Archives: Morning Breakouts

In its first decade, the GAVI Alliance has helped prevent the deaths of more than five million children by introducing more widespread vaccination in low-income countries, "[b]ut, going forward, the alliance is going to have to think more about getting parents to vaccinate their kids

North Korea has significantly cut public food aid and could be heading toward a hunger crisis, said Katharina Zellweger, head of a Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation's office in Pyongyang and "one of the most experience aid workers" in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.

Calestous Juma, an author and professor at Harvard Kennedy School, writes in an East African opinion piece that as South Sudan prepares for independence on July 9, it "is the time" for the country "to chart a new path by defining a new role for its military" by "shift[ing] its military budget to development objectives."

Mara Hvistendahl, a correspondent with Science magazine and author of the recently published "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men," writes in a Foreign Policy feature that "as American politicians argue over whether to cut Planned Parenthood's U.S. funding and the Christian right drives through bans on sex-selective abortion at the state level, the effects of three decades of sex selection elsewhere in the world are becoming alarmingly apparent. In China, India, Korea, and Taiwan, the first generation shaped by sex selection has grown up, and men are scrambling to find women, yielding the ugly sideblows of increased sex trafficking and bride buying."

France 24's video program Health examines challenges to fighting malaria in Madagascar, where some people who cannot afford newer artemisinin-based combination therapies use older, less-effective medications that can promote drug resistance and others misuse mosquito nets.

NPR's Morning Edition on Monday examined how a circumcision program in South Africa's Kwa-Zulu Natal, run by the Society for Family Health at the Boom Street Community Health Clinic, "is gaining momentum" because of a decree issued last year by King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu about the importance of circumcision in helping to reduce the risk of HIV infection.

A post on "PharmaTech Talk" highlights comments made by USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah at the Partnerships for Global Health Forum, an annual event which is sponsored by BIO and BioVentures for Global Health. "Shah talked about the role of public-private partnerships to improve innovations in science and technology. ... Shah admitted that in the past it has been hard for the private sector to engage USAID, but he made a point to say that if the biotech/pharma industry builds a breakthrough product that can save lives, USAID will help to deliver it to the populations that need it most. He said USAID is already working to better engage the private sector as well as academic institutions to make such partnerships easier to navigate, and less bureaucratic" (Drakulich, 6/27).

Emmanuel Njeuhmeli, a senior biomedical prevention advisor in the USAID Office of HIV/AIDS, discusses efforts to raise awareness about male circumcision as a "cost saving and effective form of HIV prevention" in a post on USAID's "Impact Blog." Njeuhmeli highlights a video that "examines the expansion of male circumcision as an HIV prevention intervention and tells the story of how governments and communities in Kenya and Swaziland have embraced [voluntary medical male circumcision] in their countries. The goal of the film is to show that VMMC services can be replicated and expanded to reach the critical mass needed for maximum public health impact" (6/27).

"The G20 agriculture ministers seem to agree: they're all for food security, as long as it doesn't cost anything," according to a post on the Center for Global Development's "Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Blog." The authors conclude: "Perhaps the heads of state meeting at a November Summit, to whom the G20 ministers' recommendations will be submitted, will find the political will to take bolder action. Unless they do, this agriculture summit will be an example of 'a lot of hooey, but little dooey'" (Elliott/Veillette, 6/27).

In a news conference on Monday, Jose Graziano da Silva, the newly elected head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said he wants to do more to help poor countries deal with volatile food prices, Reuters reports.

More than 10 million people in the Horn of Africa "are affected by the drought in one way or other," Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reports.

NPR's All Things Considered reports on efforts to improve maternal health in Mozambique. The piece, which is part of a summer series, looks at the challenges involved with getting pregnant women to hospitals and shortages of trained health worker (Block, 6/27). A second report on NPR's Morning Edition examines Mozambique's doctor shortage. NPR correspondent Melissa Block, who traveled to Mozambique to report on maternal and child health, is interviewed (Montagne, 6/27).

National health care spending rose 23 percent between 2005 and 2009, according to a report by the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.

The New Jersey state Senate on Monday approved the bill, which will raise pension and health benefit expenses for more than 500,000 state workers. Meanwhile, in Illinois, Gov. Pat Quinn will sign today a measure to overhaul the state's workers' compensation system.