Archives: Morning Breakouts

"Giving vitamin A supplements to children under the age of five in developing countries could save 600,000 lives a year, researchers claim" in a paper published Thursday in the British Medical Journal, BBC News reports. "UK and Pakistani experts assessed 43 studies involving 200,000 children, and found deaths were cut by 24 percent if children were given the vitamin ... And they say taking it would also cut rates of measles and diarrhea," the news agency writes.

"Malaria-carrying mosquitoes are disappearing in some parts of Africa, ... indicat[ing] controls such as anti-mosquito bed nets are having a significant impact on the incidence of malaria in some sub-Saharan countries," researchers report in a paper published in Malaria Journal, according to BBC News. But the team of Danish and Tanzanian "researchers say mosquitoes are also disappearing from areas with few controls," and "[t]hey are uncertain if mosquitoes are being eradicated or whether they will return with renewed vigor," the news agency writes (McGrath, 8/26).

Economists take on health care spending issues in presentations before the Fed's August meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

The New York Times examines the "growing drug addiction problem" in Afghanistan, where, in 2010, about 900,000 people, or seven percent of the adult population, were using drugs, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The newspaper notes "a recent report by the Ministry of Public Health in partnership with Johns Hopkins University ... found HIV present in about seven percent of drug users, double the figure just three years ago, said Dr. Fahim Paigham, who until recently directed the Ministry of Public Health's AIDS control program."

Russia "is in a demographic crisis, shedding 2.2 million people (or 1.6 percent of the population) since 2002, and the government is trying to encourage more women to bring Russian citizens into the world," journalist Natalia Antonova writes in a Foreign Policy opinion piece, in which she describes her experience with the Russian medical system after "unexpectedly" becoming pregnant shortly after receiving her visa to work in Moscow.

"Iranian HIV doctor Arash Alaei has been released from jail in Tehran after spending more than three years behind bars for allegedly conspiring against the regime, his U.S.-based brother said Monday," Agence France-Presse reports (Sheridan, 8/29).

"The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Monday warned about a new mutant strain of the deadly bird flu H5N1 virus in China and Vietnam, saying there could be a 'major resurgence' of the disease," Agence France-Presse reports. In a statement, FAO "said it was concerned about 'the appearance in China and Vietnam of a variant virus able to sidestep the defenses provided by existing vaccines,' adding that the new strain was known as H5N1 - 2.3.2.1," the news agency notes. The organization said the virus, which can be spread by wild bird migration, "poses a direct threat to Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia as well as endangering the Korean peninsula and Japan" (8/29).

Even as many Republican state executives oppose the health law, many are moving forward in creating state-run exchanges. Meanwhile, the availability of public health funding as a result of the law also is a politically challenging windfall.