What We’re Reading 1/28/10

Jan 28th, 2010 12:50 PM UTC
By Robyn Mitchell

The Washington Post: First State of the Union speech by President Obama: ‘We face a deficit of trust’
The Washington Post reports that President Obama delivered an urgent plea for unity on Wednesday night during his first State of the Union address, seeking to recapture the energy that propelled him into office and to reverse his party’s trajectory after a series of recent setbacks. A year after entering the White House with a broad mandate, Obama reframed his agenda around a single, central mission: continuing the nation’s delicate economic recovery. He focused on jobs, casting himself as the advocate of average citizens, and acknowledged that his administration had “some political setbacks this year, and some of them were deserved.” Said the President, “what keeps me going, what keeps me fighting, is that despite all these setbacks, that spirit of determination and optimism — that fundamental decency that has always been at the core of the American people — lives on.”

Reuters: Haiti aid needs better coordination: president
Haitian President, Rene Preval said Wednesday that international charities pouring a jumble of aid into Haiti must work better together to reach and help survivors of the catastrophic earthquake. Preval also said Haiti would indefinitely postpone the February 28 parliamentary elections and that he would not seek to stay in office after his term expires in February 2011. That means his government will have just over one year to rebuild the earthquake-ravaged nation before handing off the task to new leadership. Said Preval, “I am not in a position to criticize anybody, not in the least people who have come here to help me. What I am staying is, what everybody is saying is, that we need a better coordination.”

The Globe and Mail: Making the World Safe for Childbirth (Editorial)
The Globe and Mail editorializes that the act of giving life should not be a fatal proposition and by taking up this vital yet long-neglected cause through the G8 presidency, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Canada could rally the richest countries’ resources to help turn back a needless and preventable tragedy. According to the paper, curbing maternal mortality is urgently needed, and absolutely attainable, as many development schemes targeted at a discrete problem with a known solution have indicated in the past. The Globe argues that by bringing critical Canadian leadership “to bear on behalf of the world’s mothers, especially the poorest and most disadvantaged, is a cause that will repay itself far beyond the dollars we spend.”

AllAfrica.com: South Africa: Huge Cuts in Aid Ahead for HIV/Aids Treatment
AllAfrica.com reports that South Africa faces potentially huge cuts in donor support for its HIV/AIDS program over the next five years, despite it needing a large increase in annual funds to reach all those who need antiretroviral treatment. According to the article, almost a million South Africans will soon be on lifelong antiretroviral treatment and this number will triple in the next decade if government keeps to its implementation plan. Yet the prospect of the government being able to meet its promise of treating 80 percent of those who need it by 2011 is being threatened by a lack of funds. Said one HIV/AIDS researcher, “We need to get more for our money and be more imaginative. We are an AIDS-afflicted country so we should develop an AIDS economy. We could be training two million people to assist those living with HIV.”

Business Week: Rotavirus Vaccine Could Save Millions of Children Worldwide
Two new studies conducted in South Africa, Malawi and Mexico found that vaccinating infants against rotavirus – the second-leading cause of death among kids in developing nations – could save the lives of millions of children worldwide who would otherwise die from the diarrhea-causing disease. In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Mathuram Santosham, a professor of international health and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, said the studies provide powerful evidence for instituting rotavirus vaccination programs in developing nations throughout the world. Said Santosham, “Rotavirus vaccine is a very powerful tool to combat one of the leading causes of childhood deaths – diarrhea. The challenge now is to make sure that every poor child in the world has access to this life-saving intervention.”

Bloomberg.com: Sierra Leone Expects 4.7% Growth This Year, Seeks More Aid
Finance Minister, Samura Kamara, said the economy of Sierra Leone, the third-least developed nation in the world according to the United Nations, may grow 4.7 percent this year, led by agricultural production. According to Bloomberg, Sierra Leone, which has been rebuilding its economy after a decade of civil war in the 1990s, has approved a new poverty reduction strategy backed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Goals include improving the electricity network, developing transport links and improving health and education. Kamara said the government will probably seek a new IMF loan accord and also plans to ask the World Bank for emergency funding as part of a $1.3 billion facility that the institution set up to help the poorest countries mitigate the effects of the global economic crisis.

Huffington Post: What you, Bono, and African babies have in common (Op-ed by Dr. Orin Levine)
According to Dr. Levine, the answer to the titular question is, we were all once infected with rotavirus. Dr. Levine uses his column to discuss the impact of the rotavirus infection and what’s being done to fight it.

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