Latest KFF Health News Stories
Cell Phones Prove Useful In Tracking Disease Outbreaks
When a cholera outbreak began months after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, health workers used cell phones to help track the movements of people leaving the epicenter, allowing them “to alert medics to go where infected people might carry the disease,” according to a report published on Tuesday in PLoS Medicine, NPR’s health blog “Shots” reports. “The second wave of cases did appear exactly in the areas where most of the population was moving to … out of the cholera zone,” public health specialist Richard Garfield of Columbia University said, the blog notes. Health officials also used the phones to send health advice to Haitians over voice mail or text messaging, according to the blog (Joyce, 8/31).
Researchers Targeting Ancient Algal DNA In Malaria Parasites
NPR’s health blog “Shots” describes how scientists are targeting biological structures called apicoplasts in malaria parasites in developing new medications to fight the infection. Without apicoplasts, which are not common in most species, malaria parasites die, so a drug developed to target them would theoretically kill the parasites, the blog notes.
First Edition: August 31, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including details about the GOP tax expert who has been named to help run the deficit-reduction “super committee” as well as the health policy ideas Republican governors are offering in the context of the nation’s fiscal fix.
Presidential Panel Reveals New Details Of 1940s Syphilis Experiments In Guatemala
“A presidential panel on Monday disclosed shocking new details of U.S. medical experiments done in Guatemala in the 1940s, including a decision to re-infect a dying woman in a syphilis study,” the Associated Press/Seattle Times reports. The final report of the bioethics commission’s review, which was ordered by President Barack Obama, is due next month, the news agency reports.
Cost Of Second-Line ARVs A ‘Huge Barrier To Care’ In Resource-Poor Countries
In this U.N. Dispatch blog post, Mark Leon Goldberg, managing editor of the blog, examines the costs of second-line antiretroviral treatments (ARVs), which “are several orders of magnitude more expensive than traditional, first-line ARV treatments” and are a “huge barrier to providing care” for resource-poor countries. He writes of “a huge gap in the way governments and donors have historically approached people living with HIV,” adding that “as more people access first-line treatment, there will be more opportunities for people to develop resistance to that first line. Donors and governments in the developing world simply can’t afford that kind of outlay.”
Family Planning Can Improve Maternal And Child Health, Survival
Describing a maternal health program that promotes family planning in the rural village of Bweremana in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Michael Gerson writes in his Washington Post column that “[t]he very words ‘family planning’ light up the limbic centers of American politics.” But “in places such as Bweremana, family planning is undeniably pro-life,” Gerson says, noting that “[w]hen contraceptive prevalence is low, about 70 percent of all births involve serious risk. When prevalence is high, the figure is 35 percent.”
Erratic Weather Exacerbates Food Insecurity In Indonesia’s Eastern Province
“Erratic weather has exacerbated food insecurity in one of Indonesia’s driest regions,” including the districts of West Timor (TTS), Nusa Tengarra Timor (NTT), and North Central Timor (TTU), “leaving farmers and families hoping for the best as October’s planting season approaches,” IRIN reports. “The availability of food is a constant issue in … the mostly undeveloped eastern province where an estimated 30 percent live below the poverty line on an average income of US$280 a year” and “[m]ore than half of all children younger than five are underweight and stunted, according to the Nutrition Security and Food Security report [.pdf] on NTT in 2010,” the news service writes.
Scientists Using Molecular Epidemiology To Diagnose And Track Disease Outbreaks
The New York Times examines “[n]ew methods of quickly sequencing entire microbial genomes [that] are revolutionizing the field” of molecularly epidemiology and could help public health officials identify and track disease outbreaks.
Epilepsy ‘Treatment Gap’ In Sierra Leone A Result Of Stigma, Lack Of Resources, Experts Say
In Sierra Leone, “one of Africa’s poorest countries, … scarce health care resources and the stigma surrounding epilepsy add up to a ‘treatment gap’ of more than 90 percent — meaning that fewer than 10 percent of the estimated 60,000 to 100,000 Sierra Leoneans with epilepsy are getting the treatment they need,” the New York Times reports. “Epilepsy treatment gaps are driven largely by low income and rural location, making sub-Saharan Africa a treatment-gap hot spot. Treatment in Sierra Leone is not expensive,” but “[t]he costs of untreated epilepsy, on the other hand, are enormous, especially in lost productivity,” the newspaper writes.
Many Women Give Birth In Haiti’s Tent Camps Without Medical Services
In the refugee camps in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince nearly two years after a devastating earthquake, “health and human rights officials warn of another crisis: an explosion of tent babies,” the Miami Herald reports. “Haiti’s tent baby phenomenon comes as the country continues to struggle to rebuild, and as the nearly 600,000 Haitians still living in hundreds of squalid camps in quake-ravaged communities see the avalanche of medical assistance from foreign doctors and nongovernmental organizations disappear,” primarily because of a lack of funding, the newspaper writes.
Bracing For Deficit Panel Battle Between Defense, Health Interests
Meanwhile, home health advocates are launching campaigns to ward off more Medicare payment cuts when Congress returns to Capitol Hill.
Aid Floods Into Tripoli, Hospitals Reopen As Fighting Ends In Libya’s Capital City
“Tripoli’s hospitals have put the worst behind them after an end to the fighting in Libya’s capital opened the way to a flood of aid and enabled medical staff to get back to work, aid agencies said on Monday,” Reuters reports, adding, “Although the violence in Tripoli has not completely ended, the relative peace has reassured aid agencies that they can now get into the capital.”
GAO Reviews Impact Of Health Law’s Medical-Loss Ratio Provision
Also in today’s health policy headlines, the Wall Street Journal reports that a new state-federal program will put steep health premium increases under the microscope and the Washington Post showcases a map detailing state-by-state progress on creating health exchanges.
IPS Examines DNDi Program To Develop Pediatric HIV Drugs
Inter Press Service profiles a program launched by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) to develop antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) specifically designed for children living with HIV/AIDS. “The program will focus exclusively on developing child-adapted formulations for children under three, the most neglected segment in terms of availability of ARVs. The DNDi hopes to have new pediatric-specific medicines available between 2014 and 2016,” IPS writes. The article examines pediatric HIV treatment issues in India, Kenya and Brazil (Frayssinet et al., 8/29).
Chagas Parasite Infects 18M Worldwide, Often Without Detection
Chagas, which is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, affects 18 million people worldwide, but is particularly prevalent in Latin American countries, “where a bug called the vinchuga, sometimes known as the kissing bug (because it bites people on their faces while they sleep), transmits the disease,” the Atlantic reports. The parasite “remains dormant in peoples’ bodies for up to 30 years, until it kills them suddenly by stopping their hearts or rupturing their intestines,” the magazine writes.
Poll: Understanding Of Health Law Slipping – Especially Among Uninsured
The poll also shows that, among people with employer-sponsored health insurance, very few would accept changes – such as a more restricted list of doctors or hospitals – to their current coverage levels.
Medicaid News: Calif. Providers Seek More Details On Cuts
Several N.C. businesses will now offer employees the opportunity to use a well-known medical home network that has served primarily Medicaid enrollees. Meanwhile, in California, hospitals and doctors are complaining that the state has not given them adequate details about its plans to cut Medicaid costs.
Roundup: Laid-Off IT Workers In Conn. Prepare For Health Jobs
News outlets examine a variety of state health policy issues.
A small selection of health policy opinions and editorials.
ALEC Offers State Legislators Advice On The Health Law’s Repeal
Kansas Health Institute News reports on a new manual designed to help state legislators fight implementation of the health law.
