dollar Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria must do a better job managing its grants to partner countries, according to an independent review panel.  A seven member panel investigating the Global Fund has recommended that it place greater emphasis on results and improve risk management.  In the Center for Global Development blog, William Savedoff is concerned that the new report suggesting changes for the Global Fund will move it away from innovating.
• USAID has announced that it will be giving a $200 million grant to the Public Health Institute to support its global health fellows program.
• Private and public actors have lined up to support Every Woman Every Child and its goal of preventing 33 million unwanted pregnancies.

RESEARCH

Researchers at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago announced that they were able to reduce the level of HIV in infected people through cell-based therapy.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• The privacy curtains that separate care spaces in hospitals and clinics are frequently contaminated with potentially dangerous bacteria, according to a U.S. study.
• If today’s momentum and progress against malaria can be sustained, deaths from this infectious disease could be reduced to near-zero, and cases of infection cut by 75 per cent in the next decade, says a recent report by the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership.
• Depression may go hand in hand with a number of other physical health problems, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Now the latest evidence suggests that depression may also increase the risk of stroke.
• Polio has spread to China for the first time since 1999 after being imported from Pakistan, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed.

TOTALLY UNRELATED TO ANYTHING: Melinda Gates is now on Twitter!

Global Health News, Week of August 28-September 3

Global Fund round 11 is now open for proposals.

GREAT LEARNING OPPORTUNITY

A seven-part webinar series, called the “Outstanding Presentations Workshop,” began this Wednesday and is available for free to all who register. Each one-hour seminar will be streamed live over the next few weeks on Wednesday and will be recorded for later viewing.  Take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to improve your presentations and spare your audiences death by PowerPoint. More information is available here, and the schedule can be accessed here.

POLITICS AND POLICY

• In Uganda, the landmark legal case of Jennifer Anguko, a mother who died while she was in labor for 12 hours in a government hospital, will begin in early September.
• Critics of the World Health Organization say it needs to redefine and reposition itself within the increasingly complex and convoluted field of global health. These experts suggest that the world will not suffer if the WHO cuts certain programs while narrowing its focus.
• In the United States, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are promoting the use of IUDs as the “most effective form of reversible contraception available and safe for most women.”
• The Global Fund may cut its contributions to China by half.
• USAID Admin Dr. Raj Shah announced that $23 million in new aid will be directed towards the Horn of Africa crisis.
• Anonymity is no longer a right of people seeking HIV/AIDS tests in China, and the change has lead to a significant drop in the number of tests being performed.
• The Asian Development Bank has called for Asia-Pacific countries to collaborate on combating HIV/AIDS at the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.
• Tension between the United States and Pakistan will not prevent USAID from continuing to support health, energy and education systems says the USAID Pakistan Chief.
• The epidemics of diabetes, heart disease and cancers that have stricken the populaces of wealthy countries are spreading to the developing world, yet the United Nations lacks an agreement, let alone an overall goal, on how to limit the preventable illnesses and deaths arising from these so-called non-communicable diseases. The British Medical Journal reports many developed countries, including the U.S. and Canada, are resisting specific targets for reduction in fats, sugars and salt in processed foods.

PROGRAMS

• Overall, more newborn children are surviving, but slower progress in cutting death rates among babies in the first weeks of life is putting the global goal of reducing child deaths by two-thirds in jeopardy.
• One expert says as the question of aid effectiveness has moved to the centre of development debates. If donors want to make their aid more effective, then they need to engage strategically with the private sector.
• In the Washington Post, Michael Gerson makes the “pro-life” case for increased support for contraception and family planning worldwide.
• UNICEF and international NGOs are working to raise awareness and encourage West African communities to invest in the construction of more pit latrines. Pit latrines, say advocates, can drastically reduce the spread of diarrhea, cholera and worms.

RESEARCH

• A study published in Lancet finds that the workers who took part in the efforts to rescue people from the World Trade Center on 9/11 are at a high risk of suffering physical and mental illness.
• A study by the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation in Uganda and Zambia found high rates of syphilis and HIV co-infection among pregnant women, but showed that “integrating rapid syphilis screening and HIV testing for pregnant women was feasible, cost-effective, and helped to prevent transmission of syphilis and HIV from mother-to-child.”
• A genetically engineered virus may be the key to combating cancer, says a group of scientists.
• Believed to only help children under four, researchers have determined that the rotavirus vaccine also reduces deaths in children between the age of five and fourteen.
• Researchers who have tracked Haitian cell phone SIM cards relative to the cholera outbreak are optimistic that their findings will lead to future use of the same technology for other outbreaks.
• Scientists may have found a critical weakness in Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria. Researchers say the discovery provides a promising target for new malaria therapies.
• Engineers at Michigan State University are developing a low-cost mobile phone application that can detect certain types of cancer.
• Danish scientists say mosquito populations are dropping in many parts of Africa, even in parts where there are no human efforts such as insecticide spraying or bed net distributions underway.
• A study published in the British Medical Journal reports a 24% reduction in deaths in children who received vitamin A.
• A new approach to malaria vaccines grows the parasite inside mosquitoes and extracts vaccine components from the salivary gland.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• A study published in Nature says that the last three waves of cholera can all be traced back to the Bay of Bengal.
• Despite a massive humanitarian effort after the 2010 earthquake, females in Haiti remain neglected, rights activists say, lacking access to care as they give birth to babies in squalid conditions, often as a result of sex in trade for food or other necessities.
• UN FAO warns that the bird flu is on the rise in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
• Reports from the Libyan capital Tripoli say a humanitarian crisis appears to be emerging following the ouster of long-time ruler Muammar Qaddafi. There is a shortage of medicine, fuel, food, water, and power supplies, and growing piles of uncollected garbage.
• Polio has been reported in China and Kenya.

Thanks to Tom Murphy and Mark Leon Goldberg, Tom Paulson, Isobel Hoskins, and UN Wire.

