Archives: Morning Breakouts

Based on a report released last week by a high-level independent review panel on fiduciary controls and oversight mechanisms at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, "[t]he changes needed at the Fund are clearly substantial," according to a Lancet editorial. "However, as the report notes, there is 'nothing that cannot be fixed by appropriate reform.' Whether governments in this era of austerity will stick by the Fund as it evolves is now a major concern. But there are good reasons for donors to keep funding the Global Fund," the editorial states.

House Republicans released a draft 2012 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending bill on Thursday. The measure, which is currently deadlocked in committee, would block funds necessary to continue implementing the 2010 health law.

Nearly half of patients diagnosed with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) at a Chinese hospital had not had the disease before, showing "'substantial' transmission of the deadly superbug," according to a study conducted by researchers from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, Bloomberg reports.

In a meeting at the presidential villa on Thursday, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan told Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, "that he was determined to eradicate polio within two years after the crippling disease re-emerged earlier this year," Agence France-Presse reports. "Some 36 powerful Nigerian state governors Thursday signed a statement re-confirming their February 2009 commitment to ... reach at least 90 percent of children with polio vaccine with the goal of wiping out polio from the country," the news agency writes. According to AFP, Gates, who on Thursday completed a three-day trip to the country, "expressed confidence that polio can be stopped in Nigeria and commended the country's leaders for redoubling their resolve to help finish polio once and for all, the foundation said in a statement" (9/29).

"An outbreak of dengue fever in Mandera, northeastern Kenya, is spreading fast, with at least 5,000 people infected within weeks, due to limited health facilities, a shortage of medical personnel and poor sanitation, officials told IRIN." The news service writes, "A statement by the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation on 26 September said four deaths from the disease had been confirmed but, according to Mandera residents, at least 10 people have died since early September when the outbreak started."

Ghana's First Lady Ernestina Naadu Mills on Thursday launched the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality (CARMMA), an international campaign aimed at fighting maternal mortality, in Koforidua in the Eastern Region of the country, the Ghana News Agency reports. "She said all stakeholders have a role to play to ensure that expectant mothers get to health facilities early enough to have a skilled delivery," efforts that would help the nation meet the millennium development goals (MDGs) for maternal and child mortality, the news agency writes (9/30). According to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Mills said the nation's maternal mortality rate is 451 per 100,000 (9/29).

"The Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria approved an action plan Monday in response to recommendations made recently by the High-Level Independent Review Panel on Fiduciary Controls and Oversight Mechanism (HLP)," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports, adding, "The board stated that it accepts the underlying analysis made by the panel and that it 'presents a compelling case for a rapid and urgent transformation of the Global Fund.'"

Inter Press Service examines the challenges that non-governmental organizations and the government face in trying to prevent fistula among women in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an estimated 12,000 cases are recorded annually because of sexual violence, early marriage and complications in childbirth, according to the Ministry of Public Health. Poverty, early pregnancy and marriage, sexual violence, and a lack of education and knowledge about the condition contribute to its prevalence, IPS reports (Chaco, 9/27).