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By Kaiser GH Update
In this Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Jay Winsten, associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Trish Stroman, a principal at the Boston Consulting Group, examine “the emergence in Southeast Asia of malarial parasites resistant to artemisinin — the current gold-standard drug for treating the disease,” writing it “poses grave new challenges.” Winsten and Stroman recount a brief history of artemisinin resistance in the region and note, “While many affected countries in the region are taking swift countermeasures, the situation remains serious in Burma,” also known as Myanmar.
May 16th, 2012 | Posted in Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
Clinical trials are underway to test an azithromycin-based combination treatment for pregnant women, “which could tackle some of the leading preventable causes of death for babies in sub-Saharan Africa,” according to researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who published a report on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showing that “[a] large number of pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with both malaria and sexually transmitted/reproductive tract infections (STIs/RTIs),” AlertNet reports (Mollins, 5/15). “The researchers looked at 171 studies from sub-Saharan Africa over a 20-year period, which showed whether women attending antenatal clinics were infected with malaria, or with a range of sexually transmitted and reproductive tract infections — syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia and bacterial and parasitic infections of the vagina,” IRIN writes, adding, “If left untreated, these can lead to miscarriages, stillbirths, premature births and low birthweight babies” (5/16).
May 16th, 2012 | Posted in Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
“This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the world’s most powerful tool in the fight against the three pandemics,” Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images, Inc., writes in this post in the Huffington Post Blog, adding, “Since 2002, the Global Fund has saved and improved millions of lives.” Klein notes the Board of the Global Fund convened in Geneva, Switzerland, for its 26th meeting last week, where Board members “discussed progress to date on the current transformation of the Global Fund from emergency response to long-term sustainability.”
May 16th, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria,Tuberculosis | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
“Malaria-carrying mosquitoes in Africa and India are becoming resistant to insecticides, putting millions of lives at greater risk and threatening eradication efforts, health experts said on Tuesday,” Reuters reports (Kelland, 5/15). Experts fear resistance “could reverse the recent drop in malaria mortality credited to insecticide spraying in the home and coating of bed nets, which save about 220,000 children’s lives each year, according to the WHO,” Nature writes, adding, “Insecticide resistance could also result in as many as 26 million further cases a year, the organization predicts, costing an extra $30 million to $60 million annually for tests and medicines” (Maxmen, 5/15).
May 16th, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
“Above all else, analyzing the state of the world’s health — be it by looking at obesity rates, cancer cases, malaria deaths, or HIV-free births — requires decent statistics,” Reuters reports in an article examining the use of statistics in public health ahead of the WHO’s World Health Statistics report. “The year’s report, due on May 16, will give data on everything from rates of measles deaths around the world, to the percentage of women who have no access to contraception, to the number or psychiatrists one country has compared to another,” the news service writes. “But some recent high-profile disputes about some sets of data have focused a spotlight on the way the WHO collects its data and compiles its estimates,” it notes.
May 15th, 2012 | Posted in Cancer,Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria | Read More »
By Humanosphere
There’s been a lot of progress made worldwide in reducing malaria’s death toll over the past decade, due to a massive roll-out of a number of prevention methods (insecticide-treated bed nets, pesticide spraying of households and expanded malaria treatments). But drug-resistant and insecticide-resistant mosquitoes appear to be on the rise. Source: Nature The war to … Continue reading →
May 15th, 2012 | Posted in Humanosphere,Malaria | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
After announcing it plans to spend an additional $1.67 million over the next two years, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Board on Friday at the end of its 26th meeting in Geneva said (.pdf) its “secretariat will present at an upcoming board meeting in September new funding models drafted in consultation with recipient countries and other stakeholders,” and the board will “announce funding decisions no later than April 2013,” Devex reports.
May 14th, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria,Tuberculosis | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
“Buruli ulcer could spread as agriculture intensifies in Africa, making prevention research vital,” Rousseau Djouaka, a researcher at the Benin branch of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), argues in this SciDev.Net opinion piece. “The intensification of lowland agriculture has been linked with the increased incidence of human diseases such as malaria, schistosomiasis and Buruli ulcer (BU),” he writes, noting, “Of these, BU remains the least well documented and most neglected in the wet agro-ecosystems of west and central Africa.” He provides statistics regarding infection rates in Africa and notes, “People affected by the skin infection, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium ulcerans, develop large ulcers which often result in scarring, deformities, amputations, and disabilities, especially when the diagnosis is delayed.”
May 11th, 2012 | Posted in Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
“The Nepalese government has launched an ambitious plan to curb the spread of malaria in high-risk parts of the country, where some 3,000 people were infected last year,” IRIN reports. Through the program, which began on May 1 and “is the first nationwide push to end malaria,” the “health ministry will distribute [anti-malarial] drugs at their local offices, and through their representatives in rural areas,” IRIN writes. The news service notes, “Nepal is still considered one of the most malaria-prone countries in Asia, even though the ministry is using a 1994 study, which showed that 20 million of the country’s 30 million people were at risk.”