Global Health News Last Week

SECTION NEWS

The following announcement is from Peter Freeman, chair of the section’s Advocacy and Policy Committee, regarding their first Advocacy Day to take place in conjunction with this year’s Annual Meeting in Washington,DC.

To all International Health Section Members:

The Advocacy/Policy Committee would like to invite you to participate in our first Advocacy Day, led in partnership with the Global Health Council. The day, scheduled for Thursday, November 3rd, 2011, will be an opportunity for us to voice support for a continued focus on international health to our elected officials. With the intense Congressional pressure to cut the budget, our voices can make a real difference. As a participant during this exciting day, you will be provided with training materials on effective advocacy techniques to ensure your message is clearly heard. Even if you do not have advocacy experience, you need not hesitate to sign up because you will be teamed with others. Please consider joining your fellow International Health Section members on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 on Capitol Hill to advocate for a healthy globe.

Interested parties should contact Peter Freeman, Advocacy/Policy Committee Chair, at pffreeman@gmail.com or 773.318.4842 with their name, phone number and e-mail address. A registration link for the Advocacy Day will be sent out to the section by mid-September; please be on the lookout for it.

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August 20 was World Mosquito Day.

On August 22, the Gates Foundation celebrated its 12-year anniversary (well, sort of).

POLITICS AND POLICY

• Hospitals in Portland and elsewhere are banning elective inductions and c-sections before 39 weeks of pregnancy.  New research suggests that critical organ and brain development is still occurring in developing fetuses during the last weeks of pregnancy.
• 10 Things You Should Know About the State Department and USAID: Do you ever wonder what the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) do every day and what it means for you? Well, funny you should ask. They’d like to tell you.
• The Global Fund, which has come under pressure to clean up corruption, has ended its dispute with Chinaand will resume hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for programs to fight AIDS and other diseases.
• Slate examines the growing popularity of the IUD in the United States in light of a health care reform law that will make the device effectively cost-free.
• A group of parliamentarians from six Asia Pacific countries have agreed to advocate for the allocation of Official Development Assistance to sexual and reproductive health programs in their respective countries.

PROGRAMS

• Donor funding for AIDS has decreased by 10 percent during the recent economic recession. The overall decrease in global AIDS funding marks a stark reversal in trends for previous years.

RESEARCH

• Proposals for Round 8 of the Grand Challenge Exploration, a $100 million grant initiative to encourage innovation in global health and development research, are now being accepted.  Proposals can be submitted until November 17, 2011 at 11:30 am Pacific Daylight Time.
• Researchers from Michigan State Universityare working on bringing a low-cost, hand-held device to nations with limited resources to help physicians detect and diagnose cancer. The Gene-Z device is operated using an iPod Touch or Android-based tablet and performs genetic analysis on microRNAs and other genetic markers.
• The problem of obesity is spreading around the world and poses serious health threats.  The finding is part of a new special report on obesity, and how to combat it in the medical journal the Lancet.
• A team of Australian researchers have discovered a breakthrough in the reduction of dengue. By injecting mosquitoes with a bacteria, they were able to block them from transmitting the virus that kills 20,000 people a year.
• Nanotechnology, the science of manipulating tiny particles, has is rapidly finding wide application. Developing countries that embrace nanotechnology should not overlook possible risks and must regulate products that contain nanoparticles.
• A study has found that nasal spray vaccines for influenza delivered to children between the age of six months and three years old are more effective than other vaccines.
• In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto’s GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• The current famine in the Horn of Africa has again brought to our attention the interaction between climate change, food prices and extreme weather conditions on the African continent.
• Most of the world’s population growth today is in urban areas creating what some are dubbing unstable, unsustainable “mega-cities.” A new report by the World Wildlife Fund says that by 2050, about 70 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas creating “horrendous” problems.
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, a combination of inaccurate testing and patients quick to seek treatment has lead to a worrisome trend: treating patients for malaria when they do not have the disease.
• HIV epidemics are emerging among men who have sex with men in the Middle East and North Africa, researchers say. It’s a region where HIV/AIDS isn’t well understood, or studied.  More than 5 percent of men who have sex with men are infected by HIV in countries including Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia, according to a recent study in PLoS Medicine. In one group of men in Pakistan, the rate of infection was about 28 percent.

INFOGRAPHICS AND OTHER INTERESTING VISUALS

• The online international news organization GlobalPost has published this useful interactive map of the food crisis in the Horn of Africa, based on data from the UN’s World Food Programme.
• New this fall, an online Image Library will make over 10,000 Hesperian illustrations available to all.
  

Thanks to Tom Murphy and Mark Leon Goldberg, Tom Paulson, and Isobel Hoskins.

Global Health News Last Week

The Supercourse team at the University of Pittsburgh has taken the initiative to spread the WHO’s definition of health, “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”  They have translated the definition into over 60 different languages using Google translate and have asked health professionals to review them to make sure they are correct.  This global health knowledge campaign is being developed by the Supercourse team, WHO Collaborating Centre, University of Pittsburgh.  Please contact Dr. Ronald LaPorte, Director, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh, for more information.

July 28 was the first-ever World Hepatitis Day.

POLITICS AND POLICY

• As the UN gears up for its Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases this September, blogger Michael Hodin argues that by focusing on this issue, the world body has a “new shot at relevance” in an era where its importance is decreasing (and countries contemplate cutting its funding).
• Former U.S. Ambassador on HIV/AIDS Jack Chow says the CIA’s fake vaccination scheme in Pakistan, aimed at locating Osama Bin Laden, threatens to undermine a broad set of American global health initiatives.
• The U.S. government and the Gates Foundation were responsible for 85% of the steep increase in malaria funding between 2007 and 2009. Richard Tren argues that we need to diversify funding sources and focus on control efforts.

