This is a little older, but worth the read. VOA News has a piece featuring the Director-General of the World Health Organization Margaret Chan and her take on the progress being made tackling some of Africa’s worst health problems. You can read the full piece here.
Margaret Chan has made Africa one of her top priorities since she was elected to be Director-General of the World Health Organization in November 2006.
Although improvements have been made, she says African health remains on the critical list. She says communicable and non-communicable diseases continue to disable and shorten peoples’ lives.
Despite this, she notes good progress has been made in tackling certain diseases, such as malaria. WHO reports malaria kills nearly one million children every year. The vast majority in Africa.
Chan reports the number of malaria deaths among African children has been cut in half. She attributes this to treatment of the disease with the combination drug, ACT, and the widespread use of insecticide treated bed nets.
The 2009 WHO Global Tuberculosis Update was launched earlier this month, providing the latest information on the state of the epidemic around the world. The report shows that in the last 15 years, 36 million people have been cured of tuberculosis, and eight million cases have been prevented. This progress attests to the effectiveness of the Stop TB Strategy and DOTS in the fight against tuberculosis.
During the latest 12-month reporting period, 2.3 million infectious patients were cured, more than ever before in that time frame. Still, not enough people are accessing the treatment they need, and about 1.8 million people died of tuberculosis in 2008.
There were an estimated 9.27 million incident cases of TB in 2007 (of which, 15% percent were among individuals who were also HIV-positive), a slight increase from 9.24 million in 2006. However, while the total number of TB cases is up due to population growth, the number of cases per capita is actually down 1%.
The report shows further progress in addressing the deadly combination of TB and HIV. TB remains the leading cause of death for those with HIV, but testing TB patients for HIV is on the rise, and more patients are receiving appropriate treatment.
The report also notes that there has been little progress in stopping multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), an even more dangerous and resistant to treatment form of TB.
Rotary International is teaming up with violin virtuoso and polio survivor Itzhak Perlman and the world-renowned New York Philharmonic to present the Concert to End Polio, a benefit performance supporting the global effort to eradicate this disabling and sometimes fatal childhood disease.
Polio eradication resonates strongly with Mr. Perlman, who contracted the disease at age four and overcame serious physical challenges to become one of the world’s most celebrated musicians. Mr. Perlman is a winner of 15 Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. In this historic, one-night-only performance Perlman will help Rotary in its effort to raise $200 million to match a $355 million challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All of the money raised will fund critical eradication activities in countries where polio still threatens children.
Rotary International, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched an initiative to make polio only the second disease to be eradicated. At the time (1988), there were 350,000 polio cases a year. Last year, there were less than 2,000. Worldwide, the number of polio cases has been slashed by 99 percent, preventing five million cases of childhood paralysis and 250,000 deaths. However, the final one percent of cases is the most difficult and expensive to prevent.
The one-night-only performance will be held on 2 December at 7:30 p.m. in New York City.
Learn how you can help at rotary.org/endpolio or purchase tickets for this historic event at nyphil.org/perlman.
Child advocates from around the world are gathering in New York City to hear the latest on how we can raise the profile of child pneumonia and get policymakers everywhere to act.
Speakers include:
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to the United Nations’ Secretary-General
Singer-songwriter and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Angélique Kidjo
ABC News’ senior health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser
WHO and UNICEF present a new report, the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia, which provides a road map for preventing and treat child pneumonia in the world’s poorest countries.
And leading global health experts, philanthropists, faith-based leaders, corporate representatives and child advocates to begin to change the way the world responds to the #1 killer of children—pneumonia.
UNICEF, the WHO and the World Bank came together today to announce that while more children are being vaccinated than ever before, nearly 24 million of the world’s most at-risk children are still not receiving life-saving vaccinations. Reaching these children will require an estimated $1 billion each year.
