Latest KFF Health News Stories
Rotavirus Vaccine Still Effective In Reducing Diarrhea-Related Deaths In Mexico, Researchers Say
“The rotavirus vaccine introduced in Mexico in 2007 still appears to be preventing diarrhea-related deaths in children, despite speculation that years later the vaccine may not be as effective,” according to the Los Angeles Times’ “Booster Shots” blog. “In a letter released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report that the vaccine still seems to be successful in reducing mortality rates among children,” the blog writes, adding that rotavirus “is responsible for 527,000 childhood deaths per year” worldwide.
IOM Report: Vaccines Generally Safe, No Link To Autism
The new report, which is more than 600 pages long, will still probably not put to rest the contentious debate that surround vaccine safety.
“The number of people living with HIV in South Africa has dropped slightly to 5.38 million, and the number of AIDS deaths is finally starting to fall, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said Thursday … in a written reply to a question from parliament, where lawmakers had asked for an update on the success of the anti-AIDS fight,” Agence France-Presse reports. “South Africa has more HIV infections than any country in the world, previously estimated at 5.6 million by the United Nations in its global report on HIV in 2009, released late last year,” the news agency writes (8/25).
Viewpoints: Drug Shortages = Rationing; Changing Forces In Health Marketplace; Birth Control Mandate
A selection of opinions from a variety of places.
Hensarling Says ‘Everything Is On The Table’ For ‘Super Committee’
The Dallas Morning News reports that Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, a co-chair of the deficit panel, said even tax increases would be part of the discussion. He also hopes the committee will consider revising the health law.
Seniors Issues: Long-Term Care Costs, Financial And Social Responsibilities
News outlets report on a variety of health care and cost issues that senior citizens confront.
Research Roundup: Obesity’s Costs; Patients’ Post-Hospital Medicine
This week’s reports come from The Journal of the American Medical Association, Circulation: Heart Failure; The Commonwealth Fund and The International Journal Of Health Care Finance And Economics.
Flooding In Pakistan Kills At Least 16, Affects ‘Dozens’ Of Homes
“In what appears to be a repeat — on a limited scale — of the 2010 flood disaster in Pakistan with northern areas affected mainly by flash floods sweeping down from the mountains after heavy rain, at least 16 people have died in the remote Kohistan District of Khyber Pakhtookhwa Province (KP),” IRIN reports. One official said the death toll could rise to 35 and “dozens” of houses have been washed away in the flooding, the news service notes. “According to media reports, hundreds of people are still stranded in remote areas of the flood-hit region,” IRIN writes (8/25).
Asia-Pacific Region Making Gains Against HIV/AIDS, But More Needs To Be Done, UNAIDS Report Says
Though the Asia-Pacific region “has seen impressive gains” in the fight against HIV/AIDS “– including a 20 percent drop in new HIV infections since 2001 and a three-fold increase in access to antiretroviral therapy since 2006 — progress is threatened by an inadequate focus on key populations at higher risk of HIV infection and insufficient funding from both domestic and international sources,” according to a UNAIDS report (.pdf) released on Thursday at the 2011 International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) in Busan, South Korea, a UNAIDS press release states (8/26).
Global Obesity Rates Doubled Over Last 30 Years, Researchers Say
“Obesity rates worldwide have doubled in the last three decades, even as blood pressure and cholesterol levels have dropped,” according to a series of papers published Friday in the Lancet, the Associated Press/New York Times reports (8/25). According to the researchers, “1.5 billion adults are overweight and another half-a-billion are obese,” and “the rise in obesity is likely to lead to an increase in the number of people afflicted by diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other illnesses, adding to the cost of healthcare,” VOA News’ “Breaking News” blog writes (8/25).
ABC News Features Six Videos On Global Health Issues
ABC News on Thursday posted six videos in its “World In 3” health series. The three-minute videos examine malaria in Uganda, neglected tropical diseases in Niger, pneumonia in the Philippines, sleeping sickness in the Democratic Republic of Congo, tuberculosis in South Africa, and parasitic worms in Brazil (8/25).
A.U. Pledges $46M For Horn Of Africa; USAID Official Discusses U.S. Response
At a meeting of the African Union (A.U.) in Ethiopia on Thursday, “African governments … pledged $46 million for the crisis in the Horn of Africa amid warnings that the emergency stretches far beyond hunger to encompass health, security and livelihood,” the Guardian reports. The amount fell short of the $50 million asked for by the aid group Africans Act 4 Africa, the newspaper adds, noting that “the African Development Bank announced a $300 million donation for long-term development in the Horn of Africa” (Tran, 8/25). Reuters reports that money is “to be spent over a four-year period, not to be used to bridge a $1.4 billion shortfall aid groups say they need for the emergency” (Malone, 8/26).
First Edition: August 26, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about presidential politics and health reform — most notably, Rick Perry’s assault on Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts record.
GlobalPost reports on President Barack Obama’s Global Health Initiative (GHI) in Nepal, one of eight GHI focus countries, and examines whether “a long-standing U.S. law” that “prohibits U.S. funds from being used for abortion services overseas for the purpose of family planning … is hurting its efforts to improve health care” in the country.
CBO’s Latest Budget Projections Assume End Of ‘Doc Fixes’
The Congressional Budget Office projects that rebounding revenue, combined with the force of the debt-reduction deal that became law earlier this month, will reduce the deficit by an estimated $3.3 trillion.
‘Super Committee’ Leaders Say Progress Is Happening
Even before the panel is officially up and running, some interests are already preparing activities to protect their causes.
Injecting Mosquitoes With Bacterium Shows Potential For Dengue Elimination, Scientists Report
Injecting mosquitoes with the Wolbachia bacterium “can block them from transmitting the dengue virus and help control the spread of a disease that kills 20,000 annually in more than 100 countries,” a team led by Scott O’Neill, a geneticist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, reports in two papers published in Nature on Thursday, Reuters reports. The “researchers in Australia showed how female mosquitoes infected with the Wolbachia bacteria passed the bug easily to their offspring, making them all dengue-free,” according to the news agency (Lyn, 8/24).
Cholera Strain Associated With Latest Pandemic Originated In Bangladesh, Researchers Report
“A cholera pandemic that has swept poor countries in three waves over nearly four decades has been traced to a bacterial strain that first emerged in Bangladesh, scientists reported on Wednesday,” Agence France-Presse reports. “The new probe, published in the British journal Nature, points to the likely role of modern travel in transmitting the bacteria — and the importance of the Gulf of Bengal as a ‘reservoir,’ or source from which the germ can always be transmitted,” AFP writes (8/24).
State Roundup: Appeals Court Says Ariz. Medicaid Co-Pays Violate Law
News outlets report on a variety of state health policy issues.
Mass. Towns Turning To New Options For Workers’ Health Care
Two news outlets look at efforts by local governments to curb their health care expenses.
