Archives: Morning Breakouts

Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) Communications Officer Kim Lufkin discusses USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah's second annual letter in this GHTC "Breakthroughs" blog post, writing, "Shah rightly emphasizes the role of science, technology, and innovation in meeting USAID's international health goals." She adds, "It's exciting to see that Shah continues, time and again, to recognize how science and innovation can overcome some of the world's long-standing global health problems," concluding, "It's heartening to have a leader at USAID who is so committed to the power of research, and who continues to provide such critical leadership" (3/12).

HHS Secretary Sebelius warned the state that funds would be cut off if officials carry out the threat of excluding Planned Parenthood.

In this Globe and Mail opinion piece, columnist Andre Picard examines the efforts of a new group, the Global Congenital Syphilis Partnership -- which includes the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Save The Children, the CDC, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and the WHO -- to "make screening for syphilis a routine part of pregnancy care with the goal of eliminating congenital syphilis." Picard writes, "According to the World Health Organization, some 2.1 million women with syphilis give birth every year," and notes, "Almost 70 percent of their babies are stillborn, and many of the rest suffer from low birth weight (putting them at great risk for a host of illnesses), hearing loss, vision loss and facial deformities."

Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), addresses a recent New York Times article on "medical brain drain" in this CGD "Global Development: Views From The Center" blog post, saying the article's approval of "a horrific proposal to put recruiters of health workers on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity ... is breathtakingly misguided." He continues, "Recruiters do not 'steal' people. They give information to people about jobs those people are qualified for. The professional ambitions of those people have equal value to yours and mine, and those ambitions cannot be realized without information." Clemens says "coercively blocking the unconditional right of a health worker to emigrate -- such as by declaring her to be owned by a government and prosecuting her recruiter at The Hague -- is a crime against humanity," and cites several other articles he has written on the subject (3/12).

"A long-planned project to find out whether vaccination is feasible in the midst of an ongoing cholera outbreak in Haiti has been stymied -- temporarily, its proponents insist --" after "a Port-au-Prince radio station reported that the impending vaccination effort was actually a 'medical experiment on the Haitian people' -- a potentially incendiary charge," NPR's health blog "Shots" reports.

"As Southern African policymakers gather in London this month to discuss strategies for reducing new HIV infections in children, [freelance writer] Karen McColl reports on an initiative that uses affected mothers to provide support" in this BMJ feature article. BMJ provides a brief history of how the mothers2mothers (m2m) initiative -- established by obstetrician Mitch Besser and colleagues to develop a model of peer education and psychosocial support -- developed, writing, "What started as a few mothers providing education and support to their peers has now evolved, 10 years on, into an international program operating on 589 sites in seven countries" and "now employs 1,457 mentor mothers" (3/12).

"Prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, reintegration and health have to be recognized as key elements in our strategy" to fight drug demand, supply and trafficking, U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime Executive Director Yuri Fedotov said Monday at the opening session of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, United Press International reports. Fedotov added, "Overall, our work on the treatment side must be considered as part of the normal clinical work undertaken when responding to any other disease in the health system," according to UPI (3/12). "He called on countries to recognize that drug dependence, which claims some 250,000 lives annually, is an illness," the U.N. News Centre writes (3/12).

About 2,000 Kenyan health workers attended a demonstration outside the Ministry of Health on Friday, the Associated Press/Seattle Times reports, noting, "Some 40,000 health workers nationwide went on strike on March 1 to protest low pay and poor working conditions." According to the news service, "[t]he government announced Thursday that it fired 25,000 workers who defied an order to return to work" (3/9). "Anyang Nyong'o, minister for medical services, said on Thursday that the sacked workers would be required to re-apply if they are to be considered for reappointment," MWC News notes (3/9).

The Peace Corps, PEPFAR and the Global Health Service Corps on Tuesday will announce a public-private partnership program to place U.S. health workers overseas to help address medical professional shortages, CQ HealthBeat reports (Bristol, 3/12). "The Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP) will address health professional shortages by investing in capacity and building support for existing medical and nursing education programs in less-developed countries," a joint press release (.pdf) states, adding, "The new program is expected to begin in Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda in July 2013."

Gabriel Jaramillo, the general manager of the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said in an interview on Friday that "quite a few donors" to the fund "have earmarked portions of their donations to us, their contributions, to capacity-building," the Associated Press/Washington Post reports. According to the AP, the Global Fund "is increasingly being forced to devote a portion of its donations to improving its own spending controls rather than disease-fighting," the news service writes. "France, whose nearly $2.9 billion in donations have made it the fund's second-largest contributor after the U.S., will sign a new pledging agreement this month requiring that five percent of its money go to tighten financial accountability among grant recipients, he said," the AP writes.