Archives: Morning Breakouts

On Tuesday, "the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases [NTDs], in partnership with the Embassy of South Africa, hosted a panel called 'Integrated Approaches to Health and Development through NTD Control,'" according to the network's "End the Neglect" blog. "The Global Network's managing director, Dr. Neeraj Mistry, moderated the panel and hopes the discussion will improve awareness of and support for solutions to NTDs, diseases that have often been 'hidden in the shadows,'" the blog writes, noting panelists included Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute; Jennifer Kates, vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at Kaiser Family Foundation; and Ok Pannenborg, former chief health adviser for the World Bank Group (Garlow, 5/9).

Ahead of Mother's Day on May 13, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe writes in this post in the Huffington Post's "Global Motherhood" blog, "Together we can go from 390,000 children becoming infected with HIV each year to zero," and he highlights "three simple things we can all do to ensure babies everywhere can be born free from HIV."

For solutions to help end avoidable child deaths, "government and development sector leaders should heed the lessons of a massive-yet-innovative program" in Bangladesh, called SHOUHARDO, a Bangla word for "friendship," "that is not only helping children ... reach their fifth birthdays but also ensuring they grow healthier, and in many cases, taller," Faheem Khan of CARE Bangladesh, who heads the SHOUHARDO program, writes in this Christian Science Monitor opinion piece. The first phase of the program, which is run by CARE, USAID, and the government of Bangladesh, was implemented from 2004 to 2010 and "represented the largest non-emergency USAID food security program in the world," Khan writes.

GOP legislators have backed down from some of the anti-abortion and anti-contraception coverage measures they wanted.

"The Nepalese government has launched an ambitious plan to curb the spread of malaria in high-risk parts of the country, where some 3,000 people were infected last year," IRIN reports. Through the program, which began on May 1 and "is the first nationwide push to end malaria," the "health ministry will distribute [anti-malarial] drugs at their local offices, and through their representatives in rural areas," IRIN writes. The news service notes, "Nepal is still considered one of the most malaria-prone countries in Asia, even though the ministry is using a 1994 study, which showed that 20 million of the country's 30 million people were at risk."

Kansas City's KCUR 89.3 FM reports on the 2012 International Food Aid & Development Conference, where experts gathered this week to discuss food aid programs. The news service writes, "The challenge for governments, aid agencies and recipient countries is to create a collaborative food aid system that accommodates both the needs of the U.S. agriculture industry and growing food insecurity among a mushrooming population," and quotes a number of experts who spoke at the event.

Politico examines the relationship between industry-group PhRMA and congressional Republicans in the post-health-reform-debate landscape. Meanwhile, in the Senate, some lawmakers are investigating the relationship between drug manufacturers and the medical groups as well as the physicians who advocate using certain narcotic painkillers.

"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, through its Grand Challenges Explorations initiative, [on Wednesday] announced over 100 new grants of $100,000 each to support innovative global health and development proposals that have the potential to unlock transformative, life-saving solutions in the developing world," a foundation press release reports. "Additionally, the Gates Foundation announced additional funding of up to $1 million each for six existing Grand Challenges Explorations projects to enable grantees to continue to advance their ideas towards global impact," the press release adds (5/9).

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria "expects to have an additional $1.6 billion to fund projects in 2012-2014, [the fund's General Manager Gabriel Jaramillo] said on Wednesday, a turnaround from a funding freeze last year," Reuters reports (Miles, 5/9). "The new funds are a result of 'strategic decisions made by the Board, freeing up funds that can be invested in countries where there is the most pressing demand,' a statement by the fund said," according to PlusNews (5/10). "The money includes funds from new donors, from traditional donors who are advancing their payments or increasing contributions and from some donors, such as China, that have offered to support projects in their own country to free up cash for more pressing needs elsewhere, Jaramillo said," Reuters notes (5/9). "This forecast is better than expected, and it comes from the fantastic response we are getting to our transformation," Jaramillo said, adding, "But we need more to get the job done. Countries that implement our grants are saving more and more people, but demand for services is still enormous," according to the statement (5/9).

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the largest provider of antiretroviral treatment (ART) in Burma, also known as Myanmar, are calling for the gap between the need for and access to ART in the country to be closed, the Guardian reports. Approximately 240,000 people live with HIV in Burma, and doctors say half are in need of "urgent" ART, but national data estimates less than 30,000 were receiving ART in 2010, the newspaper writes, adding, "In a country where nearly 33 percent of people live below the poverty line, thousands of Burmese are unlikely ever to be able to afford ART, which, according to [MSF], cost $30 a month."