May 10th, 2012 | Posted in Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria “expects to have an additional $1.6 billion to fund projects in 2012-2014, [the fund's General Manager Gabriel Jaramillo] said on Wednesday, a turnaround from a funding freeze last year,” Reuters reports (Miles, 5/9). “The new funds are a result of ‘strategic decisions made by the Board, freeing up funds that can be invested in countries where there is the most pressing demand,’ a statement by the fund said,” according to PlusNews (5/10). “The money includes funds from new donors, from traditional donors who are advancing their payments or increasing contributions and from some donors, such as China, that have offered to support projects in their own country to free up cash for more pressing needs elsewhere, Jaramillo said,” Reuters notes (5/9). “This forecast is better than expected, and it comes from the fantastic response we are getting to our transformation,” Jaramillo said, adding, “But we need more to get the job done. Countries that implement our grants are saving more and more people, but demand for services is still enormous,” according to the statement (5/9).
May 10th, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria,Tuberculosis | Read More »
By Bill Brieger
The Global Fund Observer has poignantly highlighted the risks of losing a voice for civil society at the Global Fund. The Fund to date had been one of the few donor groups to actively encourage civil society organization (CSO) participation on grant writing and management and has developed the innovative community systems strengthening approach to show that the people who live with the conditions supported by grants are as important as the systems that deliver formal health services. While civil society is not perfect, it has served important functions within the Global Fund strategy. To date the Global Fund Board has asserted the need for civil society representation on Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMS) as well as ensuring that CSOs are also considered equally as principal recipients (PRs) of funding. This was based in part on findings some years ago that CSOs achieved better grant performance scores on average than did government or UN agency PRs. CSOs come in many colors, but an important function of CSOs in any setting, even beyond the funding and management of Global Fund projects, is to serve as advocate and watchdog. This is a crucial role as the GFATM’s Office of the Inspector General continues to uncover problems in grant management. Here we don’t want to confuse NGO with CSO because some politically well connected NGOs have been caught with their hands in the till just as have government ministries.
May 10th, 2012 | Posted in Hub Selects,Malaria | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
Responding to an opinion piece published in Nature Medicine last week in which Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore and former director of research policy and cooperation at the WHO, and Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, argue the case for reforming and improving the WHO, KPLU’s Tom Paulson writes in a post on KPLU 88.5′s “Humanosphere” blog, “It’s a good overview of what’s wrong with the WHO and what these two think needs to change.” Paulson summarizes an email from Garret in which she says the WHO is the only international agency able to respond to drug resistance, drug safety and integrity, the threat of pandemic flu, health systems metrics development, and drug-resistant malaria (5/8).
May 9th, 2012 | Posted in Humanosphere,Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria | Read More »
By Bill Brieger
Nancy Fullman shares highlights of Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network (APMEN) fourth annual meeting. The twelve-country Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network (APMEN) is generating knowledge on what works to sustain the gains in malaria control and elimination during a time of malaria funding uncertainty. With the Republic of Korea as its host, the 2012 APMEN annual meeting takes place May 7 –11th 2012 in Seoul with the theme of “Efficiency in Elimination.” Focused on pressing malaria issues in the Asia Pacific region, APMEN countries and partners will discuss antimalarial drug resistance, cross-border importation of malaria cases, and maximizing program efficiency by identifying malaria “hot spots” and focusing interventions in these areas. As the fourth of its kind, this APMEN meeting’s theme of “efficiency” reflects the urgent global need to maintain and expand malaria programs, in spite of substantial funding shortages related to the global financial crisis (e.g., postponed grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria) With this meeting APMEN country representatives and partners aim to learn from country success stories – such as Cambodia’s impressive 35% reduction of malaria from 2010 to 2011 – and discuss strategic approaches for addressing the looming challenges of spreading artemisinin resistance and reducing the prevalence of Plasmodium vivax in the Asia Pacific.
May 8th, 2012 | Posted in Malaria | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
In a “wide-ranging,” two-part interview with AllAfrica.com, Unni Karunakara, the international president of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), “spoke about the values that underpin the work of MSF, the organization’s culture and its passion for principled humanitarian action,” the news service writes. “Humanitarian aid has come a long way in the last 40 years, says … Karunakara, but he warns that important health care gains made in the last decade may be reversed if funding is not maintained,” the news service notes. In part one of the interview, Karunakara discusses “gains made in reducing medicine costs and providing treatment for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria,” as well as “the challenges MSF faces in remaining independent and principled in conflict situations.” In part two of the interview, “he looks at the future of MSF in a changing world” (Valentine, 5/7).
May 8th, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Kaiser's Global Health Update,Malaria,Tuberculosis | Read More »
