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By Kaiser GH Update
The WHO on Wednesday released its World Health Statistics 2012 report, which “for the first time includes a look at blood pressure and glucose levels, two of the risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease,” according to the Associated Press/Washington Post (5/16). The “data showed one in three adults worldwide has raised blood pressure — the cause of around half of all deaths from stroke and heart disease — and the condition affects almost half the adult population in some countries in Africa,” Reuters writes (Kelland, 5/16). “One in 10 people are estimated to have diabetes, rising to up to one third in Pacific Island countries,” Agence France-Presse notes (5/16). According to Reuters, “Obesity is another major issue, the WHO said, with data showing rates of obesity doubling in every region of the world between 1980 and 2008″ (5/16). “This report is further evidence of the dramatic increase in the conditions that trigger heart disease and other chronic illnesses, particularly in low- and middle-income countries,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said, the news agency reports (5/16).
May 16th, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Kaiser's Global Health Update,WASH | Read More »
By Humanosphere
Apparently, it’s not at all clear how many people on the planet actually have access to safe, clean water. Source: Trust By Emma Batha The United Nations recently declared the world had met an ambitious target for halving the number of people without safe drinking water well ahead of a 2015 deadline. It’s an impressive … Continue reading →
May 16th, 2012 | Posted in Aid & Development,Humanosphere,WASH | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
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
May 14th, 2012 | Posted in Aid,HIV/AIDS,Kaiser's Global Health Update,WASH | Read More »
By Sanitation Blog
Original post: Public Expenditure on WatSan in SSA
May 14th, 2012 | Posted in Aid & Development,WASH | Read More »
By Sanitation Blog
See more here: Economics of inadequate sanitation in Africa
May 11th, 2012 | Posted in Aid & Development,Hub Selects,WASH | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
In an article published in the May 8 edition of PLoS Medicine, Rajaie Batniji, an affiliate of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and Eran Bendavid of FSI’s Stanford Health Policy, found that a 2010 Lancet study by researchers at the University of Washington that “concluded that about half the money given to international governments for providing health care services isn’t used as intended” is “flawed” and “should not be used to guide decisions about how much money to give and who should get it,” according to a Stanford University news story. “Once Batniji and Bendavid excluded conflicting and outlying data, such as huge discrepancies between WHO and [International Monetary Fund] estimates and information about countries that were getting very small amounts of money from other countries, ‘There was no significant displacement of foreign aid,’ Bendavid said,” the article states (Gorlick, 5/8).
May 10th, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Kaiser's Global Health Update,WASH | Read More »
By Humanosphere
The U.S. intelligence community predicts that “by 2030, humanity’s annual global water requirements will exceed current sustainable water supplies by forty percent” and that this will, in turn, lead to regional conflicts and greater political instability globally. This is based on current trends and policy, so perhaps the report will lead to changes. Source: Theatlantic … Continue reading →
May 9th, 2012 | Posted in Aid & Development,Humanosphere,WASH | Read More »
By PSIHealthyLives
May 7, 2012 Parts of Angola are experiencing drought after the short dry season in December stretched from the usual three weeks into three months. AFP reports: The government has promised to help farmers, mostly smallholders producing for their own survival, but most of that aid has yet to materialise. “Production has collapsed throughout the central and southern regions,” said Belarmino Jelembi, national coordinator of the Association for Rural and Environmental Development. That means a loss of revenue, but also “a threat of famine for families”, he said. During Portuguese colonial times, plantations and family farms made Angola a leading exporter of coffee, bananas and sisal, while growing enough food to meet most of its needs. (snip) Regional guidelines “recommend spending 10 percent of the national budget on the agricultural sector,” said Unita secretary general Vitorino Nhany.
