Archives: Morning Breakouts

"After a decade of unprecedented increases in donor funding and a corresponding 17 percent decline worldwide in the number of new infections, the fight against HIV is losing momentum," Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and an adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School, and Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and former executive director of UNAIDS, write in this Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

During the last debate, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry clashed over their positions on the HPV vaccine. During Thursday night's Orlando debate, the issue again emerged.

Arjen Dondorp, deputy director of the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Research Unit at Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand, and colleagues discuss the need to combat antimalarial drug resistance in this New England Journal of Medicine opinion piece, writing, "Researchers, funders, and policy leaders must recognize the urgency of the problem, take action to address simultaneously several important knowledge gaps, and focus immediately on eliminating the threat of artemisinin resistance."

This year's annual World Disasters Report, published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Thursday, focuses on hunger and malnutrition, but highlights a growing gap between economic classes, the Australian reports, noting "15 percent of the world's population is going hungry while a record 20 percent now suffer the effects of 'excess nutrition'" (Hodge, 9/23).

"The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) has launched a scorecard to improve the fight against malaria on the African continent," IRIN reports. "Updated quarterly, it provides information from each country on policies formulated, preventative measures initiated, money spent, lives saved and lost," and "also tracks tracer indicators for maternal, newborn and child health," the news service writes.

"Gender discrimination lies behind much of the malnutrition found in under-five children in Nepal, say locals and experts," IRIN reports. "Women live hard lives from day one, born with no fanfare, contrasting starkly to the six-day celebration to mark the birth of a boy. Despite the physical demands of a woman's daily life, boys and husbands eat first and are offered the most nutritious food, often leaving girls and women with leftovers," the news service writes.

Two million Pakistanis have become ill from malaria, diarrhea, skin diseases or snake bites "since monsoon rains left the southern region under several feet of water, the country's disaster authority said Thursday," Agence France-Presse reports. "More than 350 people have been killed and over eight million people have been affected this year by floods that officials say are worse in parts of Sindh province than last year," the news agency reports.