Archives: Morning Breakouts

In this post on USAID's "IMPACTblog," Christina Lau, USAID health officer for Central Asia, discusses tackling tuberculosis (TB) in migrant populations, writing, "Most migrants are unable to access the health care system because they are undocumented laborers, who lack proper identification documents required for health care treatment, and who fear deportation if their documentation status becomes known." She notes, "USAID is working in coalition with government and international partners in order to improve access to TB services and treatment for this crucial population" (1/26).

IRIN reports that Cote d'Ivoire is abandoning its free health care for all scheme after a period of nine months, noting, "Theft, poor management and rising costs have made the service -- introduced by President Alassane Ouattara's government at the end of civil conflict to ease a dire public health situation -- unaffordable." According to the news service, "As of February, the free service will only be available to mothers and their children," meaning "free care for deliveries and free treatment for diseases affecting children under six years old."

"Two groundbreaking initiatives, aimed at realistically achieving the once-unthinkable goal of ending new HIV infections among children by the end of 2015, were launched simultaneously at the World Economic Forum's [WEF] Annual Conference in Davos" on Friday, according to a Business Leadership Council press release. "The Business Leadership Council for a Generation Born HIV Free was launched together with a Social Media Syndicate that is designed to reach billions of people around the world ... The Syndicate will evolve to focus on other U.N. Health Millennium Development Goals over the coming months," the press release states (1/27). "The Social Media Syndicate will coordinate the most influential, individual publishers on the Social Web to share messages and actions needed to welcome a 'Generation Born HIV Free' and to achieve all the health-related Millennium Development Goals," according to a press statement from UNAIDS and PEPFAR (1/27).

When sanitation systems are available and used, the odds of contracting one of a group of diseases, known as soil-transmitted helminths (STH), is cut in half, according to a systemic review and meta-analysis published this week in PLoS Medicine, Examiner.com reports (Herriman, 1/25). "One billion of the world's people experience a diminished ability to work, learn, and thrive as a result of infection by these parasites -- roundworm, whipworm, and hookworm. The resulting losses in quality of life and productivity can trap people in a cycle of poverty and stigma and diminish their ability to care for themselves and their families," the PLoS "Speaking of Medicine" blog writes.

Speaking at an event organized by the Every Woman Every Child initiative on Thursday, "Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [called on] business leaders attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, to increase their investment in women's education and health to ensure their well-being and encourage their participation in the world economy," the U.N. News Centre reports. "'The business community can help. Your partnership is crucial in preventing unnecessary suffering for women and girls everywhere,' Mr. Ban said, adding that despite recent progress, much remains to be done," the news service notes.

Business and political leaders meeting in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Thursday agreed that the focus on the global financial crisis "won't matter unless people have one basic thing: Enough food to eat," the Associated Press reports. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) "estimates there are at least 925 million undernourished people in the world -- almost one in seven," the AP notes. FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said, "The problem is not the supply side. ... The problem is the access -- they don't have the money to buy it or they don't have the water and land they need if they are subsistence farmers," according to the news service (Heilprin, 1/26).

In this Al Jazeera opinion piece, Stan Cox, a senior scientist at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, reports on a proposed Food Security Act in India and examines whether the measure could help solve the country's food insecurity. He writes, "So-called public food distribution systems (PDS) have operated for years in dozens of countries around the globe," and notes, "India's PDS has been selling subsidized food through 'fair price shops' on a national basis since the 1970s." He continues, "The Food Security Act would increase the amount of grain going through the system by more than 75 percent. That would raise the total to 66 million tons, or more than one third of India's entire grain production."

Global Health Frontline News (GHFN) reports on efforts to produce and provide clean cookstoves to people in Tanzania. The WHO estimates that indoor air pollution caused by smoke from cooking fires contributes to two million premature deaths annually, more than are caused by tuberculosis or malaria, according to GHFN. The piece includes comments from Radha Muthiah, executive director of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, and Everline Kihulla, who works for the Tanzanian clean cookstove manufacturer TaTedo (Striker, January 2012).

"While the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) estimated figures on global hunger often grab headlines, the uncertainty surrounding the numbers receives relatively little media attention," Guardian reporter Claire Provost writes in the newspaper's "Poverty Matters Blog." In 2009, the FAO responded to a demand for global hunger figures with the projections that "by the end of the year ... world hunger was likely to reach a 'historic high,' with 1.02 billion people going hungry every day," Provost writes, adding, "Almost immediately, these figures seemed to take on a life of their own. References to the global hunger crisis affecting 'one billion people' or 'one-sixth of humanity' began appearing in speeches, media reports, and advocacy campaigns around the world."

In this New York Times opinion piece, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes that people's willingness to donate billions of dollars for humanitarian relief efforts "is a testament to human beings' generosity. But that fact of our generosity also explains why I am so frustrated by the increasing opposition in many rich countries to foreign aid." Gates examines the underlying reasons keeping people "from supporting government investment to alleviate extreme suffering" and counters "the argument that aid doesn't work even when it gets to its intended recipients" by providing a number of examples of advancements made in global health in recent years "due in large part to aid-funded programs."