Archives: Morning Breakouts

The achievement of meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for safe drinking water "shows that where there is a will, it is possible to truly transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people for the better," Sanjay Wijesekera, chief of water, sanitation and hygiene for UNICEF, writes in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters Blog." "Even in sub-Saharan Africa, where progress towards achieving the target is off-track, 273 million additional people gained access to drinking water since 1990," he writes, adding, "So, we should raise our hats to the governments, organizations, communities and individuals who put great effort and resources into making this happen."

"Developing countries have already achieved their 2015 [Millennium Development Goal (MDG)] of drastically reducing the number of people without regular access to improved drinking water, though much of the credit lies with India and China," UNICEF and the WHO said in a joint report (.pdf) on Tuesday, Reuters reports (Charbonneau, 3/6). "According to the [WHO] and UNICEF joint monitoring program for water supply and sanitation (JMP), between 1990 and 2010 more than two billion people gained access to improved drinking water sources, such as piped supplies and protected wells" and "at the end of 2010, 89 percent of the population -- 6.1 billion people -- now used improved drinking water sources, one percent more than the 88 percent target contained in [MDG] number seven, set in 2000," the Guardian writes (Ford, 3/6).

"Measles has killed 126 children in Yemen since mid-2011, a consequence of the breakdown of basic health services during the year-long political crisis," and "[i]n response ... , the Yemeni government has appealed for international assistance and an outbreak-response vaccination campaign will begin in the hardest-hit regions on 10 March," IRIN reports. Since mid-2011, "3,767 cases of measles have been confirmed, resulting in 126 deaths," according to the Ministry of Health, whereas "in the three years from the beginning of 2007 until the end of 2009, the ministry reported a total of 211 cases and no deaths due to measles," the news service notes.

Delegates from humanitarian aid groups from the Arab and Muslim world at a conference in Cairo on Sunday urged international aid agencies to utilize Syrian civil society and private sector groups to deliver medical and food aid inside the country, where anti-government protests have displaced hundreds of thousands and pushed many below the poverty line, IRIN reports. "Access was among the main points of discussion at the meeting, hosted by the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and The Humanitarian Forum, which called for better coordination in the delivery of aid both inside Syria and to refugees in neighboring countries, especially in the area of access to health care," the news service writes.

The Wall Street Journal examines how many HIV-positive Ethiopians coming to a "squatter's camp" at Ethiopia's Entoto Mountain in the hopes that a spring believed to contain holy water would cure HIV instead begin treatment with antiretrovirals (ARVs). "The country's traditional and often superstitious views toward AIDS commonly lead to exile for the disease's sufferers," the newspaper writes, adding, "But modern methods are gaining more purchase, in recent years resulting in a greater number of Ethiopians on antiretroviral therapy and a decline in AIDS-related deaths."

The Associated Press/Seattle Times reports on a "mysterious epidemic [that] is devastating the Pacific Coast of Central America, killing more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and Nicaragua since 2000 and striking thousands of others with chronic kidney disease at rates unseen virtually anywhere else." The news service provides statistics regarding kidney disease in various Central American countries, quotes a number of experts regarding potential causes of the disease and notes, "While some of the rising numbers may be from better record-keeping, scientists believe they are facing something deadly and previously unknown to medicine."

USAID Deputy Administrator Ambassador Donald Steinberg writes in the White House Council on Women and Girls blog, "I am proud to say that USAID" last week released "a new policy on gender quality and female empowerment, the Agency's first in 30 years," "achieving great strides and reaffirming our commitment to close the gender gap in international development." He continues, "From Presidential initiatives like Feed the Future (FtF), the Global Health Initiative (GHI), and Global Climate Change to the full range of the Agency's programs, we are ensuring that gender is not just being included, but fully incorporated. Eliminating gender bias and empowering women isn't just a question of fairness or equity: it's simply good business practice" (3/5).

In this ONE Blog post, Jennifer Wynn, an intern with ONE's policy team, reports on a recent panel discussion held at George Washington University that examined the U.S. Farm Bill and its implications for global hunger and food security. "I would have never thought to make a connection between our farms and farms around the world ... [b]ut after an evening with some of the field's experts, it's clear to me that domestic policy on agriculture has far-reaching impacts," she writes. The panel included Ken Cook, president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group; Margaret Krome of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute; and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman (3/5).

Also in the news, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds that GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is experiencing a resurgence, just as President Barack Obama's approval rating hit its highest point since last May.

"An estimated 910,000 lives were saved globally in six years due to guidelines intended to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS are protected from tuberculosis [TB], the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said today, releasing an updated policy on joint prevention, diagnosis and treatment of both diseases," the U.N. News Centre reports (3/2). "The number of HIV-positive people screened for TB rose almost 12-fold, from nearly 200,000 in 2005 to more than 2.3 million in 2010, the WHO said, as it released data on the impact of its 2004 guidelines on TB and HIV," Reuters reports (3/2).

Speaking about two bills concerning Ukraine's cooperation with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Ukraine Secretary of National Security and Defense Council Andriy Kliuyev said "[t]he epidemics of AIDS and tuberculosis [TB] remain a threat to national security in Ukraine and require redoubled efforts to treat and prevent these diseases," Interfax reports. Submitted to Ukraine's parliament by the Cabinet of Ministers, the two bills "propos[e] to exempt from taxes and duties all transactions connected with the use of grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Ukraine," the news agency notes. "The NSDC secretary said the state should explore every avenue to minimize the sickness rate and create conditions for the treatment and prevention of dangerous diseases, adding that the grants of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are valuable support for Ukraine," Interfax writes (3/3).

"Nine global HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations sent a letter [.pdf] to President Obama Thursday asking him to rethink his fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget recommendation to slash $546 million in funding from the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports. The groups, which include AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, the HIV Medicine Association, and POZ Magazine, noted the request "recommended funding the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at $1.65 billion -- keeping the U.S. on track to reach its three-year commitment of $4 billion by 2013," but in the letter stated, "[W]e must and we do strongly object to the apparent shoring up of the Global Fund budget request at the expense of the PEPFAR program. ... These two programs are synergistic and often provide complementary services to the same communities," the blog notes (Mazzotta, 3/2).

Will McKitterick, a research assistant with the Center for Global Development (CGD), in this "Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance" blog post summarizes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "grueling marathon of Congressional committee hearings in defense of the FY2013 international affairs budget request." The nine hours of hearings "ran the gamut of U.S. priorities in national security and foreign policy," McKitterick writes, adding, "Congressional leaders seemed alarmed by reductions in global health spending and raised specific concerns over the administration's ability to meet its commitments to its PEPFAR goal of placing six million people on life-sustaining treatment by 2013. Secretary Clinton assured the committees that cuts would be balanced by consolidating programs, finding efficiencies, improving partners' capacity, and shifting more responsibilities to host countries" (3/2).

Why have effective, "simple tools such as Medication Assisted Therapy (methadone, buprenorphine) and clean needle-exchange services" -- methods that are "very effective in decreasing drug abuse and reducing risk of infection with HIV, hepatitis C and other diseases"

IRIN examines ColaLife -- a pilot project set to start in Zambia in September 2012 that will ship single-dose anti-diarrhea kits (ADKs) in crates of Coca-Cola bottles in an effort to increase the coverage of oral rehydration salts (ORS) for the treatment of diarrhea in children in the developing world. "Three-quarters of [diarrhea-related] deaths could be prevented with a simple course of [ORS] combined with zinc tablets, at a cost of just $0.50 per patient," but, "despite being heavily promoted by the World Health Organization since the 1970s, fewer than 40 percent of child diarrhea cases in developing countries are treated with ORS," the news service writes.