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In this Washington Times Communities column, Anwaar Abdalla, a lecturer on Civilization and Cultural Affairs at Egypt's Helwan University, writes, "While breast cancer is a global issue, in Egypt, the figure for people suffering from breast cancer is alarming," adding, "According to official statistics of the National Cancer Institute (Cairo University), breast cancer accounts for 35.1 percent of the cases of cancer in Egypt."
Speaking at a national malaria forum in Nairobi on Monday, Charles Mbogo of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) presented new evidence showing that malaria-causing mosquitos in Kenya have developed resistance to the most common chemicals derived from pyrethroids and DDT, which "could be a major blow to the country's strategy to eradicate malaria by 2017," Nigeria's the Nation reports. "This new development comes at a time most parts of the country, especially the coastal region, have been recording a significant drop in malaria deaths," the newspaper writes.
A $258 million HIV/AIDS prevention program in six Indian states may have prevented an estimated 100,000 infections from 2003 to 2008, researchers from the Public Health Foundation of India and the University of Washington suggest in a study published in the Lancet on Tuesday, the Associated Press/Washington Post reports (10/10). The analysis "concluded that infections dropped significantly in three populous southern states, a little in Tamil Nadu, and not at all in northern Manipur and Nagaland," the New York Times reports (McNeil, 10/10). "While the initial findings regarding the ... Avahan project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, come with large uncertainty due to data limitations and methodology, the study's authors say ... that investing in prevention can make a dent in one of the world's largest epidemics," AP writes (10/10). Tactics used in the program, which targeted high-risk groups, "included one-on-one safe-sex counseling, free condoms, exchanging used needles for sterilized ones, clinics to treat sexually-transmitted disease and advocacy work within the community," Agence France-Press reports (10/10).
Time examines the issue of maternal mortality in Afghanistan, where the Health Ministry says "about 18,000 Afghan women die during childbirth every year." The magazine writes, "According to a recent report by the NGO Save the Children, Afghanistan ranked as the worst place to give birth, followed by Niger and Chad," Time writes, adding that getting women in rural areas to hospitals, a lack of midwives and a stigma against pregnancy "because it's a public acknowledgement of sex with their spouses" are all challenges to improving maternal health in Afghanistan. The magazine highlights the HHS-funded Afghan Safe Birth Project, which has "has helped reduce deaths during [caesarean] sections at [Kabul's Rabia Balkhi Hospital] by 80 percent" since 2008, according to Faizullah Kakar, an epidemiologist and special adviser on health to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Time reports. "[I]n April, the U.S. government cut the program's $5.8 million annual funding, and Kakar says the Afghan government doesn't have the money to keep it going," the magazine notes (Kakissis, 10/11).
BBC News examines how counterfeit or substandard medicines are threatening India's fast-growing pharmaceutical industry, writing, "Worth over $12 billion, the industry is expected to grow more than four-fold in the coming decade," but fake drugs in the system are risking both the lives of patients and the reputation of drug makers. While the scale of the problem in India is unknown, "[c]ounterfeit drugs are a $200 billion industry worldwide," and "[w]ith manufacturing costs nearly 40 percent cheaper than other countries, the authorities are worried India could become an easy target for counterfeiters," the news service reports. According to BBC, the Indian government "has launched a campaign against counterfeit medicines," and a "committee set up by the Indian Ministry of Health has approved a proposal to put [two-dimensional] barcodes and scratch-off labels on medicines" that will allow users to use mobile technology to quickly confirm whether a medication is real (Kannan, 10/11).
"India's Aurobindo Pharma has become the first major generic drugmaker to join" the Medicines Patent Pool, launched by the UNITAID health financing system and "designed to make HIV/AIDS treatments more widely available to the poor," Reuters reports. "The Medicines Patent Pool said on Tuesday the agreement would allow Aurobindo to make a range of AIDS drugs licensed to the pool by Gilead Sciences, the leading maker of HIV drugs, in July," according to the news service. "Aurobindo has also elected to take advantage of a key provision in the pool's licenses in order to sell one drug, tenofovir, to a wide range of countries without paying royalties," Reuters writes, adding, "These could include several middle-income countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Ukraine and Uruguay" (Hirschler, 10/11).
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded United Therapeutics Corporation a contract for up to $45 million over five years "to help develop a potential oral treatment for viruses like influenza and the mosquito-borne tropical fever dengue," the Associated Press/Washington Post reports (10/10). The funding comes from NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and will be used "for studies directed at the development of a broad-spectrum antiviral drug based on [United Therapeutics'] glycobiology antiviral platform," according to a press release from United Therapeutics, which adds, "Funding will support the development of a candidate compound through preclinical safety and efficacy studies toward potential clinical trials against dengue" (10/10).
The Republican presidential hopefuls will face off Tuesday evening in New Hampshire. Even before the event begins, candidates are staking their ground. Texas Gov. Rick Perry went on the offensive, releasing a web video attacking former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney's health care positions. Meanwhile, the debate will be very important to Herman Cain, who has been climbing in the polls, and Michele Bachmann, who has fallen precipitously.
This Virginia university became the latest party to ask the Supreme Court to intervene and to resolve the questions regarding the constitutionality of the health law.
A selection of opinions and editorials from around the country.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Georgia's three physician members of Congress have been particularly active in the push to take apart the health law. Meanwhile, later this week, the abortion debate is likely to again take center stage in the House of Representatives.
Also in the news, more analysis regarding the law's essential benefits package and insurers' responses to rate hike reviews.
Under Medicare's "incident to" policy, physicians can bill for an employee's work as if it had been performed by a physician, as long as it was "incident to" the physician's services.
The Washington Post reports on the success of such efforts.
Today's state roundup comes from California, Connecticut and Kansas.
The New York Times reports that both parties are calling for a window into the deficit-reduction panel's deliberations. Meanwhile, Politico Pro offers scenarios regarding how the committee could potentially address Medicare's "doc-fix" issue.
"There has been an increase in the number of cholera cases and deaths in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo where an outbreak has been ongoing since March, say humanitarian agencies," IRIN reports. "At least 6,910 cases and 384 deaths had been reported as of 3 October, according to a report by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), compared with a total of 3,896 cases and some 265 deaths by 20 July 2011," the news service writes.
The WHO "is calling on governments to increase services for people suffering from mental, neurological and substance use disorders," VOA News reports. The WHO's "Mental Health Atlas 2011," "released to coincide with World Mental Health Day, which falls on October 10, finds countries all over the world spend very little on the treatment of mental illness," according to VOA (Schlein, 10/9). According to the report, "One in four people will require mental health care at some point in their lives but in many countries only two percent of all health sector resources are invested in mental health services," a WHO press release states (10/7).
The WHO reported on Friday "that several large measles outbreaks have continued to spread in the past six months in Europe and Africa, and to a lesser degree in the Americas," the U.N. Media Centre reports, adding, "So far, 40 European countries have recorded 26,025 cases between them since the start of the year. France has been the most affected, with 14,025 cases, and the Government has responded by modifying its vaccination schedule as well as offering vaccines in schools free of charge."
Speaking at the event "Innovative Approaches to Expanding Health Care Services" at the Africare House in Washington, D.C. on September 21, Nigeria's Minister of State for Health, Muhammad Ali Pate, "presented a sweeping panorama of Nigeria's current health status and what it must do if it is to make progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015," Global Health Impact reports. Nigeria's "bold public health vision" to save one million lives, and improve the quality of care includes "expanded provision of primary health care services; emphasis on healthy living and disease prevention; improved quality of care at health facilities; and, finally, reviving the health sector through increased private and public investment," the magazine writes (Kusha, 10/7).
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