Archives: Morning Breakouts

Three days before the start of a Vatican conference focusing on "the centrality of care" in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, on Tuesday printed a piece by Spanish theologian Juan Jose Perez-Soba arguing that married couples with one HIV-positive partner "should abstain from sex, because intercourse performed with a condom is, 'from the moral point of view, not a fully conjugal act,'" RNS/Beliefnet News reports (Rocca, 5/24).

"Health experts say [an] inadequate number of nurses and pharmacists is among the leading factors denying people access to medicines in Malawi," Inter Press Service writes in an article examining medication shortages in rural Malawi.

Following "two days of heated debate," representatives meeting at the World Health Assembly in Geneva decided to delay for three years the destruction of smallpox virus reserves held by the U.S. and Russia, rejecting a U.S. plan that would have delayed the action for five years, the Associated Press reports (5/24).

"The final communiques haven't been written. But the word on the street is that when leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized countries meet in France this week, they will claim that wealthy countries have come close to fulfilling their 2005 promise to boost annual development aid by $50 billion by 2010. They are not even in the ballpark," a New York Times editorial states, before noting data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showing that aid fell $19 billion short of that goal.

Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal reports that GlaxoSmithKline announced Tuesday it has partnered with three non-governmental organizations to address the shortage of primary health care providers in least developed countries (LDCs).

PBS' NewsHour special correspondent Saima Mohsin on Monday reported from Pakistan on "an innovative health insurance plan for the urban poor." In Pakistan, 99 percent of the country's low-income population does not have health insurance, and this plan, called Naya Jeevan, "hopes to change that. ... The equivalent of just $2.50 a month provides access to private health care and, crucially, regular health checks for contagious or infectious diseases as a preventive measure for a country that is still battling polio, malaria and hepatitis."

The Russian Federation in 2010 spent more than $80 million to improve health in developing countries, according to a report prepared by the country's Ministry of Finance highlighting "how the country is meeting its G8 commitments ahead of the upcoming summit in Deauville, France," the Moscow Times reports.

Though the implementation of rapid malaria tests has reduced the administration of unnecessary antimalarial medications in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam, "antibiotic prescriptions for fever rose by nearly a quarter, from 49 to 72 percent, raising fears that the behaviour will contribute to growing antibiotic resistance," according to a study published in Malaria Journal last month, SciDev.Net reports.

Agence France-Presse examines how Indian drug companies have infiltrated the South African market over the last few years in an effort to have broader reach in Africa. India's pharmaceutical industry is now the second largest in the world by volume, according to AFP.

Inter Press Service examines the global funding shortfall for antiretroviral treatment programs for people living with HIV/AIDS, noting that the U.N. General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS next month in New York "will shape the direction of the global response to HIV and AIDS for the next decade and beyond."

"As we work to develop solutions to the challenge of global food security, it's essential that we focus on results-driven development in both the public and private sectors," Chris Policinski, president and CEO of Land O'Lakes, Inc., and chair of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition's Business Advisory Council, writes on The Hill's "Congress Blog."