PROGRAMS

• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has teamed up with FC Barcelona to promote the polio eradication campaign.
• To raise awareness about violence against women in Europe, the UN has opened up a contest to design a newspaper advertisement in support of the UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign. View submissions and the winning entries here.
• Seattle-based development blogger Tom Paulson continues to raise some interesting issues regarding the Gates Foundation’s funding of media coverage for global health issues.  Their latest venture is a weekly program on the BBC.

RESEARCH

• Researchers have cracked the DNA code of the strain of E. coli that originated in German sprouts and killed over 50 people this summer.
• A cell phone that doubles as a blood-oxygen tester is one of the 77 mHealth innovation finalists for the Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development competition.
• A study conducted by the WHO found that France, the U.S., the Netherlands, and India have the highest rates of depression in the world, while China has the lowest.  Detailed interviews were conducted with over 89,000 individuals in 18 countries.
• It is becoming more apparent that one of the most effective ways to deal with HIV/AIDS is to address neglected tropical diseases, argues the Public Library of Science in Eureka Alert.
• A study of the lifespan of HIV patients receiving combination ARV therapy by researchers at University of Ottawa has found that patients can expect to live a near normal lifespan.
• Researchers at Oklahoma University believe that a protein-based vaccine could prevent many cases of childhood pneumonia.
• Dutch researchers have found that children who were not breastfed were more likely to develop respiratory problems such as asthma.
• The first stage of trials for a new malaria vaccine by Swiss researchers in Tanzania have shown promising results.
• Has announced in a study in Pediatrics that the varicella vaccine for chickenpox has reduced the annual death toll in the United States from 105 to 14. Tests are in progress that could lead to major family planning advances. The New York Times reports on some innovations in male contraceptives that could offer safe and effective contraception.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• The Agbogbloshie slum outside of Accra, Ghana, is a major electronics waste dump.  This site is an example of what happens to “donated” discarded electronics: residents burn them to extract precious metals and simultaneously exposed to a host of hazardous chemicals, as the goods release lead, mercury,
  thallium, hydrogen cyanide, and PVC.
• A recent article by a global panel uses startling images to call attention to the woeful state of neglect and inadequate treatment of mental illness in developing nations.

Global Health News Last Week

SECTION NEWS

The 2011 IH Section award winners have been announced!

• Lifetime Achievement Award: Henry Mosley
• Mid-Career Award: Neil Arya
• Service to Section Award: Donna Barry
• Gordon Wyon Award: John Bryant

Congratulations to this year’s awardees!  They will be honored at the section social on Monday night of this year’s Annual Meeting, so don’t miss it!

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July 11 was World Population Day.  In honor of WPD this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for a greater focus on providing improved health to mothers and children.

POLITICS AND POLICY

• Last week, a United States federal appeals court overturned  a George W. Bush-era “anti-prostitution pledge” that required all organizations that receive US funds to fight HIV and AIDS to adopt a formal position condemning prostitution and trafficking.
• Uganda’s legislative body has passed a bill that will criminalize  the intentional spread of HIV/AIDS.
• An in-depth report by Gregg  Carlstrom for Al Jazeera examines the state of the new Republic  of South Sudan’s health systems. Future plans appear to be in the right direction, but the present health situation is dire for the newly established
  country.
• U.S. officials are defending  the CIA’s use of a vaccination program in the hunt for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden amid concerns from international aid groups that the operation  could compromise future public health efforts in Pakistan. The CIA orchestrated a hepatitis vaccination program in the city of Abbottabad in a bid to collect DNA evidence to help identify the location of bin Laden family members.
• A growing reluctance from donor countries to provide funds to help ever-wealthier China battle HIV/AIDS will adversely affect efforts against the disease’s spread, says Michel Sidibe, head of UNAIDS.

PROGRAMS

• The Medicines Patent Pool, established by UNITAID to share drug patents, has just received its first contribution from Gilead Sciences. This will allow Indian generics companies to make cheap copies of some of the best HIV/AIDS drugs.

RESEARCH

• A new study has shown that ARVs taken by women with HIV/AIDS may have an effect on fertility.
• The United Nations praised a study showing that the use of ARVs by people with HIV can reduce chance of infection between partners by 73%.
• Mosquitoes are growing increasingly resistant to pyrethroids, the only insecticides approved by the WHO for use on bednets.
• HIV/AIDS drugs can be used to provide additional protection against infection as well as for treatment of those already affect by the disease, according to results of two studies conducted in Africa.
• Researchers in Tanzania are developing a device that uses the scent of malodorous human socks to attract mosquitoes in the wild, then poisons them. Donations of $775,000 announced today by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Grand Challenges Canada are intended to reduce the global infection rate of malaria by producing an affordable outdoor trap ranging in cost from between $4 and $27.
• A new study says that an inexpensive de-worming pill can help people become deadly to malaria-carrying mosquitoes, but for the pill to work, nearly everyone in a community would have to take the pill at the same time — and repeat monthly. The drug reduces insect lifespan, helping against malaria because only the older mosquitoes can transmit it.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• The World Health Organization says the world is better prepared for the next influenza pandemic. The centerpiece of the plan is to strengthen the capacity of manufacturers to provide enough vaccines to immunize the world’s population against influenza.
• The WHO has certified that Uganda has successfully eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus.
• According to a report published in March 2011 by the United Nations Environment Programme, only two in every five people in the Southern Africa have access to safe water for drinking and household use. Three quarters of those lacking access, live in rural areas and the majority of these are women and children.
• The CDC has expressed concern over the recently discovered strain of gonorrhea in Japan that is resistant to all present antibiotic treatments.
• Drug manufacturers, government representatives and pharmacists from six countries in East Africa have estimated that as much as 30 percent of all drugs on the market are either of very poor quality or counterfeit medicines.
• A lack of financial support and political will are contributing to the upsurge of measles in 33 countries. In an video interview, Andrea Gay at Measles Initiative, explains the different reasons for measles outbreaks in the developing and developed countries.
• The number of children facing death by starvation in Somalia has almost doubled since March and the country’s child malnutrition rate is now the highest in the world, the International Committee of the Red Cross warns. Aid agencies have struggled to reach Somalis affected by drought due to security concerns across the conflict-ravaged country.

