Archives: Morning Breakouts

"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.

"The rising enthusiasm for providing more medicines threatens to come at the expense of promising initiatives for preventing HIV infections in the first place -- initiatives that could save many lives, with less money," Craig Timberg, the newspaper's deputy national security editor, and Daniel Halperin, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, write in this Washington Post opinion piece. "Ambitious treatment efforts and smart prevention programs are, of course, not inherently at odds. But especially in an era of fiscal constraint, these two goals could come into conflict," they write, continuing, "The result, wasteful in dollars spent and lives diminished, would represent only the latest misjudgment by powerful donor nations such as the United States, which still struggle to understand the root causes of an epidemic that has spread most widely in weaker, poorer nations."

"The Syrian government will allow the United Nations to assess the basic medical needs of Syrians in four areas where opposition forces have clashed with government troops and to also carry out a preliminary humanitarian needs assessment, officials said Friday," the Associated Press/Huffington Post reports. WHO spokesperson "Tarik Jasarevic says a 'very preliminary and basic survey' overseen by his agency and the U.N. Population Fund will be carried out next week with the cooperation of Syria's health ministry," the news service writes.

As the date of the high court arguments grows nearer, news outlets have a number of editorials and opinions about the health law case.

Genetic tests could become a $25 billion market by 2021. Currently, spending on these tests is estimated at $5 billion annually.