Archives: Morning Breakouts

"Extending the Cure," a research project of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy that looks at antibiotic resistance, on Wednesday launched a map "designed to be a tool for public health, researchers, doctors, the media and the public to track resistant pathogens, which is a growing problem around the world," the Washington Post's "The Checkup" blog reports. The "ResistanceMap," funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, "compiles data from a variety of sources," including the CDC, FDA, European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network and Canadian Antimicrobial Resistance Alliance, the blog notes. "Among the trends the map illustrates is that Western Europe is doing a better job than the United States of controlling certain resistant microbes, ... [t]he United States and Ireland have the highest rates of vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE)," and "[t]he South has higher rates of resistance compared to the West or Northeast in the United States," the blog writes (Stein, 9/21).

The Senate Appropriations Committee's consideration of the spending measure will likely be largely symbolic and the actual spending it covers will be handled later this year. The appropriations process, however, has been used by Republicans to attack the health law's funding.

Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights advocate Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes in a Washington Post opinion piece that President Barack Obama "is in a position to make a game-changing impact on the war against AIDS" and he "should lead the world in a massive effort to expand access to treatment and rid humanity of AIDS -- the most devastating disease of our time." However, "just as the end of AIDS has finally come within reach, we are witnessing an unprecedented drop in financial and political support for the cause," he adds.

The health care system in the refugee camps in Dadaab, Kenya, which were established "long ago," are "currently challenged and stretched by the recent influx of refugees," UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimihen writes in this BMJ Group Blogs entry, noting that efforts are underway "to strengthen the existing system with supplies [and] human resources at clinic and outreach levels" to increase access. UNFPA is working "to improve reproductive health care in Dadaab and in accessible parts of Somalia through the provision of related life-saving medical supplies and equipment, which will lead to a reduction in adult and child morbidity and death," he writes.

Mary Fanning, South Africa's country coordinator for PEPFAR, writes in a New Age guest column, "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, this is a time of hope. It's also a time to celebrate the partnerships that are advancing this work and to recommit to a plan to ensure prevention, treatment and care for those infected and affected is sustainable and locally managed," adding, "Ultimately, whether it's putting more people on treatment, supporting HIV testing campaigns or leveraging mass media to drive the prevention message, the partnership between the U.S. and South African governments saves lives."