The announcement came today after new data was released in the The State of the World’s Vaccines and Immunization, a report jointly-authored by the three organizations. The report found that 2008 was a record high for global vaccinations, with more than 106 million children immunized. The report acknowledges that donor support for the GAVI Alliance (a public-private partnership launched in 2000 to increase access to new and underused vaccines) played a large role in making this possible. More than 200 million children have been immunized with vaccines funded by GAVI and over 3.4 million premature deaths have been averted.
This comes on the heels of an announcement last month by UNICEF that in 2008, child deaths dropped below 9 million (to 8.8 million) for the first time, thanks in large part to immunizations, the use of insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria and Vitamin A supplementation. Yet more than 3 million of the 8.8 million children who still die every year are dying from two main killers: pneumonia and diarrhea. New vaccines exist that could prevent the majority of these deaths, but they are still not available in the world’s poorest countries.
Over the coming months and years, GAVI Alliance will be the main vehicle for getting these new vaccines to the countries that need them most. With increased donor support, GAVI partners plans to introduce the vaccine against pneumococcus, the bacterium that causes pneumonia, in 42 countries and the vaccine against rotavirus, which causes diarrhea, in 44 countries by 2015.
Together, these could prevent an estimated 11 million child deaths by 2030. Here at ONE we’re looking forward to helping GAVI, donors and other partners to make this plan a reality.
The World Health Organization’s expert advisory panel on immunizations announced today that all children should receive a vaccine that can prevent a severe type of diarrhea and vomiting caused by the rotavirus.
Every year, 600,000 children die from severe diarrhea caused by rotavirus around the world.Although most of these deaths occur in developing countries, rotavirus also afflicts children in the developed world.In the United States, 55,000 children are hospitalized because of rotavirus infections every year.
Research to determine whether the rotavirus vaccine is safe and effective in countries with high child mortality has proven successful: cases of severe diarrhea were reduced after administration of the vaccine.Funded by the GAVI Alliance, and conducted by PATH, WHO, and GlaxoSmithKline, as well as many research institutions in South Africa and Malawi, this research “clears the way for vaccines that will protect children in the developing world from one of the most deadly diseases they face,” said Dr. Tachi Yamada, President of the Global Health Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
As one of the diseases that causes the greatest number of deaths and illness in the developing world but receives little attention and resources, the prevention and treatment of diarrheal diseases is a priority area for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.Their work involves funding research to determine the causes of diarrheal disease in developing countries, supporting the development of a vaccine, including the rotavirus vaccine, and efforts to develop medicines and other treatments for diarrheal disease.
Delivering the rotavirus vaccine with a package of other essential interventions including improving water and sanitation to children in need in Africa and Asia will be critical for reducing child mortality.
April 7th, World Health Day, celebrates the importance of health for productive and happy lives. Every year since 1950, the day highlights a specific health theme that is of priority concern for the World Health Organization (learn about past themes, including climate change, international health security, and maternal and child care here). The theme of World Health Day 2009 is “Save Lives. Make hospitals safe in emergencies.” This theme spotlights emergency preparedness and the flexibility and safety of health facilities and the health workers who treat those affected by earthquakes, floods, conflicts and other emergencies. This year, WHO and international partners are drawing attention to the importance of investing in this type of emergency health infrastructure. In countries around the world, emergency preparedness is of increasing concern. For those prone to natural disasters, ensuring that hospitals and other health facilities are safe, can withstand events like earthquakes, and are prepared for emergencies can save lives.
WHO recommends that governments and other authorities who operate hospitals take the following six steps to ensure healthcare is available throughout a disaster:
1. assess the safety of hospitals;
2. protect and train health workers for emergencies;
3. plan for emergency response;
4. design and build resilient hospitals;
5. adopt national policies and programs for safe hospitals; and
6. protect equipment, medicines and supplies.
However you choose to celebrate World Health Day 2009, make sure it is safe (and healthy!), and give a nod to the emergency health facilities and health workers that serve you. More investments are needed to make these high-quality services accessible to all.
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.
