More than 29,000 young children have died of malnutrition and disease in Somalia in the past 90 days. We are now on our way to the Horn of Africa to see what more we as a nation can do.

Early this morning, our plane left Washington, D.C., bound for East Africa. I’m flying with Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden and USAID Administrator Raj Shah to study the famine’s effects on the lives of more than 12 million people, many of them children.

In fact, it is now being called “the children’s famine.”

Over the years, I have delivered medical care in refugee camps on a number of trips, both to camps in Darfur, in Chad (right on the border of Sudan), and in boy soldier camps in southern Sudan. I went as a doctor. Providing age-appropriate health care to the compromised and malnourished children and adults is crucial to combat rapidly spreading disease and death.

It begins with identifying the specific needs, which we will be doing, then ensuring access, which is a challenge especially in Somalia.

Aid agencies estimate that more than $1 billion more is needed during this critical period to stop further deaths and get proper food, water and health care especially to the children who are most vulnerable.

In the camps we visit, I will focus on the vaccinations given for measles, polio and malaria; oral rehydration distributed to those suffering from diarrhea; and vitamins for children to bolster their immune systems. These are simple, cheap interventions to fight disease in the malnourished. I am eager to learn what is being accomplished and what more needs to be done. America has done a lot which has lessened the unfolding tragedy in the region, but there is a lot more we can do to reverse the course underway.

We will learn much over the next few days. I am on this trip to hear the stories of the families and their journeys, and I will share those stories with you.

Please sign the ONE petition today to urge world leaders to provide the full funding that the UN has identified as necessary to help people in the Horn of Africa, and please keep your promises to deliver the long term solutions which could prevent crises like this from happening again.

-Sen. Bill Frist, MD, chair of Hope Through Healing Hands

Senators Frist and Daschle argue that helping the world’s poorest people help themselves is not only consistent with our values and is part of America’s global legacy of saving lives, but is also very much in our security and economic interests.

The senators write:

“As the military does its job in stabilizing troubled states, vigorous humanitarian and diplomacy efforts can ensure that we build a lasting peace by strengthening communities and governments, reinforcing the foundations for growth and opportunity and neutralizing those who wish our country harm.

“Our foreign assistance dollars pay strong dividends economically, as well. Americans’ security and prosperity are tied to the security and prosperity of people around the globe…Today, developing countries represent 40 percent of U.S. exports. Programs supported by the international affairs budget increase economic opportunities, promote our business interests around the world and create U.S. jobs through increased exports.”

For the past several weeks, ONE members across the country have been contacting their members of Congress in support of the International Affairs Budget. This week’s op-ed by Senators Frist and Daschle is another reminder that this portion of the budget is affordable, effective and something both Republicans and Democrats can agree on. As the former Majority Leaders say, “Republicans and Democrats have long worked together to make a difference in the world through humanitarian efforts, and those investments have paid off. In the past 50 years, child deaths worldwide have been reduced by more than half; polio has been nearly eradicated…For a small fraction of slightly more than 1 percent of the federal budget, our investment in helping others to help themselves overseas is one of the most cost-effective ways our government can keep us both safe and prosperous.”

I recommend reading the whole piece here.

Children and pregnant women are dying needlessly. Americans know it’s wrong to let these deaths continue when we know how to prevent them.

The tools to stop this are proven and often very low-cost. Using them, we could prevent an estimated two-thirds of 8.8 million annual child deaths and three-quarters of 343,000 maternal deaths.

Some poor countries have already made astounding progress — thanks to a combination of foreign aid, national will and sustainable strategies for getting basic health care to poor mothers and their children.

The most effective solutions are not high tech. Exclusive breastfeeding, micro-nutrients, antibiotics, anti-malarials, vaccines, oral-rehydration therapy and ready-to-eat foods could save millions of children each year. Skilled attendance at births, as well as basic prenatal and postnatal care could prevent most maternal deaths.

