Archives: Morning Breakouts

VOA News examines polio vaccination efforts in Pakistan, where "authorities say national pride is now at stake for polio eradication and they are hoping to overcome years of setbacks from natural disasters, misinformation and war." Though health workers hold eight nationwide vaccine campaigns each year, reaching each child is challenging because of fighting in some regions; migration; public mistrust of the vaccine; and inadequate clean water and sanitation, which allows the polio virus to thrive, according to VOA (Padden, 3/20).

"Political instability, civil strife and humanitarian crises in Africa have over the past decades reversed countless maternal health development gains on the continent, health experts warn," Inter Press Service reports. "'African countries with good maternal health statistics are generally those that have long-term political stability. This shows that stability is a fundamental basis for development. If it doesn't exist, other priorities overtake,' Lucien Kouakou, regional director of the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF) in Africa, told IPS," the news service writes.

"Africa has the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, with 48 percent of all global maternal deaths occurring in this region," Jotham Musinguzi, regional director of the Partners in Population and Development Africa Regional Office in Kampala, Uganda, writes in an Independent opinion piece. But "[i]f we provide girls, women and their partners with family planning information and services we can empower them to decide the number, timing and spacing of their children -- and whether they want to become pregnant at all," he states, adding, "Intended pregnancies are safer and healthier pregnancies."

Attorneys general from six states will sit in the Supreme Court to hear the oral arguments over the health reform law. In the meantime, Pennsylvania lawmakers may offer a constitutional amendment to ban laws mandating that people have health insurance.

USAID's website features a page dedicated to World TB Day, which will be commemorated on March 24. The page lists information on upcoming events, as well as links to several reports, such as the FY2010 Report to Congress on the Global TB Context (.pdf), stories, and features (3/19).

The Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog interviews tuberculosis (TB) expert Lee Reichman, founding executive director of the New Jersey Medical School Global Tuberculosis Institute, in advance of World TB Day, to be observed on March 24. According to the blog, Reichman discusses "the spread of drug-resistant TB and what he thinks are the most promising advances coming down the scientific pipeline" (Mazzotta, 3/19).

"[O]ften seen in the wealthy West as a disease of bygone eras," Reuters examines rising rates of tuberculosis (TB) -- drug-resistant TB in particular -- among the world's rich and poor. "[R]apidly rising rates of drug-resistant TB in some of the wealthiest cities in the world, as well as across Africa and Asia, are again making history," Reuters writes. According to the news service, "London has been dubbed the 'tuberculosis capital of Europe,' and a startling recent study documenting new cases of so-called 'totally drug-resistant' TB in India suggests the modern-day tale of this disease could get a lot worse."

Guardian health editor Sarah Boseley examines why children have been excluded from WHO targets on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in this post in her "Global Health Blog," writing, "Children die from cancer, heart disease and other [NCDs] but they are in danger of being forgotten as global targets for action are drawn up, say health groups." Boseley discusses an analysis by advocate Kate Armstrong, which suggests "the targets now being considered by the [WHO] and others to reduce the impact of heart disease, cancer and other [NCDs] are in danger of being focused solely on adults," as "the targets under consideration aim to bring down the deaths of adults over the age of 30."