Archives: Morning Breakouts

In this New York Times opinion piece, W. Ian Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology and a professor of neurology and pathology at Columbia University and a paid technical consultant on the film "Contagion," which opened this weekend, writes about the risks of an infectious disease outbreak as portrayed in the film, stating, "Those risks are very real -- and are increasing drastically."

Yves Engler, a Canadian writer and author, writes in a post on the Guardian's "Comment Is Free" blog that local citizens and investigative journalists have alleged that the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Minustah) dumped feces and other waste in holes a few feet from water used for drinking and bathing in the central plateau city of Hinche on August 6 and again 10 miles from Hinche on August 21, as well as cites a report (.pdf) stating that sewage disposal at the U.N. base near Mirebalais 10 months ago caused a devastating cholera outbreak.

In a systematic review published by the Cochrane Collaboration last week, researchers found that the micronutrient powder used in recent years to combat malnutrition, anemia and iron deficiency in children was very helpful in preventing malnutrition in children six to 24 months old, VOA News reports. World Health Organization epidemiologist Luz Maria De Regil "and other researchers combined the results of eight previous studies involving thousands of children," VOA writes, adding, "The studies were done on three continents, in countries as varied as Haiti, Cambodia, and Ghana."

"Reducing the incidence of malaria could also drastically reduce the number of deaths from bacterial infections among children in Africa, a study" published last week in the Lancet found, according to SciDev.Net. "'Children who are protected from malaria are less likely to catch bacterial infections. It therefore means that controlling malaria will give an additional benefit,' Anthony Scott, the lead author and a researcher at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, in Kenya, told SciDev.Net."

"An acute government funding crisis in Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy, is disrupting supplies of HIV/AIDS drugs and hampering the fight against the virus in the country with the world's highest infection rate, Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) said Friday," Reuters reports. "Stocks of testing kits and related chemicals were 'almost dry,' making it next-to-impossible to chart the progress of the 70,000 patients on therapy or more than 130,000 other people carrying the virus, the aid agency said," according to Reuters.

The George W. Bush Institute is forming a public-private partnership to use PEPFAR's existing infrastructure of doctors, nurses and clinics to expand screening and treatment of women for cervical cancer and perform breast cancer education in the developing world, the Wall Street Journal reports. The goal of the partnership, which also includes the State Department, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and UNAIDS, "is to reduce the number of cervical cancer deaths by 25 percent in five years in countries where it scales up screening and treatment," WSJ writes, adding, "Its initial investment will be $75 million."

"United Nations humanitarian agencies have begun to assist communities in southern Pakistan that have been pummeled by monsoon rains which have claimed the lives of almost 200 people and destroyed or damaged nearly one million homes in an area still recovering from last year's catastrophic floods," the U.N. News Centre reports. The U.N. and the Pakistan government "have begun a rapid needs assessment in Sindh, with shelter, food, water, sanitation, hygiene and health care expected to be the priorities," the news service writes (9/10).

Inter Press Service examines regulations related to human medical research, writing that "experiments carried out by U.S. doctors in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 using 1,300 human subjects who were infected with sexually transmitted diseases highlighted the inadequacy of controls and safeguards in clinical testing in this Central American country -- still a major problem today, according to experts."

At an event on Thursday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, co-hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Brookings Institute, House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) unveiled a discussion draft of the Global Partnerships Act of 2011, aimed at "reshap[ing] foreign assistance, making it more relevant 'by incorporating the best practices and lessons learned over the last half century,'" he said, the Malaria Policy Center's "Malaria Watch" blog reports (Todd, 9/9). Released as a draft instead of a numbered bill in order to spur discussion, the document covers "the full spectrum of foreign aid -- development, democracy promotion, arms transfers and nuclear nonproliferation -- but doesn't include spending levels," according to AEI's "The Enterprise Blog" (Johnson, 9/8).

The GlobalPost's "Global Pulse" blog reports on an event held on Wednesday at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., entitled "7 Billion: Conversations that Matter," at which Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and now the under secretary-general and executive director of UN Women, spoke about the importance of family planning as the global population approaches the seven billion mark.