Archives: Morning Breakouts

"After more than a century as a global scourge and hundreds of thousands lives lost, polio may now be on the verge of being the second human disease wiped off the face of the Earth," Charles Kenny, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, writes in his column for ForeignPolicy.com, "The Optimist," and asks whether it is worth it to spend billions of dollars to wipe out the few remaining cases of the disease. Kenny discusses the cost-effectiveness of eradication efforts and writes, "In part because of the considerably greater complexity of the vaccination program, the cost of the polio eradication program is mounting."

"The United States and Sudan traded accusations [on Tuesday] over the humanitarian situation in the [border] states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, embattled since the north and south of Sudan split into two nations last summer," the New York Times reports (MacFarquhar, 1/17). U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on Monday sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council warning that food security could decline to an emergency level and could result in famine if action is not taken by the government in Khartoum, according to VOA News (Besheer, 1/17). Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Rice said, "The proximate cause of the problem ... is that the government of Sudan has deliberately denied access to international NGOs, the United Nations, and international humanitarian workers to the most affected populations in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile" and called the situation "unconscionable and unacceptable," according to a transcript (1/17).

In this Journal Sentinel Online opinion piece, Thomas Inglesby, chief executive officer and director of the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC in Baltimore; Anita Cicero, chief operating officer and deputy director of the center; and D.A. Henderson, a distinguished scholar at the center, comment on a recent announcement by scientists that they have genetically modified a strain of H5N1 bird flu that is "capable of spreading through the air between ferrets that were physically separated from each other," indicating "it would be readily transmissible by air between humans." They write, "We believe the benefits of [purposefully engineer(ing) avian flu strains to become highly transmissible in humans] do not outweigh the risks."

The New York Times examines how after years of decline, the number of recorded polio cases in Afghanistan tripled in 2011 to 76, following only 25 cases in 2010, raising concerns among international health experts that polio is seeing a resurgence, "particularly since some of the cases erupted far outside the disease's traditional areas in Afghanistan."

"A U.S.-sponsored mortality survey released last year announced huge improvements in health across Afghanistan. But the gains are so great that experts are still arguing about whether it's correct," NPR's All Things Considered reports. The 2011 $5 million Afghanistan Mortality Survey, which was funded by USAID with a contribution from UNICEF, showed huge gains in life expectancy and maternal and child mortality compared with data from 2004, NPR says, noting, "But believing the new numbers are accurate probably means accepting that the old numbers were way off, which makes it impossible to say exactly how much health has really improved."

The New York Times examines the history of the Chinese drug artemisinin, "hailed as one of the greatest advances in fighting malaria ... since the discovery of quinine centuries ago," noting the drug "is being talked about as a candidate for a Nobel Prize in Medicine." However, "few people realize that in one of the paradoxes of history, the drug was discovered thanks to Mao Zedong, who was acting to help the North Vietnamese in their jungle war against the Americans. Or that it languished for 30 years thanks to China's isolation and the indifference of Western donors, health agencies and drug companies," the newspaper writes.

Noting that the "fifth Millennium Development Goal target for 90 percent of births in low- and middle-income countries to have a skilled birth attendant (SBA) by 2015 will not be met," researchers from University College London estimate "that there will be between 130 and 180 million non-SBA births in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa from 2011 to 2015 (90 percent of these in rural areas)" in this BioMed Central Pregnancy & Childbirth article. They conclude, "Efforts to improve access to skilled attendance should be accompanied by interventions to improve the safety of non-attended deliveries" (1/17).

The argument that "a country's quickest way to better health for its people is economic development ... is only one factor, and not the most important one, in explaining global health outcomes," Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, writes in a SciDev.Net opinion piece. "The challenge is to ensure that a cheap basic package of health interventions is available to -- and is used by -- all," he continues.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva on Tuesday announced the appointment of Ertharin Cousin, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.'s Rome-based food agencies, to head the U.N. World Food Programme, the Associated Press/CBS News reports (1/17). "Cousin ... will succeed Josette Sheeran, also of the United States, who has held the post since 2007," Reuters notes.

Recent steep increases in the number of overweight Americans plateaued, but the rates didn't decrease either.

The Washington Post reports that the deal could result in the collection of hundreds of millions of dollars in new fees from drug companies to speed the review of generics.

The Associated Press offers a wide-ranging examination of issue stances -- including on health care, abortion and budget policies -- taken by the Republican presidential candidates.