Global Health News Last Week

SECTION NEWS

The IH Section hosted its third topic-focused conference call, on Current Developments in MCNH, took place on Monday, June 27, 2011 from 1:00 to 2:00 EST. We had several members of the IH section offer their commentary and expertise on current issues concerning maternal and child health.  Speakers included Laura Altobelli, Elvira Beracochea, Carol Dabbs, Miriam Labbock, and Mary Anne Mercer.  Read the summary here.

IH Section Communications Chair Jessica Keralis attended APHA’s Mid-Year Meeting on healthcare reform.  There were several interesting sessions on technology implications of reform, the public health workforce, advocacy, and others.  Read all about it on the IH Blog.

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POLITICS AND POLICY

• In the first part of a two-part series called “The great billion dollar drug scam,” investigative journalist Khadija Sharife questions the accuracy of figures given by the pharmaceutical industry to justify the high cost of drugs.
•  The American Chronicle reports how Brazil has been implementing numerous programs to reduce the rate of HIV infection within the country.

PROGRAMS

• Nearly six months after it began operations, UN Women appears to be struggling due to lack of donor funding.

RESEARCH

• At the 7th annual meeting of the World Conference of Science Journalists, several speakers said clinical research trials done in the developing world lack adequate patient protections as well as an ethical and legal framework.
•  Arizona State University Scientists have developed recombinant attenuated salmonella vaccines which they believe will make vaccines more effective.
•  A test for dengue through saliva has been developed by researchers from Singapore.
• Researchers believe that they have discovered the precise mechanism by which drugs attack and beat malaria. In doing so, they believe that they can gain a more precise understanding of how resistances are forming and develop better malaria medicines.
• A recently published report on research and development by the Malaria Research Initiative examines the current state of malaria research and offers six recommendations in going forward to improve R&D.
• A dramatic increase in support for malaria R&D since the mid-1990s puts the world well on the way to achieving global malaria control, treatment and elimination goals in the next five to six years.
• A study has found that AIDS patients who take nucleoside analog reverse-transcriptase inhibitors experience premature aging.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• The WHO has put together a series of graphs based on 2008 global health data to illustrate the 10 leading causes of death by broad income group. Heart disease, stroke and other cerebrovascular disease represent the top two killers in middle and high-income nations while they sit as number three and five respectively for low-income countries.
•  A report published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the CDC, has determined that UN peacekeepers from Nepal brought cholera to Haiti, which led to an outbreak last fall.
• More than 350,000 women die in childbirth every year and 8 million children will die of preventable diseases before their fifth birthday. A new report concludes that more trained midwives could help save prevent millions of such deaths.
• In a recently released report, UNICEF says as many as 70% of the world’s children are exposed to violence amounting to 1.5 billion children each year.
• The drug misoprostol is saving women’s lives around the world by preventing excessive bleeding after childbirth, the leading cause of maternal death in the developing world; it is also causing controversy, as the drug can also be used to induce abortion.
• Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is on the rise and hard to cure. Médecins Sans Frontières wants people with the disease to blog about it, to find out what they really need.
• A new study in The Lancet shows that over the past thirty years the number of adults diagnosed with diabetes has doubled to 350 million.
• Ghana’s Food and Drugs Board (FDB) issued a statement to warn the public against the sale of counterfeit Artesunate tablets on the market, which it claims are from China; laboratory analysis had confirmed that contained no active anti-malaria ingredient.

Many thanks, as usual, to the Toms – Tom Murphy and Tom Paulson.

Global Health News Last Week

POLITICS AND POLICY

• Attacks on aid workers are on the increase and one writer believes this largely due to the current “integrated mission” focus of the UN and other donors.
• If the Global Fund is to avoid further adverse media coverage and further consequent donor nervousness, it must urgently implement a more effective and fine-tuned approach to the issues of corruption and transparency.
• The families of two women who died in childbirth are starting a legal action against the government of Uganda, alleging that the inadequate care and facilities provided for pregnant women caused the deaths and violates their country’s constitution and women’s rights to life and health.
• The results of a recent bombshell study revealing the impact of taking ARVs and the spread of HIV has the Obama administration doing some serious pondering over the impact of a policy change.
• The elimination of mother-to-child transmission has become the focus of Rwanda’s ministry of health for reducing the rate of HIV.
• The states in India have been directed by the central government to provide free healthcare to pregnant women and sick neonatal children effective June 1.
• The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has frozen payments on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of disease-fighting grants to China, one of the charity’s biggest recipients, in a dispute over China’s management of the grants and its hostility toward involving grass-roots organizations in public health issues.
• Government think-tanks in China and India have recommended a jointly funded initiative to strengthen traditional medicine innovations in both countries.

PROGRAMS

• In Ghana, the Oxytocin Initiative Project has begun testing whether community health workers can safely and effectively prevent postpartum hemorrhage.
• ‘Tupange’ is the name of a new outreach program in Kenya that hopes to increase and sustain contraceptive use among urban women.

RESEARCH

• Researchers discuss the new developments in vaccines for HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB in the scientific journal Nature.
• Vuvuzelas – the horns used by football fans celebrating last year’s World Cup – not only cause noise pollution but may also spread diseases, say experts. In crowded venues one person blowing a vuvuzela could infect many others with airborne illness like the flu or TB. Mercifully, organisers are considering whether to ban them at the 2012 London Olympics.
• Published by the Institute for Economics & Peace, the Global Peace Index tries to measure peace. This year has seen the world become less peaceful for the third year in a row – and highlights what it says is a continuing threat of terrorism.
• It may be against the law, but wealthier, better-educated families in India are choosing more and more often to abort pregnancies if the child is female, researchers in Canada and India report in the Lancet.
• Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston find that diabetics have a higher risk of contracting TB.
• Lancet once called it “potentially the most important medical advance of the 20th century.” But today, oral rehydration therapy (ORT) — a simple treatment often consisting of a home solution of sugar, salt and water — is under-used, causing untold deaths of children.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• Due to lack of adequate vaccinations worldwide, measles has exploded this year. Infectious disease doesn’t respect borders and many American parents opt out getting their kids vaccinated.
• Zimbabwe has recently experienced a sharp rise in tuberculosis cases, leaving the politically unstable nation ranked 17th out of the 22 countries with highest TB outbreaks in the world.

