Archives: Morning Breakouts

In this post in the Hill's "Congress Blog," Kaitlin Christenson, the coalition director of the Global Health Technologies Coalition; Jim Connolly, president and CEO of Aeras; and Mel Spigelman, president and CEO of the TB Alliance, respond to a recently released G-FINDER report that shows "overall global investment in the research and development (R&D) of [new global health technologies] has declined for the first time since 2007, when the tracking of such funding began," writing, "This decline is especially troubling given that there are more than 100 products in [the Product Development Partnerships' (PDPs)] pipelines."

"The intensity of light shining from cities at night could help identify hot spots where outbreaks of infectious disease are likely to take place," PBS NewsHour's "The Rundown" reports, adding, "A team of researchers tracked satellite images of three cities in Niger and found that fluctuations in nighttime brightness were strongly correlated to measles incidence, according to results published in this week's Science." According to the blog, "The same tracking of nighttime light could be used for other diseases as well, the team wrote, and could help public health officials plan for emerging epidemics and predict outbreaks."

The Associated Press reports on third-quarter lobbying expenses for McDonald's and Starbucks.

USA Today reports on how the court's upcoming consideration of challenges to the health law have triggered stepped-up interest in televising the high court's proceedings.

"The Central African Republic (CAR) is in the grips of a chronic medical emergency, according to a report released today by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)," an MSF press release states. "Four mortality studies carried out by MSF over the past 18 months reveal crude mortality rates in some regions of CAR at three times the emergency threshold of one death per 10,000 people per day, which, according to the World Health Organization, is considered a humanitarian crisis," the press release adds (12/13).

In Swaziland, where a "deepening financial crisis is taking a toll on service delivery, and the country is experiencing an unprecedented number of protests over issues such as school closures and a lack of HIV treatment," "[a] new wave of HIV activism is rising ... as people living with HIV take to the streets in protest, many for the first time in their lives, over continued shortages of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment," PlusNews reports.

PRI's "The World" reports on an epidemic of an unexplained kidney disease that is affecting rural workers across Central America, writing, "[I]t's the second biggest cause of death among men in El Salvador, and in Nicaragua it's a bigger killer of men than HIV and diabetes combined," and "the latest theory is that the victims are literally working themselves to death." According to the news service, "El Salvador's health minister recently called on the international community for help," stating that "the epidemic is 'wasting away our populations.'"

Africa's Sahel region is facing a potential "food crisis," "[b]ut the good news is that the world's Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) is giving West African countries and donor nations a period of time to prepare, says the aid group Oxfam," the Christian Science Monitor reports. "Early reports suggest that as many as six million people in Niger and 2.9 million people in Mali live in vulnerable areas, where low rainfall, falling groundwater levels, poor harvests, lack of pastureland, rising food prices, and a drop in remittances from family members living abroad are starting to take their toll," according to the newspaper.

In order for Rwanda to reach its HIV prevention goals, the country "need[s] to reach two million men in two years to benefit from the protective effect of [voluntary medical male circumcision] in order to achieve this as part of a comprehensive, combination HIV prevention strategy," Agnes Binagwahois, Rwanda's minister of health, writes in a Washington Post opinion piece. However, "the only method widely approved for funding is the surgical method, which is expensive and impractical for countries lacking physicians and surgical infrastructure," and it would take more than 12 years to reach the country's goal, she says.

A team of Canadian researchers has "created a portable device that uses a computer chip with software capable of analyzing blood tests outside the lab ... that could make it easier, faster and cheaper to track the progression of HIV in patients living in the developing world," Postmedia News/Vancouver Sun reports. According to the news service, "The team's portable cell analyzer makes it possible for health care workers to monitor HIV patients in remote areas by testing their blood on the spot and receiving results within minutes, [University of Toronto lead researcher Rakesh] Nayyar explained."