Morning Breakouts

Third Of World Carrying TB; Disease Could Become Incurable Without Action, WHO Warns

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

“A third of the world’s population is carrying tuberculosis [TB], and the disease could become incurable if governments fail to act, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned,” noting that a “[l]ack of funding for public health programs, the sale of inaccurate blood tests and the misuse of drugs, particularly in the private health sector, are hampering the fight against the disease and leading to drug resistance,” the Independent reports. “The rate of TB deaths had declined dramatically — by 40 percent between 1990 and 2000 — after a worldwide health campaign, which was particularly successful in China,” but “the emergence of drug-resistant strains threatens to halt progress and jeopardizes the WHO’s goal of eradicating the disease as a public health problem by 2050,” the newspaper writes, noting, “Two billion people are carriers of the TB bacillus” globally.

Opinion Pieces Published In Recognition Of Mother’s Day

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

The following are summaries of several opinion pieces published in recognition of Mother’s Day, observed May 13.

Huffington Post’s ‘Global Motherhood’ Section Featured Opinion Pieces Leading Up To Mother’s Day

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

Leading up to Mother’s Day on May 13, the Huffington Post’s “Global Motherhood” section, in partnership with Mothers Day Every Day, an initiative of the White Ribbon Alliance and CARE, published opinion pieces from a diverse group of people. The following are summaries of two of those opinion pieces.

Examining Health Sector Funding Agreement Between Liberia, USAID

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

“[A] new and complementary agreement between Liberia and USAID, called the Fixed Amount Reimbursement Agreement (FARA),” is “quite revolutionary,” Amanda Glassman, director of global health policy and a research fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), and Jacob Hughes, write in CGD’s “Global Health Policy” blog. They note a recent working paper they authored with Walter Gwenigale in which they “describe Liberia’s unique experience in pooling donor funds for health in a post-conflict setting, with good results.” They ask why USAID did not make payments directly into the Health Sector Pool Fund mechanism, stating, “The FARA contribution to the pool could have created complementary, virtuous incentives to achieve the pool fund results as efficiently as possible, which would be a credit to the government and all the participating donors, and would set a precedent for USAID to participate in pooling in other countries” (5/11).

As MDGs Set To Expire In 2015, U.N. Panel To Advise On Approaches To Development; African Progress Panel Calls For ‘Big Push’ On Continent

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

“The presidents of Indonesia and Liberia — Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — and the prime minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, are to co-chair a U.N. panel to advise on approaches to development after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015,” SciDev.Net reports. “Announcing the chairs to the U.N. General Assembly [on Wednesday], Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary general, also said he would appoint an assistant secretary-general for post-2015 development planning,” the news service writes, adding, “The panel will consider the mixed success of the eight MDGs, which were set in 2000 and provide targets for reducing poverty and promoting social development through such areas as education, reduction of HIV infection rates and infant mortality” (Irwin, 5/12).

USAID Reports To Congress On Global Health, Child Survival

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

“In the last 20 years, the world has saved more than 50 million children’s lives and reduced maternal mortality by one-third,” “accomplishments [that] have been the result of good science, good management, bipartisan political support, the engagement of USAID and many other U.S. Government agencies, and the participation of faith-based organizations, civil society, and the private sector,” according to a summary of USAID’s “Global Health and Child Survival: Progress Report to Congress 2010-2011.” The summary states, “With prospects for ending preventable child and maternal deaths, creating an AIDS-free generation, and laying the foundations for universal health coverage, future generations will look back at this period as a turning point in the history of global health” (5/10).

U.N., International Community Should Pledge To Improve Water, Sanitation In Haiti To Mitigate Cholera Epidemic

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

“The cholera epidemic in Haiti, which began in late 2010, is bad and getting worse, for reasons that are well understood and that the aid community has done far too little to resolve,” a New York Times editorial states, adding that the “Pan American Health Organization has said the disease could strike 200,000 to 250,000 people this year” and “has already killed more than 7,000.” The editorial says the U.N. “bears heavy responsibility for the outbreak,” as it is suspected that U.N. peacekeepers introduced the disease to the island nation, and it notes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported this month that “cholera in Haiti was evolving into two strains, suggesting the disease would become much harder to uproot and that people who had already gotten sick and recovered would be vulnerable again.”

International AIDS Conference To Highlight International, Domestic U.S. AIDS Policies, Politico Reports

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

When the International AIDS Conference convenes in Washington in July, the first time the U.S. will host the conference in more than 20 years, “it will signal that the U.S. has brought its HIV policies into better alignment with the principles it advocates abroad,” Politico reports, referencing the lifting of the “Helms rule” — which denied U.S. visas to people who are HIV positive — in 2009. “The policy was especially painful to advocates because U.S. scientific and financial investments are largely responsible for stemming the tide of the epidemic around the world,” the news service writes. “But the meeting will also highlight other ways that the U.S. has fallen short, advocates say,” the news service writes, noting that the U.S. epidemic is not slowing. Politico discusses the successes and criticisms of several domestic HIV/AIDS initiatives under the Obama administration (Feder, 5/13).

Huffington Post Series Of Opinion Pieces Examines NGO Priorities For G8

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

The Huffington Post is running “a series of blogs by leading NGOs to call attention to a range of issues that should be raised at the G8 summit at Camp David in rural Maryland from May 18-19,” according to the news service. The following summarizes some of the posts published over the past three days.

National Program In Botswana Focuses On Increasing Male Circumcision Rate

May 14, 2012 Morning Briefing

Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe all have launched national campaigns urging men to undergo circumcision to help reduce their risk of contracting or transmitting HIV infection, but “all the countries are lagging far behind their targets,” Agence France-Presse reports in an article focusing on efforts in Botswana. A three-year-old campaign in Botswana, aimed at convincing 460,000 men to get circumcised, “has reached only seven percent of this figure,” the news agency notes, adding, “Now the government has enlisted the help of top musicians and launched a new series of advertisements touting ‘safe male circumcision’ as a lifeline.”