TOTALLY UNRELATED TO ANYTHING ELSE: Apparently, to Nigerians, Bill and Melinda Gates do not look like rich people.

Global Health News Last Week

May 18 was HIV Vaccine Awareness Day.

POLITICS AND POLICY

• Hundreds of Kenyan AIDS activists held a protest on 18 May in the capital, Nairobi to demand that the government meet its commitment to increase annual health and HIV funding.
• In response to the mutual expulsion of diplomats, the UK’s DFID announced that it has frozen new aid to Malawi.
• DDT has made a controversial re-appearance in Uganda.

PROGRAMS

• A global health development partnership — Clinton Health Access initiative, UITAID and DFID — has secured price reductions on key AIDS drugs for HIV-positive patients in poorer countries.

RESEARCH

• The World Health Organization has just launched a new web-based information resource tool that should be of interest to many in global health and development community, the Global Health Observatory.
• According to the World Health Organization, the worldwide prevalence of obesity has more than doubled between 1980 and 2008.
• New research has found that a variant in one gene can lead to a 30 percent lower risk of developing cerebral malaria.
• A new study from Bangladesh concludes that most of the world’s pregnant women don’t need vitamin A supplements.
• American scientists have tested a treatment regimen for tuberculosis which will reduce the amount of time it takes to complete the full treatment as compared to current plans.
• A new report from the Guttmacher Institute finds that that 7 in 10 women in Sub Saharan Africa, south central Asia and south east Asia who want to avoid pregnancy, but are not using modern methods give reasons for non-use which suggest available methods do not fulfill their needs.
• Average life expectancy across much of the world — except Iraq and South Africa — is steadily climbing and infant deaths dropped across the world during the first decade of the 21st century, according to figures released by the World Health Organization.
• The Clinton Health Access Initiative and Gates Foundation have teamed up to support research into developing a cheaper version of the drug Tenofovir.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• China has reduced its AIDS mortality by two-thirds since it began distributing free antiretroviral drugs in 2002; however, the improvements were seen largely in patients who acquired HIV through blood transfusion, rather than through sex or drug use. On a darker note, Chinese authorities ordered an AIDS activists’ web site shut down after it had published an open letter from a retired senior official concerning news restrictions placed on a 20th-century public health scandal.
• Dr. Orin Levine looks at a disturbing global trend: Infectious killers that had been beaten back by aggressive immunization efforts are making a comeback in places long thought to be safe havens.

WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY

• The assembly voted to postpone the decision to destroy official stockpiles of the the smallpox virus for another three years.
• The WHO announced extensive reforms to “reinvent itself” as a health knowledge hub. Also, it apparently angered Taiwan by referring to it as a province of China.
• Sixteen countries announced new commitments to dramatically reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality, as part of the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health.
• OneWorldUK’s Chelsea Ricker asks, Where are the women in women’s and children’s health?
• A number of civil society and non-profit organizations voiced their opinions during the Assembly, claiming that the World Health Organization is overly influenced by commercial and corporate interests.
• WaterAid urged leaders at the Assembly to support the countries affected by dracunculiasis, caused by guinea worm, to improve access to safe drinking water and reach their most vulnerable populations to ensure the disease is eradicated.
• Bill Gates addressed World Health Assembly where he called for global leaders to increase support for vaccinations.
• The world is not ready to deal with a lengthy public health emergency, according to a panel of international experts, which based its conclusions on the 2009 H1N1, or swine flu, outbreak.

The IH Blog was featured in the “Buzzing in the Blogs” section of the Healthy Dose this week! Thanks to Tom Murphy for reading and tweeting us!

PATH Graduate-level Internship, Woman’s Condom Communications Intern

Special note: Applications for this internship will be accepted until May 30, 2011. We encourage students who are interested in this opportunity to submit an application as soon as possible. This internship will be for three months and will offer a monthly stipend of USD 1,250/month. The start date of the internship is anticipated to be in June or July. Additionally, please note internships with PATH are contingent upon the Intern providing documented proof of identity and eligibility to participate in a paid or unpaid practical training program in the United States, in accordance with federal immigration law. Please include a cover letter with your application.  The original posting can be found here.

Project background and aims

The Woman’s Condom is a female condom that is designed to protect against unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Our project goal is to launch the Woman’s Condom in China and one or more countries in Africa successfully and sustainably. Our effort will employ a total market approach, combining the skills and capacities of the public and private sectors, social marketing groups, and nongovernmental organizations to promote, distribute, and program the Woman’s Condom and increase levels of use among target groups. In preparation for the Woman’s Condom launch in China, the intern will assist in the execution of a variety of communication activities.

This internship aligns very well with PATH’s mission to advance appropriate technologies such as the Woman’s Condom that fill a specific need related to improving the health of people around the world. On an individual level, the intern will have an opportunity to directly impact the introduction of a consumer goods healthcare product, thereby improving the health of women and their partners. Additionally, the intern will gain valuable experience and network with key stakeholders that may lead to an international career in the non-profit, non-governmental and/or industry sectors. Informal meetings with Communication Officers and field staff members at PATH should accelerate learning and provide value to the Woman’s Condom project team.

Goals and learning objectives for the intern:   

The programmatic goal for the internship is for the intern to build on the brand and packaging designed for the product by creating additional branding and marketing elements to generate awareness and demand among the target market segments in China.

