Ramesh Ferris, a polio survivor and member of the Rotary Club, reflects on India’s achievement of going one year without polio.
Ramesh with a polio survivor in Afghanistan. While Ramesh was able to receive treatment, not all polio survivors have access to this type of care.
Today, the world marks a milestone in the fight to end polio. India, the place where I was born and contracted the crippling disease as a baby, has gone exactly 12 months without a reported case of polio.
Mandy Slutsker of ACTION discusses a very serious development in the fight against tuberculosis.
Andrew Speaker caused an international incident in 2007 when he boarded an international flight while infected with XDR-TB, a form of tuberculosis resistant to most available drugs. It was terrifying to imagine what could have happened if the flight had taken off. Was there anything scarier than flying next to a person with extensively resistant TB?
Friday the 13th is a day known for superstition, fear, and bad luck. But today, the global health community in India attained a milestone that will ensure that we remember this Friday the 13th as a day of progress and hope. As of today, India has gone an entire year without a case of polio. In technical-speak, this means that India has officially interrupted transmission of the virus and is no longer considered an endemic country, leaving only three countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria) remaining in the world with endemic status.
Experts have long considered India to be one of the toughest places in the world to fight and eradicate polio. After all, India is neither a small nor homogenous place, and just two years ago, India had 741 cases of polio—the most in the world. How did they achieve this milestone?
Welcome back to the ONE Blog! While scanning some of the big stories that broke while our offices were closed for the holidays, this one in particular caught my eye. Jennifer Hicks of Forbes reports on the new Lifelens Smartphone app that helps diagnose malaria with a drop of blood. Here’s Lifelens’ video explaining the app:
Each day this week, we’ll highlight a major accomplishment in the fight against poverty that ONE members helped achieve in 2011. Today, ONE’s US Deputy Director for New Media Garth Moore discusses our World AIDS Day campaign.
Last summer, new scientific studies pointed to a tantalizing possibility: The Beginning of the End of AIDS. What could that have meant? A horrible disease that has taken millions of lives could be on the downhill thanks to advancements and lower costs for treatment and prevention. Suddenly, villages and communities where AIDS was once a death sentence could be kept healthy and avoid getting HIV in the first place through stopping mother-to-child transmission and more preventive methods. When ONE, (RED) and other partners combined forces to push US leaders to scale up treatment and prevention, we recognized this wasn’t a pipe dream, but a serious call to action.
Surrounded by red AIDS ribbons projected on the nearby university center, old municipal building and historic Statler Hilton, local businesses, community groups and residents gathered in downtown Dallas’ Main Street Gardens on Thursday evening, December 1, to observe World AIDS Day 2011 and to commemorate 30 years of fighting against the spread of HIV/AIDS. In support of the United Nations’ “getting to zero” campaign, event organizers brought that fight to the local level with the message, “Whether or not you are infected, we are all affected by HIV/AIDS.”
Rachel Wilson, senior director of advocacy and public policy at PATH, explains why supporting foreign assistance not only saves and improves lives, but also improves morale here at home.
Rachel’s quilt patch
This year, I commemorated World AIDS Day at ONE and (RED)’s event in Washington, DC, where I listened to sitting and past presidents, members of Congress, corporate leaders, health workers from other countries, activists and even a few rockstars. At a time when every government cent is under scrutiny, I was reminded of just how far we have come in the fight against AIDS and many other diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world. I left the event feeling energized by the significant progress we have made and the leadership that has been shown by the US in addressing so many global health problems.
It wasn’t until I returned to my office and saw an email from a dear friend, who had chosen to stop taking the medication that is no longer protecting him against an ever-growing list of AIDS-related complications, that I was brought crashing back to reality. This juxtaposition between a community’s accomplishment and personal tragedy gave me pause. To be sure, we are winning the war against AIDS; but we also have a long way to go before we can declare victory.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
Friday the 13th is a day known for superstition, fear, and bad luck. But today, the global health community in India attained a milestone that will ensure that we remember this Friday the 13th as a day of progress and hope. As of today, India has gone an entire year without a case of polio. In technical-speak, this means that India has officially interrupted transmission of the virus and is no longer considered an endemic country, leaving only three countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria) remaining in the world with endemic status.
![20111201-ONE_Campaign-[World_AIDS_Day_Dallas]-17](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7164/6521985425_a02ef2603d.jpg)