The countries with the highest number of child and maternal deaths also have the largest health care provider shortages, according to the new report, “State of the World’s Mothers 2010” from Save the Children. Yet, the report also shows that we can address this without having to confront the extreme challenge of producing large numbers of additional doctors to meet the estimated global shortfall of 4.3 million health care professionals.

You can read the full piece here.

We got to bed late last night after ward surgery – sleeping 14 people in a house on the hospital grounds. Early this morning, we were awakened to violent shaking. It seemed to last a minute, but probably only 15 seconds or so. It felt like someone was shaking me to wake up. Within seconds, hundreds of people throughout the hospital were wailing. The memories of the loss of children and crushing buildings are still so raw for those suffering already, this aftershock was a grim reminder of the pain and suffering they’ve been through over the past week. With a single aftershock, things settled down after an hour. No one is hurt here, but it is still psychologically damaging, and those wounds will take much longer to heal.

We met in house on compound as a medical team; there are 15 of us. Nurses presented plans for assigning responsibility. One nurse is overseeing wounds, another all meds. The departing Ecuadorian rapid response surgical and medical team briefed everyone else on what they would see as next phase. Then we discussed among ourselves the best combination of antibiotics, dependent in part on what supplies we have. We have enough supplies for 2 to 3 days, but more is on the way so no reason to overconserve.

Its 3:30pm and we have been on site for 5 hours. The Baptist Mission Hospital here in Fermathe has two doctors and about 100 beds. Since the hospital is 20 miles north of Port au Prince, it is normally used as a referral hospital. But it is all pretty simple; it did not have even a basic lab until last month; it does not have blood for transfusions; and it is very elementary.

For example, we have one patient being transfused. She had a gastrointestinal bleed last night and her hemoglobin is only two. There is no blood, so she is being transfused directly from the vein of a doctor of the same blood type.

All serious injuries are coming here. The hospital consists of a single functional operating room, two large ward rooms, and a single long hall connecting them all. It has been overwhelmed.

It has been packed all day. You can barely move through the hallway. We quickly toured the facility, made an initial assessment, and then we met with the exhausted limited medical staff.

Findings: Shortage of nurses, no triage going on, no medical records, no place to house postoperative patients. We have an anesthesiologist with us, but we lack basic anesthesia equipment.

Patients: All ages, mainly fractures, the wounds that are now 6 days old are all infected. There is a shortage of pins and plates to stabilize the wounds.

I’m in a meeting now with 6 Samaritan’s Purse members and hospital leadership addressing the issues above.

More later. We need to unload the antibiotics.

Traveling to Haiti today on Medical Mission

The medical need in Haiti is desperate — in particular for surgeons. Having responded in this capacity just after the tsunami in Sri Lanka and four days after the levees broke following Katrina, I decided to join fellow physicians from Samaritans purse in Haiti.

On Sunday I spent the morning at Centennial Medical Center in Nashville going through their basement, picking out medical supplies most notably antibiotics and intravenous fluids, they generously provided for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.

Last night I loaded up the boxes with Karyn, and then with the help of the agents at Delta, got the ten heavy boxes of supplies down to southern Florida. Our medical team of ten departed for Haiti at 6am this morning.

Haiti is different than the last 2 disasters I responded to. In the tsunami and Katrina, most died quickly of drowning. In Haiti most of the injuries are due to the crush of the collapse of structures, with broken bones common. Infection and shock (low blood volume) set in quickly, thus the need for fluids and antibiotics.

Centennial has offered a great supply, but we need more. Hopefully in the next couple of days we can get a plane load into the hospital there to meet this critical need.

As I can, I will be blogging daily to report what is happening on the ground. I invite you to visit www.billfrist.com and www.hopethroughhealinghands.org to learn more about the disaster of Haiti over the course of the next week.

-Dr. Bill Frist

The first half of his op-ed is below. You can read the full piece on the Roll Call site.

In most years, Senate deliberations over a nomination for administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, which leads American efforts to fight poverty and disease in the developing world, would pass without note.