The individual learning objectives for the intern are to: 1) develop/enhance skills related to an international product launch with an increased understanding of strategic communication including product positioning and messaging, 2) increase understanding of market environment in Shanghai, and 3) enhance cultural sensitivity and collaboration skills by working on a multicultural team.

Skills to be developed and/or expanded during the internship:

The selected applicant will work in Shanghai for the majority of the internship and work closely with our manufacturing partner, Shanghai Dahua Medical Apparatus Company (Dahua). Expected outcomes include creating messages that appeal to the target market segments in China, conceptualizing a brand identity and creating design elements that convey this identity, and helping Dahua design a website for the Woman’s Condom. At the end of the internship, the intern will deliver a written report and presentation to the team.

Proposed activities: 

1)      Build on the brand name and packaging design of the product by conceptualizing a brand identity for the brand and create design elements that portray this identity that would be prominent on the Dahua product website and in advertising materials.

2)      Study effective brands in the condom and personal products market in China for ideas of how to best create design elements that will attract the Woman’s Condom target market segments.

Learning outcomes: 

We will evaluate the intern using a team-based performance feedback approach. All Woman’s Condom team members will be asked to provide input about the following aspects of the intern’s performance at the end of the 12 week internship: 

• Ability to communicate clearly with team members
• Ability to communicate clearly with external audiences
• Understanding of the basic principles of collaboration and demonstration of at least one instance of successful collaboration with in-country partners
• Ability to demonstrate the fundamentals of listening, meeting participation, giving and receiving feedback, team decision-making, and conflict resolution
• Ability to apply technical knowledge skill set to specific project tasks in China setting
• Level of demonstrated interest and engagement in project activities

Additionally, the intern will have the opportunity to provide feedback to the Woman’s Condom team. The team leader will conduct an exit interview with the intern to collect qualitative data regarding the internship experience from the intern’s perspective. The team leader will then assist the intern to structure the presentation of feedback to the Woman’s Condom team. Feedback will be presented in an informal team setting.

Finally, we will strive to make the internship a memorable and enjoyable experience as much as possible that they carry with them throughout their career.

Brief description of required skills and experience: 

• Mandarin Chinese written and verbal language skills with fluency to conduct business required. 
• Enrolled in a communications or business graduate program required.
• Marketing/brand development concentration in education and/or career.
• Consumer product experience strongly preferred.
• Advertising/marketing agency experience strongly preferred.
• International experience preferred.
• Strong interest in PATH’s mission.
• Ability to think strategically and creatively.
• Effective written and oral communication, organizational, and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work both as part of a team and independently.
• Self-starter.

Job Location: Shanghai, CHINA

Global Health News Last Week

May 12 was International Nurses Day.
USAID’s Frontlines magazine is running an exclusive interview with Dr.

Margaret Chan, the WHO Director-General, in which she discusses current global health priorities and systems strengthening.

Peoples-uni, an open-access education initiative, offers open-access resource and online learning materials for capacity-building in low- and middle-income countries.

POLICY

• Excessive bleeding following childbirth is the leading cause of maternal deaths in the developing world, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has now approved the use of misoprostol, a drug that considerably reduces this risk.
• Shanghai’s health authority and local hospitals are seeking to reduce the rate of births by cesarean section this year after a recent report showed that far more Shanghai women are undergoing the procedure than is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
• For the fifth time, at next week’s WHO General Assembly, countries will debate whether or not to destroy the last two known stockpiles of smallpox.
• The Director General of Nigeria’s drug and food regulator, Dr. Paul Orhii, was in London last week where he lodged a strong case before members states of the World Health Assembly to institute a legal platform to combat the spread of counterfeit drugs.

PROGRAMS

• Humanosphere’s Tom Paulson writes that funding for childhood vaccinations is not keeping up with the need and is struggling to compete with more high-profile priorities.
• The phenomenon of “poverty tourism” – in which charities and aid organizations take donors on trips to “experience poverty” and meet their beneficiary – is coming under increased scrutiny and generating controversy.
• John Donnelly, writing in GlobalPost, characterizes the Obama Administration’s Global Health Initiative as off to “a slow, stumbling start” in a short series called “Healing the World.”
• Last Wednesday, the WHO launched a campaign to reduce the huge but largely unrecognized burden of traffic deaths and injuries over the next decade.

RESEARCH

• An HIV-positive person who takes anti-retroviral drugs after diagnosis, rather than when their health declines, can cut the risk of spreading the virus to uninfected partners by 96%, according to a study.
• New research has revealed that a bacteria present in the gut of mosquitos may be another tool to fight the spread of malaria.
• An experimental drug helped monkeys with a form of the Aids virus control the infection for more than a year, suggesting it may lead to a vaccine for people, or even a cure.
• A study by US scientists, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that 400,000 females aged 15-49 were raped over a 12-month period in the DRC 2006 and 2007. That comes out to an average of 48 women and girls being raped every hour.
• A new report by MSF argues that switching from using quinine to artesunate to treat malaria could save up to 200,000 lives a year.
• A US study has suggested that homosexual men are more likely to have had cancer than heterosexual men.
• According to the findings of the last Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey, getting pregnant soon after childbearing, miscarriage or abortion places mothers and newborns at a higher risk of health complications or even death.
• Results announced today by the United States National Institutes of Health show that if an HIV-positive person adheres to an effective antiretroviral therapy regimen, the risk of transmitting the virus to their uninfected sexual partner can be reduced by 96%.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• According to statistics released by the National Coordinator of the Nigeria’s National Malaria Control Program (NMCP), Dr. Babajide Coker, Nigeria contributes a quarter of the malaria burden in Africa, and a staggering 90 per cent of its citizens are at risk for contracting the disease.
• Johnson & Johnson’s recalled at least 11,700 bottles of HIV/AIDS drug Prezista in several countries, after discovering trace amounts of a chemical emitting offensive odors in five batches of products sold in the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria and Canada.
• In China, around 1.5 million people require organ transplants, but just 10,000 receive them each year, as few Chinese agree to donate their organs upon death. Illegal organ traffickers have stepped in to fill that gap.

