Morning Breakouts

World Can Eliminate Preventable Child Death With Combination Of New Technologies, Capabilities

May 1, 2012 Morning Briefing

“Every child should have the opportunity to celebrate his or her fifth birthday,” but 7.6 million “kids die within the first five years of life,” a VOA editorial writes. “That is why [USAID] recently launched ‘Every Child Deserves A Fifth Birthday,’ an awareness-raising campaign leading up to the mid-June ‘Child Survival: Call to Action’ two-day conference,” the editorial states, adding, “This high-level forum, convened by the governments of the United States, India and Ethiopia, together with [UNICEF], will mobilize political, non-governmental and private actors to end preventable child deaths.”

Helping Babies Breathe Initiative Employs Global Development Alliance Model

May 1, 2012 Morning Briefing

In a post on USAID’s “IMPACTblog,” Amanda Makulec of John Snow Inc. describes the Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) initiative, which was developed “to equip birth attendants in developing countries with the skills they need to successfully resuscitate babies born without the ability to breathe on their own.” She continues, “[I]t was the power of the Global Development Alliance (GDA) model — public-private partnership on a global scale — that dramatically expanded access to newborn resuscitation in remote health facilities and communities in 34 countries within 18 months of the launch of the partnership … by leveraging the commitment, resources, and support of a diverse group of program implementers, NGOs, private sector organizations, government institutions, U.N. agencies, professional associations to enable the rapid roll out of the intervention globally” (4/30).

‘Mandatory Oversight’ Of Potentially Dangerous Biological Research Will Be Necessary

May 1, 2012 Morning Briefing

“In the sobering annals of disaster prevention, genetic manipulation of the H5N1 influenza virus is looming as a seminal case,” John Steinbruner, director of the Center for International Security Studies at the University of Maryland, writes in an opinion piece in The Hill’s “Congress Blog,” noting that two “laboratory experiments have rendered the highly virulent avian strain transmissible among ferrets, strongly suggesting that it would be transmissible among humans as well.” He states, “If the virus could achieve efficient transmissibility while retaining anything like its current case fatality rate [of 50 percent], it could inflict global disaster of unprecedented proportions.” The actions of the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, initially recommending publication of redacted versions of the two studies then reversing that decision, “implicitly concedes that the U.S. alone cannot exercise comprehensive jurisdiction,” Steinbruner writes.

Efforts To Fight Cholera In DRC Need To Include Sanitation, Waste Facility Improvements, Behavior Change, UNICEF Official Says

May 1, 2012 Morning Briefing

A cholera epidemic that began in January 2011 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is continuing because of “poor hygiene, lack of awareness of the population about transmission mechanisms, very limited access to protected and monitored water sources and lack of sanitation infrastructure,” according to Nona Zicherman, chief of emergency operations in DRC for UNICEF, IRIN reports. Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 30,000 cholera cases have been identified and more than 700 people have died of the disease since June 2011, the news service states. Zicherman “noted that emergency and medium- and long-term interventions to limit the spread of cholera needed to be developed,” including disinfecting contaminated areas, monitoring water sources, changing behaviors related to hygiene, and constructing water supply and sanitation facilities, according to IRIN (4/30).

Copenhagen Consensus Report Argues For Addressing Chronic, NCDs In Developing Countries

May 1, 2012 Morning Briefing

In the second part of a series of Slate articles highlighting issues being examined by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, Bjorn Lomborg, director of the center, examines the global burden of non-communicable diseases, which “receiv[e] the smallest amount of donor assistance of all health conditions, having lost ground since 1990 relative to infectious diseases,” he writes. “In a research paper released today on chronic disease, Prabhat Jha and a team of researchers argue that chronic diseases already pose a substantial economic burden, and this burden will evolve into a staggering one over the next two decades,” according to Lomborg.

Capitol Hill Event Highlights U.S. Advancements In Malaria Science, Technology

April 30, 2012 Morning Briefing

This post in Malaria No More’s “Malaria Policy Center” blog reports on a two-part event held on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, April 25, World Malaria Day, titled, “U.S. Advancements in Science and Technology in Malaria: A Showcase of Domestic Research & Development to Save Lives and Keep Americans Safe.” During the event, which featured the “co-chairs of the Senate Working Group on Malaria and Congressional Caucus on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases as honorary hosts,” “20 universities, private companies, and research institutions highlighted cutting-edge scientific and technological advancements in malaria that could save millions of lives around the world, protect U.S. military service members, and create jobs here in their own states,” the blog writes, noting, “USAID Administrator Raj Shah also spoke about the impressive scientific achievements and the development of new tools that can be used in the fight against malaria” (Waltman, 4/27).

Caesarean Delivery Provides Cost-Effective Measure To Improve Health In Developing World, Study Shows

April 30, 2012 Morning Briefing

“A new study suggests that at least one surgical procedure, caesarean delivery, is a highly effective way of improving health at a reasonable cost in developing countries,” VOA News reports (Chimes, 4/27). “In 2011, pregnancy-related complications resulted in an estimated 273,500 maternal deaths globally, or close to 775 deaths per day,” according to the study, which notes, “Ninety-nine percent of maternal deaths occur in developing countries” (Alkire et al., 4/25). “One of the most common” causes of maternal deaths “is obstructed labor, where the fetus cannot move down the birth canal,” VOA writes. Harvard Medical School researcher Blake Alkire “notes that deaths from obstructed labor are virtually unknown in wealthier countries,” where women “almost always have the option of a caesarean birth,” according to the news service.

U.S. Government Is Largest Funder Of Global Health R&D, Report Shows

April 30, 2012 Morning Briefing

“The U.S. government is the largest funder of global health research and development [R&D] in the world, spending $12.7 billion over the past 10 years,” according to a report (.pdf) released by the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) and Policy Cures on Friday, United Press International reports. The report, titled “Saving Lives and Creating Impact: Why investing in global health research works,” “found each year the U.S. government provided around 45 percent of the total global investment and 70 percent of all government investment worldwide in global health research and development,” the news service writes. “The U.S. funding helped lead to the development of more than half of the 45 new health products — including vaccines, drugs, diagnostics — in the last decade that have been used to save lives around the world, the report said,” according to UPI.

Report Applauds U.S. Government Agencies For Food Security Leadership, Highlights Areas Of Concern

April 30, 2012 Morning Briefing

“A new report from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs applauds U.S. government agencies for food security leadership but calls on them to up the game in the face of rising global challenges and shrinking aid budgets,” Connie Veillette, director of the Center for Global Development’s rethinking U.S. foreign assistance initiative, writes in the center’s “Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Blog,” adding, “While it is a positive assessment, the report highlights some areas of concern that could affect U.S. leadership in future years” (4/27). John Glenn, policy director at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, notes in the organization’s blog that Chicago Council “co-chairs Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman called for the progress made to be institutionalized with Congressional authorization. Significant increases in food production, they suggested, will only be visible after a decade, which would require sustaining the commitments of the past three years for another seven years” (4/27).