Archives: Morning Breakouts

"The number of reported HIV cases has tripled in Indonesia in recent years, curtailing productivity and trapping affected girls and women, especially, in poverty, according to a recent U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) report," PlusNews reports. "Women, representing a quarter of all people living with HIV in Indonesia, shoulder family finances when their partners can no longer work, or when they face education and employment discrimination, said the report," the news service adds.

The Guardian on Thursday published several articles about people living with disabilities. One article reports on how "[a]ccess to HIV information, testing and treatment for people with disabilities was raised for the first time as a central theme at the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), held last week in Addis Abba, Ethiopia" (Powell, 12/15). A second article interviews 14 people with disabilities about the challenges they face in their respective countries (Cummins, 12/15). A third article presents an interactive graphic of the key data on global disability from the first WHO World Report on Disability, published in June (Cummins/Villani, 12/15). And a fourth article examines the stigma faced by those with disabilities around the world (Ford, 12/15).

"Medical schools in poor countries continue to produce doctors that they will eventually lose to more lucrative careers in cities or other countries," but some of these countries "are already showing bold efforts to meet the challenge" of retaining health care workers, Manuel Dayrit, director of the WHO Department of Human Resources for Health, writes in a SciDev.Net opinion piece. Dayrit discusses programs in Ethiopia, Sudan, and the Philippines that use community-based education and local service contracts to retain health care workers in areas where they are needed.

In this Politico opinion piece, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who chairs the non-profit Hope Through Healing Hands, writes, "Continued investment in the fight to end global AIDS is more than an investment in the lives of families and communities in developing nations -- it is an investment in security, diplomacy and our moral image worldwide." He says the goals announced by President Barack Obama on World AIDS Day -- including providing antiretroviral treatment to a total of six million people by the end of 2013 -- "must have the support of Congress." Frist continues, "Under the current budget cuts, more than four million people will likely lack mosquito nets, a cheap way to prevent malaria. More than 900,000 children will lack access to vaccinations for measles, tetanus and pertussis." He stresses the "need for accountability, transparency and results," citing the Millennium Challenge Corporation as "a good example of promoting aid effectiveness from 'input to impact.'" He concludes, "Foreign aid is less than one percent of our national budget, so cutting it would have a miniscule effect on our deficit reduction" (12/14).

The BBC News audio program "Assignment" reports on the cholera epidemic in Haiti "and examines the controversy that surrounds it." Correspondent Mark Doyle traces the alleged origin of the disease in Haiti, which had not recorded a case of the disease in about a century, discusses the U.N. report on the situation, and talks about how "families of cholera victims are now demanding compensation" (12/16).

Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences on Thursday submitted an application to the FDA asking the agency to approve its antiretroviral drug Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to reduce the risk of HIV infection among adults, a Gilead press release reports. "If the [application] is approved, Truvada would be the first agent indicated for uninfected individuals to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV through sex," the press release notes (12/15).

"Archaic agriculture practices and erratic rainfall in the recent planting period is expected to lead to an increase in food insecurity for most of Swaziland's 1.1 million people in 2012, says a government agriculture official," IRIN reports. "In the 1970s Swaziland was a net exporter of food, but since the early 1990s the country has been dependent on donor assistance to greater or lesser degrees. In 2010 about one in 10 Swazis depended on food aid," according to the news service.

Reuters reports that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said drug manufacturers will have until a final rule is published in 2012 to comply with new reporting requirements.