TOTALLY UNRELATED TO ANYTHING ELSE: Princess Beatrice’s atrocious weird attention-grabbing hat, worn to the royal wedding, is now being auctioned on eBay for UNICEF and Children in Crisis. Um, yay?

Global Health News Last Week

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

• India’s The Hindu provides a comprehensive article on the impact of TB in the country, and on women in particular.
• India achieved a major success on the global platform by pushing for inclusion of mental health in the list of non-communicable diseases.

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

Global Health News Last Week

From March 28 to April 1, panelists working in Canada, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia will lead a discussion in GHDonline.org on ways to build sustainable partnerships to strengthen surgical and anesthesia capacity in resource-poor settings. More information can be found here.

March 22 was World Water Day. Blogger Tom Murphy has collected some interesting videos on PSI’s blog here.
Elizabeth Taylor, Hollywood icon and longtime advocate for the fight against HIV/AIDS, passed away on March 23 at age 78.
March 24 was World TB Day.

POLICY

• China, the world’s largest tobacco producer and home to a third of all smokers, has issued a national ban on smoking in hotels, restaurants and other indoor public spaces.
• Fears are growing among HIV/AIDS sufferers in the Ukraine amid claims from some patients that they have been denied life-saving medicines by authorities during a crackdown on drug substitution therapy.
• The WHO has announced a list of 30 essential medicines for treating common diseases of mothers and children that can be used as the basis for procurement and supply of medicines and guide local medicine production.

RESEARCH

• Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), Dublin City University and Universidad de Valparaiso (Chile) have developed a self-powered, low-cost chip that can test blood samples and diagnose diseases like tuberculosis and HIV within minutes.
• Researchers have discovered that capsaicin, the compound that makes jalapeños, red chilies, and the famous habanero pepper spicy, inhibit the production of cholera toxins.
• Results from a recent study show that people with HIV who change antiretroviral treatment regimens due to side effects are at higher risk for developing drug resistance.
• The Pakistan Medical Association’s 2011 annual report found that 400,000 infants die in the first year of their life each year and 1 out of 10 children die by the age of five.
• A study by researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that child diarrhea deaths could be almost halved if currently available interventions such as breastfeeding, hand washing with soap, and improved household water treatment were widely implemented.
• Global health and development blogger Amanda Makulec shares seven key ideas that she took home from the Global Health Metrics and Evaluation Conference in Seattle.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• Despite setbacks, work continues at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, in addition to radiation-contaminated vegetables, officials are now warning families to not give Tokyo tap water to infants due to elevated levels of radiation found in the water supply. The World Bank estimates that the earthquake and tsunami have caused as much as $235 billion in damage to Japan and that it will take five years for the nation to recover.
• The crisis in Côte d’Ivoire continues as well, as the country’s healthcare system is strained by the violence.
• Leprosy, which has been officially “eliminated” in India, still affects hundreds of thousands of people who are shunned by society. There are 130,000 new cases diagnosed in the country each year.
• Leaders at the 26th Annual Conference of Alzheimer’s Disease International challenged the World Health Organization and countries around the world to take action on the dramatic surge in the global incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Global Health News Last Week

POLICY

• Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced the Water for the World Act of 2011, a bill in the Senate which will make providing safe and clean drinking water around the world a priority for US foreign aid.
• More than 60 world nutrition experts met at WHO headquarters last week to revise guidelines and to identify solutions to tackle the growing problems of both malnutrition and obesity around the world.
• Ministers of health and other high-level health officials from throughout the Americas called for a series of actions to reduce the toll of chronic noncommunicable diseases, in a declaration issued last week in Mexico City.
• The Global Fund announced that former President of Botswana Festus Mogae and former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt have agreed to lead a high-level panel of experts that will conduct an independent and thorough review of the Global Fund’s financial safeguards.
• UN agencies are concerned that reduced donor funding due to the recession, combined with free trade agreements, will reduce the availability of low-cost HIV medications in developing countries.
• The United Nations General Assembly will convene a high-level meeting in September this year to discuss the financial burden caused by non-communicable diseases (NCD) on countries.

RESEARCH

• A study done is Malawi by the World Bank attracted attention (and criticism) from Businessweek. Young women were given to stay in school and deter them from accepting money and gifts from “sugar daddies” in exchange for sex. The study found that HIV infection rates were 60% among schoolgirls who received cash compared to those who received nothing.
• A recent review of malaria treatment clinical trial results, published in the Chochrane Library, shows that artesunate was more effective that quinine at treating severe malaria.
• A personalized text messaging reminder service significantly boosted antiretroviral (ARV) adherence over a six-week period compared with a standard beeper reminder system, according to a study published in the March issue of AIDS Patient Care and STDs.
• About 600 people gathered at the Global Health Metrics and Evaluation conference in Seattle to discuss issues surrounding the evaluation of effectiveness of health programs.

PROGRAMS

• Global health blogger Alanna Shaikh discusses how micro-credit and the Green Revolution, two of international development’s biggest successes, are being re-evaluated.
• The Nepalese government is planning launch a large vaccination campaign against elephantiasis in 40 high-risk districts.
• Dubai’s Ministry of Health introduced Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine PCV13, a vaccine that protects young children from the worst effects of illnesses including pneumonia, blood infections and meningitis.
• The National Influenza Center of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention has been designated as a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, making China the first developing country to house such an institution.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

