Archives: Morning Breakouts

"When stakeholders from across the world converge at Washington next month to participate in the International AIDS Conference (IAC) to share their experience and evaluations and to influence both popular and official perceptions and practices for curbing HIV/AIDS, India will host a parallel event for those who cannot make it there," the Hindu reports. "The event will be organized in Kolkata by Durbar Mahila Samanway Samiti (DMSS) -- an umbrella organization of over 65,000 sex workers of West Bengal in collaboration with the Global Network of Sex Work Project (NSWP)," the newspaper adds.

GlobalPost reports on Cuba's medical outreach to Africa, writing, "A generation ago, Fidel Castro sent Cuban soldiers to intervene in African civil conflicts and fight the Cold War against U.S. proxies. Now, Cuba's doctors are fanning out across the continent as the island expands its role in administering medical services to some of the world's most ailing countries." The news service continues, "Some 5,500 Cubans are already working in 35 of Africa's 54 countries, Cuban Foreign Ministry official Marcos Rodriguez told reporters this week at a press conference in Havana," noting, "Of those, 3,000 are health professionals, and 2,000 are doctors, he said."

The Guardian reports on a "major summit" to be held in London on July 11, which "aims to provide access to family planning to 120 million women at an estimated cost of $4 billion." According to the newspaper, the summit "is being organized by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the British government's department for international development (DFID)," and "[b]etween 20 and 25 countries are scheduled to attend, including the U.S., India, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania."

"China has overhauled parts of its intellectual property laws to allow its drug makers to make cheap copies of medicines still under patent protection in an initiative likely to unnerve foreign pharmaceutical companies," Reuters reports (Lyn, 6/8). "The amended patent law allows Beijing to issue compulsory licenses to eligible companies to produce generic versions of patented drugs during state emergencies, unusual circumstances, or in the interests of the public," Al Jazeera writes, adding, "For 'reasons of public health,' eligible drug makers can also ask to export these medicines to other countries, including members of the World Trade Organization (WTO)" (6/9).

"Journalists from across Africa announced the creation of the first continent-wide professional association of health journalists," South Africa's Health-e reports. "The new organization, the African Health Journalists Association, aims to improve the quality and quantity of reporting on health issues so that people across the continent can make healthy choices for their lives," the news agency writes, adding, "The group's media coverage will encourage the best possible public health programs and policies throughout the continent." "'This network will take health journalism to a new level of professionalism and cooperation in Africa,' said Joyce Barnathan, president of the International Center for Journalists, which organized the meeting at the request of African journalists," according to Health-e (7/6).

GOP lawmakers released more memos from 2009 detailing negotiations between the White House and pharmaceutical companies about supporting the health law.