Archives: Morning Breakouts

A woman barred by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., last week from testifying at a hearing on contraception and religion starred in a House Democratic hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, saying women are "energized" on the contraception issue.

The Associated Press reports that since the computer system's launch last summer it has saved exactly $7,591.

Politco Pro explores how health issues are playing in the campaign so far.

The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) on Thursday published two analyses of health in the Middle East -- titled "Egypt and U.S. Health Assistance" and "Gaza's Health Sector under Hamas" -- respectively written by Jon Alterman and Haim Malka, both scholars in the CSIS Middle East Program. Alterman reflects on "the relationship which the United States has developed with Egypt in advancing health," and Malka discusses the "factors that have driven the expansion of Hamas' health capacities," according to CSIS, which adds, "For each, there are very important considerations of relevance to U.S. global health policy" (2/23).

"South Sudan's army on Wednesday appealed for concerted efforts to fight against HIV/AIDS, stressing that the war against the sexually transmitted disease cannot be fought by one institution or group of some officials tasked by the government," the Sudan Tribune reports. "Speaking in an interview with Sudan Tribune on Wednesday, Lieutenant Colonel John Woja, the HIV/AIDS Secretariat Program Manager of the military, warned that prevalence of disease poses a big threat to the military" and "called on media to complement the efforts of his directorate in sensitizing civilians and the army," the newspaper writes.

In this post in PSI's "Healthy Lives" blog, Benoy Peter, senior manager for knowledge management at Project Connect in India, reports that the government of India will cover HIV care under insurance in the country beginning in October 2012. Peter recounts the advocacy efforts that went into convincing the Indian government to make the change and writes, "We are excited about the maiden policy change facilitated by PSI/India. Much deserved credit goes to [the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO)], USAID, our partners and a few activists who enlightened by our conference did their parallel lobbying" (2/22).

Attendees of a recent WHO meeting that discussed the possible publication in the journals Nature and Science of two studies that modified H5N1 bird flu strains to show the virus could be more easily transmissible among humans decided publication of redacted versions would be ineffective and that "a system for distributing the full paper only to selected individuals would be impossible to set up on any relevant timescale," a Nature editorial states. Participants also learned "not only does the mammalian transmissibility threat seem greater than previously thought, but also that current avian viruses have some of the mutations identified in the new work," according to the editorial.

In recognition of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria's 10th anniversary, Sisonke Msimang, executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, recounts the Fund's history and development in this Project Syndicate opinion piece, stating that the organization is "driven by the idea that people need not die of preventable and treatable diseases simply because they are poor." She continues, "And yet today, despite the Global Fund's effectiveness and its strong anti-corruption track record, donors have cited 'bad governance' as an excuse for withholding further committed resources. Others have blamed the global financial crisis. The irony of this has not been lost on activists, who deal with the drivers of AIDS, TB, and malaria -- corruption and poverty -- on a daily basis."

In an analysis (.pdf) published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science, a team led by virologist Peter Palese of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York raises questions about the WHO's estimated fatality rate from H5N1 bird flu, saying the rate of 59 percent is based on "an estimate of human bird flu cases that is simply too low," Reuters reports. The WHO has recorded 586 cases of people infected by bird flu, and of those, 346 have died, the news agency notes (Begley, 2/23). Palese and colleagues say "it is not possible to determine an accurate fatality rate for H5N1 infections based on" available data, but "if one assumes a one to two percent infection rate in exposed populations, this would likely translate into millions of people who have been infected, worldwide" (Wang et al., 2/24). And in a paper published Friday in mBio, the journal of the American Society for Microbiology, Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota and a member of the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) and a colleague conclude that "[t]he available seroepidemiologic data for human H5N1 infection support the current WHO-reported case-fatality rates of 30% to 80%" (Osterholm/Kelley, 2/24).

In this post in the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog, the "third in a series of conversations with officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discussing the CDC's role in global HIV and tuberculosis research and development," Science Speaks interviews John Vertefeuille, the country director for CDC in Haiti, "about his time heading the Global AIDS Program in Nigeria, efforts to extend HIV prevention messages to youth in Tanzania with cell phones, and a brief update on current immunization efforts underway in Haiti," according to the blog. In Haiti, Vertefeuille "leads a team of 55 and manages an annual HIV budget of approximately $90 million and post-earthquake and cholera budgets of $170 million," the blog notes (Mazzotta, 2/23).

In this AlertNet opinion piece, Simon Bush, director of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) at Sightsavers, an international NGO helping people with visual impairments in developing countries, examines efforts to rid Africa of onchocerciasis -- a blinding NTD. "In 1947 when Sightsavers' founder, Sir John Wilson, coined the phrase river blindness to describe the almost unpronounceable disease, ... there was little choice for those living in areas where what we now call a neglected tropical disease was endemic," he writes, adding, "Today, although the World Health Organization estimates that 120 million people are at risk of river blindness, there is hope."

In a speech delivered at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome on Thursday, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told IFAD, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that the "approach being used today to fight against poverty and hunger is outdated and inefficient" and asked the agencies "to unite around a common global target for sustainable productivity growth to guide and measure their efforts," a Gates Foundation press release states. "Gates also announced nearly $200 million in grants, bringing to more than $2 billion the foundation's commitment to smallholder farmers since the agriculture program began in 2006," according to the press release (2/23).