News Round-Up - March 26

• The U.S. scientific community is rethinking its approach to developing an AIDS vaccine after a much-touted vaccine that was tested in half a dozen countries not only failed to benefit people who received it, but also may have actually increased their chance of becoming infected with HIV.

  Washington Post: AIDS Vaccine Testing at Crossroads

• Forty aid agencies urged the world today to focus attention on Somalia’s catastrophic humanitarian crisis where hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from war, drought and food shortages.

  Reuters: Aid agencies urge world not to forget Somali crisis

• Western countries have failed to deliver $10 billion of nonmilitary assistance pledged to Afghanistan over the last six years, and two-thirds that has been delivered has bypassed the Afghan government and failed to do enough to relieve the poverty of the Afghan people, a new report claims.

  NY Times: Afghans Lack $10 Billion in Aid, Report Says

-Steve Wilson

Somalia Polio-Free

With no cases of polio in Somalia in the last year, the WHO has declared the country’s massive vaccination campaign a success.

“Some 10,000 volunteers and health workers delivered multiple doses of oral vaccine to children in Somalia’s hard-to-reach villages, nomadic communities and makeshift camps that have grown as a result of clashes between Islamic insurgents, warlords and Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces.

Bruce Aylward, director of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, said the campaign showed that the virus could be stopped in highly insecure pockets of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and densely populated corners of India where sanitation facilities are lacking.”

Read more in the Reuter’s article.