Archives: Morning Breakouts

"President Obama and his GOP challenger Mitt Romney have both prioritized deficit reduction, which, of course, is a worthy goal," former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), chair of the non-profit Hope Through Healing Hands, writes in an opinion piece in The Week. "[M]any surveys put global health at the top of the list of things to slash. That's a mistake," he continues and lists five reasons why global health programs "ought to be spared the chopping block."

The number of deaths from measles fell about 74 percent between 2000 and 2010, from slightly more than 535,000 in 2000 to an estimated 139,200 people worldwide in 2010, "missing an internationally agreed target for a 90 percent fall mainly because of low vaccine coverage in India and Africa where the virus kills tens of thousands a year," Reuters reports. A study led by the WHO and involving researchers from Penn State University and the CDC, published on Tuesday in the Lancet, "found that despite rapid progress, regular measles outbreaks in Africa and slow implementation of disease control in India were major concerns and led to the target being missed," the news agency writes (Kelland, 4/24). According to the Associated Press/Seattle Times, "the figures come with a big grain of salt [because] scientists only had solid data for 65 countries," and "[f]or the 128 others, they used modeling to come up with their estimates" (Cheng, 4/23). "[E]xperts say increasing vaccination rates to above 95 percent worldwide and keeping them up is the only way to eradicate measles," according to Reuters (4/24).

"Progress in eradicating malaria is jeopardized if programs to combat the disease are cut," a study published in the Malaria Journal on Tuesday concluded, according to a BMJ news article. The study "looked at 75 documented cases of malaria resurgence worldwide since the 1930s" and "found that in 90 percent of the cases, resurgence was linked, in part, to weakening of malaria control programs," the article states. "The study warns: 'Today, the threat of resurgence again looms as constrained global funding and competing priorities threaten the sustainability of successes,'" and it "highlights brief increases in the incidence of malaria in some countries, including Rwanda and Zambia, as a matter for concern," BMJ notes (Gulland, 4/24).

The Kaiser Family Foundation's tracking poll found that the oral arguments held last month before the high court raised awareness about the health law, but didn't sway public opinion.

The New Hampshire Senate is expected to weigh a half dozen abortion bills later this week, including one that would cut off taxpayer funding to providers that perform elective abortions, according to media reports. In Wisconsin, meanwhile, some women's groups and doctors oppose a law that prompted Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin to suspend nonsurgical abortions.

In this post in USAID's "IMPACTblog," blog administrator Mark Phelan recounts his recent visit to Niger and Mauritania, in Africa's Sahel region, where he was "assessing nutrition-focused humanitarian assistance." He writes, "We are indeed facing a crisis, but I am encouraged by what is being done differently, by ways we have applied lessons learned in the Sahel during food crises in 2010 and 2005, though we still have a long way to go." He concludes, "I am encouraged that we have learned some important lessons from past crises. The U.S., in partnership with other donors, has taken early action in response to early warnings, and together, we are saving lives" (4/20).