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Increased Access To PMTCT Needed To End Pediatric AIDS, Build An ‘AIDS-Free Generation’

November 14, 2011 Morning Briefing

In this post in the Huffington Post’s “Impact” blog, Charles Lyons, president and CEO of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, responds to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech at the NIH last week in which she called for an “AIDS-free generation,” writing, “As Secretary Clinton pointed out, we’ve never before had as many tools to get ahead of the disease as we do now,” such as male circumcision and treatment as prevention, “[b]ut one of the cornerstones of her strategy to create an AIDS-free generation is a tool we’ve actually had in our arsenal for a long time: the ability to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.”

World Bank Pledges $1.88B To Address Drought In Horn Of Africa; Additional Funding Announced At U.N. Meeting, By U.S.

September 26, 2011 Morning Briefing

“The World Bank said on Saturday it was more than tripling funding to $1.88 billion for a worsening drought in Horn of Africa countries affecting more than 13 million people,” Reuters reports. “World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the financing would help fill a $1 billion funding gap needed to tackle drought and a food crisis engulfing parts of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Uganda,” the news agency writes, noting the bank initially had pledged $500 million in July. Zoellick said the majority of the funding was to go toward long-term solutions to drought relief, with $288 million reserved for humanitarian aid through June 2012, according to Reuters (9/25).

Health Workers Key To ‘Effective Health Care Delivery’

September 26, 2011 Morning Briefing

In addition to “essential money,” “the right policies, government commitment and citizen accountability” are needed to decrease child mortality and improve other global health indicators, “[b]ut the sine qua non for effective health care delivery is health workers. Whether it’s prevention, treatment or care, it’s all about health workers,” Jonathan Glennie, a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, writes in a post on the Guardian’s “Poverty Matters Blog.”

Researchers Closer To Developing Meningitis B Vaccine

July 18, 2011 Morning Briefing

“New research may bring scientists one step closer to developing a vaccine that protects against hundreds of strains of meningococcus B, the most common cause of bacterial meningitis,” according to research published last week in Science Translational Medicine, HealthDay News reports. Researchers used methods that allowed them to identify the most effective vaccine candidate, technology that could be used to develop vaccines for malaria and AIDS, the news service notes (7/15).

Small Phase I Trial Shows HIV Vaccine Candidate Is Most Powerful To Date

September 29, 2011 Morning Briefing

Researchers at the Spanish Superior Scientific Research Council (CSIC) have successfully completed a small Phase I human clinical trial of an HIV vaccine candidate that granted 90 percent of 30 study participants an immunological response against the virus, Gizmag reports. “The MVA-B vaccine draws on the natural capabilities of the human immune system and ‘has proven to be as powerful as any other vaccine currently being studied, or even more,’ says Mariano Esteban, head researcher from CSIC’s National Biotech Centre,” the magazine writes (Borgobello, 9/28).

Guyana Coast At Risk Of Malaria Resurgence As Climate Change Brings Warmer Temperatures, More Rainfall

September 7, 2011 Morning Briefing

“Guyana is battling to prevent the spread of malaria as climate change brings higher temperatures and more rainfall, threatening to push the disease back into densely populated coastal regions,” AlertNet reports. The majority of malaria cases occur in the northwest of the small South American country, [b]ut recently, the mosquito-borne disease has also been found in an adjoining coastal region, as well as further inland to the east and south,” the news service writes.

Vaccination Must Be Part Of Response To Cholera Outbreak In Haiti

September 23, 2011 Morning Briefing

Though “[c]holera vaccines are not a magic bullet and are not available in adequate numbers” to vaccinate everyone in Haiti, where at least 10 people die each day in an outbreak that began in October 2010, “there are compelling reasons to add vaccinations to the arsenal of public health weapons that has been deployed against cholera in Haiti,” a Washington Post editorial states. Efforts to improve access to clean water, educate the public about cholera transmission and treat those infected are ongoing, “[b]ut those efforts should be supplemented with an ambitious vaccination program starting as soon as practicable,” the editorial writes.

U.N. Increases Humanitarian Aid Need To $7.9B For 2011

July 21, 2011 Morning Briefing

The U.N. on Wednesday said during a donor meeting in Geneva that “it needs $7.9 billion this year, $500 million more than it had originally sought, to fund relief operations in the face of spreading humanitarian crises in Africa and Asia,” Reuters reports (7/20).

Gilead Becomes First Company To License Drugs To Medicines Patent Pool

July 12, 2011 Morning Briefing

“In the first agreement between a pharmaceutical company and the new international Medicines Patent Pool, Gilead Sciences announced Tuesday that it would license four of its AIDS and hepatitis B drugs to the pool,” the New York Times reports (McNeil, 7/12).