Archives: Morning Breakouts

The Associated Press/Washington Times reports on a pilot project plan by Partners In Health (PIH) and GHESKIO to vaccinate Haitians against cholera, which "has set off a debate among some public health experts who question the wisdom of [the] program that will inoculate only one percent of the population and could deplete the world's stock of available cholera vaccine, potentially putting people at risk in other vulnerable places." The program will cost an estimated $870,000, money that some experts say would be better spent cleaning up contaminated waterways, according to the AP.

In this post in the Global Post's "Global Pulse" blog, journalist John Donnelly reports on how a machine developed by researchers at the TB Laboratory at the Lung Center of the Philippines "that can detect multi-drug resistant [tuberculosis (MDR-TB)] in record time may revolutionize TB treatment." According to the blog, the GeneXpert, dubbed by researchers as the "espresso maker," grew out of a collaboration among partners put together by the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics in Geneva and "can detect [MDR-TB] in two hours instead of the old way of growing cultures that took two months."

"Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433 million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work," the Los Angeles Times reports. "Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor," including "replac[ed] the government's lead negotiator for the deal" and "blocked other firms from competing," the newspaper adds.

In this post in the Huffington Post's "Impact" blog, Charles Lyons, president and CEO of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, responds to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech at the NIH last week in which she called for an "AIDS-free generation," writing, "As Secretary Clinton pointed out, we've never before had as many tools to get ahead of the disease as we do now," such as male circumcision and treatment as prevention, "[b]ut one of the cornerstones of her strategy to create an AIDS-free generation is a tool we've actually had in our arsenal for a long time: the ability to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV."

Toronto's Star reports on how problems within India's health care system -- such as absent doctors and nurses, a lack of necessary equipment, corruption and one of the lowest health budgets in the world -- has led to the mistrust of the public system and has paved the way for private medicine in the country. According to the newspaper, "In a recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology survey in India, 79 percent said they opted for private doctors or traditional healers rather than government-run hospitals," and that "they spent an average seven percent of their monthly income on health care."