May 9th, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Hub Selects,Uncategorized,WASH | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
“In a long-awaited study that helped prompt a contentious debate over the wisdom of conducting research that has the potential to help as well as harm, scientists reported Wednesday that they had engineered a mutant strain of [H5N1] bird flu that can spread easily between ferrets — a laboratory animal that responds to flu viruses much as people do,” the Los Angeles Times (Brown, 5/3). Published in the journal Nature, the study is “the first of two controversial papers about laboratory-enhanced versions of the deadly bird flu virus that initially sparked fears among U.S. biosecurity experts that it could be used as a recipe for a bioterrorism weapon,” Reuters writes (Steenhuysen, 5/2). The U.S. National Security Advisory Board on Biosecurity “had asked journals to hold off publishing” the studies, but “[t]he panel later dropped its objections after it became clear the engineered viruses were less virulent than had been feared,” according to the Washington Post (Brown, 5/2).
May 3rd, 2012 | Posted in Kaiser's Global Health Update,WASH | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
“The U.S. government will soon be asking university officials to comment on how best to implement recently released dual use research rules at the university level,” according to Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), who spoke Monday at a workshop sponsored by the National Academies in Washington, ScienceInsider reports. “The reviews are designed to reduce the risks associated with dual use research of concern (DURC) that could be used for good or harm,” the news service notes, adding, “The announcement marks the latest U.S. response to the controversy over a pair of studies that show how to make the H5N1 avian influenza virus transmissible in mammals.”
May 2nd, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Infectious Disease,Kaiser's Global Health Update,WASH | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
“Hundreds of thousands of people are struggling to feed their families in the parts of Syria hardest hit by violence, activists and aid workers say, with access to food cut off by ruined infrastructure, rocketing prices and, say some, security forces who steal and spoil food supplies,” the Washington Post reports. Last month, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) “scaled up assistance to reach a quarter-million people” and “is planning to increase that to 500,000 by the end of this month,” according to the newspaper. “[T]he government in March introduced a system of price-fixing for essential foods that has stabilized the cost of bread, sugar and meat — although they remain much higher than they were a year ago,” the Washington Post writes, adding, “Despite efforts to mitigate the problem, around half of Syrians may live in poverty, said Salman Shaikh of the Brookings Institute in Doha, who argued that this is increasing anti-government feeling” (Fordham, 5/1).
May 2nd, 2012 | Posted in Aid,Kaiser's Global Health Update,WASH | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
U.K. International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell on Friday “announced a doubling of the U.K.’s effort to provide clean water and sanitation to the world’s poorest countries,” the Guardian reports (Elliot, 4/20). At a High-Level Meeting on Water and Sanitation in Washington, D.C., Mitchell “announced that the U.K., through [the Department for International Development (DfID)], would double the number of people it reached with aid in water, sanitation and hygiene education in the next two years, going from 30 to 60 million people globally by 2015,” according to a UNICEF press release (4/20).
April 23rd, 2012 | Posted in Aid & Development,Kaiser's Global Health Update,WASH | Read More »
By PSIHealthyLives
April 28, 2012 An estimated 2.5 million lives can be saved every year if governments commit to safe water, sanitation and hygiene, says WaterAid. From AlertNet: At current rates of progress, the MDG 7 sanitation target to reduce by half the proportion of people living without access to an improved toilet by 2015 will be missed by a huge margin, the report said, adding that there are now more people in the world without sanitation than there were in 1990. “It is unacceptable that 37 percent of the world’s population live without a toilet,” said Barbara Frost, WaterAid Britain’s chief executive. “The need for action is overwhelming.” The MDGs are a framework of global targets set in 2000 by the United Nations to be met by 2015 to try and alleviate poverty. “The majority of developing countries are seriously off-track and, unless urgent action is taken now, Sub-Saharan Africa will not meet the target for over 150 years,” the report said.
April 18th, 2012 | Posted in Aid & Development,Uncategorized,WASH | Read More »
By Kaiser GH Update
“Nearly 780 million people are deprived of safe drinking water — and 2.5 billion lack access to improved sanitation — all because governments aren’t spending scarce resources wisely, according to a joint report [.pdf] of the World Health Organization and U.N.-Water,” VOA News reports. Though “more than two billion people gained access to safe drinking water and 1.8 billion gained access to improved sanitation” between 1990 and 2010, billions of people still lack these basic services, the report noted, according to the news service.
April 16th, 2012 | Posted in Aid & Development,Kaiser's Global Health Update,WASH | Read More »