• Europe is concerned by the growing incidence of drug-resistant TB, particularly in children.
• The world continues to follow the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, including the unfolding situation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The WHO has assured that there is no danger to individuals being exposed to radiation in nearby nations (e.g. China).
• As if Haiti needed any more bad news, a study published in the Lancet says that the UN estimate of 400,000 cholera cases in Haiti this year is nearly half of what the real projection should be for the recovering nation. Meanwhile, health officials in Lagos have called on residents to observe high standards of personal and environmental hygiene and have designated emergency numbers to call in case of suspected cases; the Ghana Health Service has set up cholera centers in Accra to deal with the outbreak there; and the interim federal government of Somalia on Tuesday denied reports of an outbreak of cholera in the country, responding to an Associated Press story over the weekend that Somali doctors had reported that more than 20 people had died from the disease.
• In the February 2011 issue of PLoS Neglected Tropical Disease Journal, contributing editor Serap Aksoy discussed the triumphs behind the control of human African trypanosomiasis, or African Sleeping Sickness.
• Although women get diagnosed for tuberculosis (TB) later than men, treatment outcomes among women are better than men with higher TB treatment success rate and lower default (drop-out) rate in the female patients. The finding was announced at a meeting on TB and women in New Delhi, India.
• While the total number of newly reported HIV positive people and AIDS patients are still low in Japan compared with other countries, the number of newly HIV-infected people in Japan has doubled in the past decade due to public complacency and lower awareness.

Global Health News Last Week

The IH Newsletter is up! The Winter 2011 edition features several articles written by section members on various topics, a social media corner, fellowships and internships, and member publications. Check it out, and please consider contributing to the Spring edition!

On Tuesday, USAID administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah gave the 2011 David E. Barmes Global Health Lecture at NIH. His speech, titled “Addressing Grand Challenges:The Role of Science in Global Health Development,” can be viewed here. The transcript can also be downloaded, or you can read it on USAID’s website here. Also, you can check out commentary by Amanda Glassman, Sarah Arnquist, and K4Health.

Cholera, as usual, remains in the news: experts say the outbreak in Haiti has plateaued, while the one in Papua New Guinea rages on, and it is just getting started in Ghana. Meanwhile, health officials in Bangladesh prepare to launch the world’s largest cholera vaccine trial near Dhaka, the capital.

Scientists from Edinburgh University claim that the malarial parasite is particularly deadly because it competes with other strains of the infection by focusing on producing quickly-replicating cells, thus “duking it out” in the bloodstream. On a more positive note, Kenyan scientists believe that a spider that is attracted to the smell of human sweat may aid in the fight against the disease.

UN experts maintain that the laws in many Asian countries obstruct access to HIV/AIDS care and services. Nineteen countries in the region outlaw same-sex relations, and 29 criminalize prostitution. The remarks were made just before the Global Commission of HIV and the Law took place in Bangkok, where experts from around the world gathered to discuss HIV-related legal and human rights issues. Also, China has declared its intention to bring the spread of AIDS under control by 2020.

According to the WHO, Moldova has emerged as the world leader in per-capita alcohol consumption.

Experts have been sounding the alarm about rising food prices, and many analysts have linked the crisis to the recent riots in north Africa and the Middle East.

Obama and the Republicans continue to battle over the budget, as the president requests a modest increase in global health funds while Congressional Republicans try to slash spending.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Court Decision in China Upholds HIV Employment Discrimination

China always seems to find its way into human rights headlines these days. Now that the sound and fury of Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize has died down, the People’s Republic is in the news again: this time for a landmark court decision in which a man lost a discrimination case for being denied a teaching job based on his HIV status. Wu Xiao (an alias that means “Little Wu”), a 22-year-old college grad, passed a series of written tests and an interview for the position, so he should have been perfectly qualified for the post. However, when his mandatory blood test revealed his HIV status, the local education bureau in Anqing rejected his application. The court ruled that the criteria for hiring civil servants (which disqualifies HIV-positive individuals from being hired) overrules a 2006 law that prohibits discrimination against persons with HIV and their families. The verdict is highly discouraging to Chinese AIDS advocates.

Discrimination against persons with HIV is nothing new. The history of the disease is littered with horror stories of stigma, persecution, and invasion of privacy, and discrimination continues all over the world in various forms, including cultural norms and, in some cases, even laws. In Chile, HIV-positive women are frequently pressured to get sterilized, and some are even sterilized without consent. Twenty-two countries, including Russia, Egypt, and South Korea, will deport foreign nationals based solely on HIV status, and other countries (such as Malaysia and Syria) will not allow students with HIV to apply for study. Gugu Dlamini, a SouthAfrican woman, was beaten to death after speaking openly about her HIV status at an AIDS awareness gathering on World AIDS Day in 1998.

China is certainly no stranger to HIV/AIDS discrimination. From the government’s frantic cover-up of the “Bloodhead Scandal” (in which 30,000-50,000 people were infected through blood transfusion programs in the 90s) to present-day violations of patient privacy laws, Chinese HIV patients face harsh stigma from healthcare providers, government officials, and their friends and neighbors. On the surface, the country has been somewhat proactive in mitigating this: it passed its first laws regarding HIV patient privacy in 1988, and it is illegal to disclose personal information of HIV-positive individuals. Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao make visible appearances with people with AIDS every year on World AIDS Day, and ARVs are available to AIDS patients for free. However, privacy laws are routinely violated, and people with HIV are ostracized from their families and communities. The government routinely harasses and often imprisons AIDS activists (Hu Jia, for example, was held under house in 2006 and has been in jail since 2008). Fear, ignorance and the threat of discrimination discourage individuals from getting tested and deter many who already know their status from seeking treatment. Chinese AIDS patients are encouraged by their providers to use fake names and IDs when seeking treatment and picking up medicines.

Wu’s lawyers plan to appeal the decision, but advocates are frustrated. “The entire H.I.V. community had high hopes, but now the door appears to be shutting for people who want to use the courts to fight against discrimination,” said Yu Fangqiang, whose organization represented Wu in his case. Others, however, urge patience, and point out that the fact that the case was even heard demonstrates progress. Either way, it is crucial to end the institutionalization of discrimination against HIV. Cultural norms will not change until the official government position changes, and, along with it, its laws. People will not seek treatment until they are no longer afraid to come out of hiding.