Archives: Morning Breakouts

The Guardian published a gallery of photographs taken in North Korea by Damir Sagolj, after "[a] harsh winter and widespread flooding have exacerbated the food shortage in [the country], leaving millions of people on a knife edge." Sagolj traveled to North Korea with a group of journalists invited by the government "to see at firsthand how the situation has hit the country's farm belt" in an effort to "highlight the humanitarian crisis" (10/11).

The African Medical and Research Foundation [AMREF] has selected Esther Madudu, a midwife at the Tiriri health center in northeast Uganda, to lead its global campaign, Stand Up for African Mothers, the Guardian's "Poverty Matters Blog" reports. The goal of the project is to reduce maternal deaths worldwide by 25 percent and train an additional 30,000 midwives, "including 10,000 in Uganda," according to the blog. Madudu will travel to France this week, "where she will address delegates at the Women's Forum Global meeting, alongside Uganda's minister of health, Christine Ondoa," the blog notes (Ford, 10/12).

New data published in the WHO's 2011 Global Tuberculosis Control Report on Tuesday, "shows that the number of people who fell ill with [tuberculosis (TB)] dropped to 8.8 million in 2010, after peaking at 9 million in 2005," the U.N. News Centre reports. "The report shows that the TB death rate dropped 40 percent between 1990 and 2010, and all regions, except Africa, are on track to achieve a 50 percent decline in mortality by 2015," the news service writes (10/11). "The countries the WHO especially noted for progress in the fight against the disease were Kenya, [Tanzania], Brazil and China," Reuters reports (Selyukh/Ulmer-Nebehay, 10/11).

In this Guardian opinion piece, Lisa Shannon, founder of A Thousand Sisters, Run for Congo Women, and co-founder of Sister Somalia, examines how, in the context of famine, sexual violence in the Horn of Africa, and particularly in Somalia, "is being de-prioritized as primarily a psychosocial issue," and asserts that grassroots international organizations offer a solution "outside the traditional big-aid model."

CNN/Global Health Frontline News examines how "ready-to-use therapeutic foods" are being used in Haiti to help children with severe malnutrition. U.S. nonprofit organization Meds and Food for Kids makes "Medika Mamba, which means 'peanut butter medicine' in Creole. It's a ready-to-eat paste packed with nutritious ingredients that -- over a period of weeks -- gives a jolt to the system and puts children back on track," the news agency writes. The organization partners with local farmers to manufacture the product in Haiti and plans "to produce a new version of its product ... which meets the requirements of major agencies such as the World Food Programme and UNICEF" in coming years, according to the news agency (Strieker, 10/11).

In this post in USAID's "IMPACTblog," Melissa Sharer, AIDSTAR-One senior care and support officer at John Snow, Inc., writes, "Although treatment is now widely available and [people living with HIV (PLHIV)] are able to live normal and active lives for many years, their mental health needs are often overlooked in care, treatment, and support programs." Sharer highlights the success of programs in Vietnam and in Uganda that "combine mental health and existing health services."

According to UNICEF, a cholera outbreak in West and Central Africa "has claimed almost 2,500 lives

This VOA News editorial examines how a public-private partnership between PEPFAR, the George W. Bush Institute, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, as well as private sector partners will launch a program called Pink Ribbon, Red Ribbon to "combat cervical and breast cancer for women in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America." "In the developing world, women's cancers are often neglected and associated with stigma that discourages women from seeing a doctor," VOA writes. The editorial quotes Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton who said, "If we want to make progress on some of the toughest challenges we face in global health -- fighting HIV, preventing childhood deaths, improving nutrition, stopping malaria, and more -- then investing in women must be at the top of the agenda" (10/11).

"U.S. Ambassador Jonathan Gration has advised Kenya to seek new sources of money to finance health programs," Kenya's the Star reports, adding, "Gration said projects initiated by donors will only be sustainable if the Kenyan government takes over." According to the newspaper, Gration made the comments after launching a campaign called "Let's Live," which will focus on maternal and infant mortality, HIV/AIDS, non-communicable diseases and child health "to reduce preventable deaths in Kenya by 50 percent by December 2012."

"Kenyans marked the World Mental Health Day Monday with a pledge to increase public investments in the treatment of mental illnesses, which affects at least 10 million people in the East African nation," Afrique en ligne reports, adding, "Kenya's Medical Services Minister Anyang Nyong'o said estimates show that at least one in every four Kenyans suffer from one form of mental-health related ailment."