Archives: Morning Breakouts

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.

U.S. and U.N. food agencies on Friday said three famine zones in Somalia had been downgraded to emergency status, as aid had reduced death rates, but "three other areas -- including the refugee communities of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu -- remain in the famine zone," the Associated Press/CBSNews reports. The agencies "warn[ed] that a quarter million Somalis face imminent starvation, and that military battles are preventing food deliveries," according to the AP (11/18). The U.N. Food Security Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) said in a statement, "Overall, food security outcomes remain the worst in the world, and the worst in Somalia since the 1991/92 famine," Agence France-Presse notes (11/18).

While the recent report from a High-Level Independent Review Panel of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, "and the corresponding decisions of the Board, mark an important step towards the necessary improvements the Global Fund must make to fulfill its vital mandate in the coming decade and beyond," "the report does not provide direction or solutions on certain critical issues that will define the further success and impact of the Global Fund," Richard Feachem, founding executive director of the Global Fund, writes in a Lancet commentary.

Disregarding advances "that have the potential to significantly reduce the death toll from HIV/AIDS, malaria, malnutrition, and other insidious killers, ... both the House and the Senate are pushing significant cuts to the 2012 Obama request for global health funding," Matthew Spitzer, president of the U.S. section of Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, writes in an opinion piece on the Huffington Post's "Impact" blog. "This debate is about much more than economy; it is about the vulnerable, about people sick, even dying, right now in the poorest corners of the earth," and if proposed cuts to global health spending are enacted, "millions of patients and families who rely on U.S.-funded health programs [will] face a stark future," he writes.

"In recent years, initiatives such as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria have helped rein in some of the biggest scourges," Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health and chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, writes in a Washington Post opinion piece. "Scaling up PEPFAR, alongside other health initiatives, would bring a high return," because "as we deepen the response to specific diseases such as AIDS or TB, we can broaden access to primary health services," which "lays the groundwork for addressing health problems of all kinds," he continues.

"A group of researchers led by Novartis AG have discovered novel malaria compounds that may prove to be more efficient than currently available treatments and could be used as a prophylactic," the Wall Street Journal reports (Mijuk, 11/17). The class of drugs, called imidazolopiperazines, attacked malaria parasites in both the blood and liver when tested in mice, according to a study published Thursday in Science, Bloomberg notes. "Researchers are hunting for new treatments against malaria amid signs the disease is becoming resistant to drugs derived from artemisinin, the basis of the most-effective medicines, jeopardizing global efforts to curb the malady," according to the news agency (Bennett, 11/17). Researchers said early phase human trials could start at the beginning of 2012, but it would be years before any related drug would come to market, the Wall Street Journal notes (11/17).

The Lancet examines Health 2020, "a 'process of consultation' between WHO Euro and its 53 diverse member states" that "will build partnerships to tackle the complex determinants and drivers of health and health equity." The Lancet writes, "With the region's aging populations, increasing rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and spiraling treatment costs, the whole government must be brought in, alongside ministries of health and health systems, in a new 'movement for public health, believes" WHO Regional Director for Europe Zsuzsanna Jakab. WHO Euro will hold a high-level meeting on Health 2020 on November 27 in Jerusalem, the Lancet notes, adding that "[t]he results of this meeting are expected to feed into WHO's Executive Board meeting in January 2012" (Walgate, 11/19).

"Up to three million people in Afghanistan are facing hunger, malnutrition and disease after a severe drought wiped out their crops and extreme winter weather risks cutting off their access to vital food aid, a group of aid agencies warned Friday," Reuters reports. Poor rains in many parts of the country destroyed crops and food prices have nearly doubled since last year, causing many families to skip meals, move into neighboring countries, or take loans to purchase food, the groups said, according to the news agency. The U.N. made an emergency appeal for $142 million in October to help families affected by the drought, but only seven percent has been funded by international donors, Reuters notes (Bhalla, 11/18).

The Washington Post and New York Times detail the lucrative business dealings between Gingrich's think tank, the Center for Health Transformation, and health care companies.