Bill Frist, Special to Roll Call This year is different. American efforts to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people have never been so important. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted last week to refer the nomination of Dr. Rajiv Shah for USAID administrator to the floor for a full vote, which is expected soon. Dr. Shah should be confirmed without delay for three key reasons.

First, successful outcomes to our most pressing national security challenges, including the war in Afghanistan and instability in Pakistan, depend just as much on our ability to provide health services and economic opportunity to struggling people as on our combat operations or diplomatic efforts. Both President Barack Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy and the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Pakistan aid package make substantial new commitments based on this idea.

Second, the global fights against HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases have reached a turning point. U.S.-led programs such as former President George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, have helped poor families and communities move from a moment of crisis toward a moment of opportunity. We need to work twice as hard to maintain and build on this progress.

Third, the Obama administration and bipartisan Congressional leaders are in the midst of a transformative debate about how to make U.S. foreign assistance more effective and accountable. The unprecedented momentum in this debate is on the side of those who believe we need a new development strategy and a more efficient foreign assistance system that produces greater returns for recipients and taxpayers alike.

Read former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s full op-ed here.

We’ll have more on the G20 Summit soon, including some on the ground reports from Pittsburgh. Excerpts from Senator Frist’s op-ed below, full piece here.

When world leaders chart a course toward a more prosperous future at next week’s G-20 summit, Pittsburgh can inspire in more ways than one.

The city built on steel has renewed its shine as a center for research and technology and become a model for economic comeback. When this recession recedes, Pittsburgh is poised to jump far ahead of cities where “rust belt” still rings true.

But progress is not measured solely in economic terms. Presidents and prime ministers should note a different kind of progress that Pittsburgh pursued and achieved in the years it was still building its first boom. This kind of progress has yet to reach many parts of the planet, but, in the interests of all, must.

Sustainable recovery and long-term economic growth depend on improving the well-being of the world’s most vulnerable people and ensuring they, too, participate in recovery. To that end, improving the health of children and mothers is fundamental.

G-20 leaders also have a key opportunity to promote policies offering a healthy start to the world’s most vulnerable children. In L’Aquila, the eight leading industrialized nations took an important step in this direction. That summit’s official declaration recognized the importance of improving maternal, child and newborn health and how (90 years after Pittsburgh was told so) effective measures to prevent child deaths are proven and available now.

But world leaders passed on committing resources or introducing a mechanism to spur concrete action to help poor countries. Now it’s time they tell developing countries: If you produce a viable plan to reduce child deaths, we will not allow you to fail for lack of resources.

-Chris Scott

Senator Frist also has an op-ed in today’s Washington Times on the state of Africa’s children which you can read here.

You can check out the clip here, partial transcript below:

These deaths are preventable, and it’s cheap and we know how to do that. And people think of malaria and HIV and tuberculosis– all very serious– but the number one disease is cardiovascular disease. And we must continue to focus on malaria and bed nets, but simply clean water can go further in saving lives inexpensively around the world.

-Chris Scott

Excerpts below, full piece here:

Economists would argue that one of the surest ways out of poverty is for people to increase their incomes to take care of themselves and their families. For incomes to rise, developing economies must work to generate growth opportunities through trade and commerce, reliable infrastructure, and sound policies that create and sustain jobs for the poor.

When the poor are stricken by disease and weak health, they are unable to take advantage of these opportunities. Rather than climbing out of poverty, they fall deeper into it. It’s clear that economic development and human development are intertwined. Growth needs a healthy workforce. The productivity and development of communities – and their ability to participate in the global economy – rely on the physical well-being of citizens to innovate, build, harvest, and work. Sustaining such productivity requires children to learn in school, not fall behind because they are too sick to concentrate. By building healthier, hopeful, and productive communities, we build safer and more secure societies that can alleviate global poverty and contribute to global prosperity. When communities are productive and thriving they don’t become breeding grounds for dangerous extremism.

We need to rethink America’s global health diplomacy within this context […]

-Chris Scott