Watch Global Pneumonia Summit Live Right Now

Nov 2nd, 2009 5:20 PM EST
By Virginia Simmons

Today is World Pneumonia Day and you can watch the Global Pneumonia Summit live right now.

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.

3 million children

Sep 25th, 2009 1:57 PM EST
By Josh Lozman

Oh, these UN weeks. Every year when the UN General Assembly meets (and this year, the Clinton Global Initiative and the G20 are putting their heads together, too), advocates for the world’s poor try to build momentum towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight targets designed to reduce global poverty and disease by 2015. In years past, we’ve entered these discussions with hugely complicated problems to solve. But this year is a bit different. There is big progress to report on MDG 4 – reducing preventable childhood deaths.

Last Thursday, UNICEF released a report announcing that the number of children dying each year before their fifth birthday had dropped to 8.8 million—the lowest number on record (an achievement that flew under most of the major medias radar screens). And while this is still 8.8 million too many deaths, it’s down from 12.5 million deaths in 1990. That means that doctors, nurses, community health workers, educators—even politicians and donors—have helped prevent 10,000 children from dying each day. TEN THOUSAND! One of these saved sons or daughters could hit upon the next big life-saving idea.

But there’s a catch. Right now, we actually don’t need any new big idea to take a significant step forward. Three million of the 8.8 million children are dying from things that we know how to prevent and treat: pneumonia and diarrhea. In the next year, vaccines for pneumococcal disease and rotavirus—two of the main causes of the diseases—will be introduced at approximately $7 a piece, a price cheap enough to realistically be distributed in the developing world. So we have the life-saving vaccines, and we know what it takes to distribute. Now we just need the money to do it.

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI)—an innovative financing organization that funds the purchasing and distribution of vaccines—will be largely responsible for purchasing the pneumonia and rotavirus vaccines. And while they’re running short on funds, exciting progress was made during the busy UN week.

At a UN event yesterday afternoon, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced a landmark $5.3 billion international deal that would tackle women’s and children’s health in the developing world—and save an estimated 10 million lives. The $5.3 billion investment, which marks the culmination of a year’s work by the Taskforce on Innovative Financing for Health Systems, includes:

•New commitments by leaders of Nepal, Malawi, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone to expand access to health services

•A $1 billion expansion of the International Finance Facility for Immunization (IFFIm)

•A new mechanism for making voluntary contributions when buying airline tickets, expected to raise up to $3.2 billion by 2015

•$515 million for results-based funding health programs

•$360 million worth of debt conversions

•Launch of a value-added (VAT) tax credit pilot, expected to raise up to $220 million a year

•The commitment to explore a second Advance Market Commitment for life-saving vaccines

While this exciting announcement is not going to fulfill all of GAVI’s financing needs, it hopefully sets an important precedent that other donors will soon follow. It would be quite an achievement if at next year’s meeting of the UN General Assembly, there is even more good news to report.

The lives of 3 million children depend on it.

-Josh Lozman

Great news for Global Health

Sep 24th, 2009 1:12 PM EST
By Steve Wilson

It’s a crazy week with all that’s been going on in New York at the UN and Clinton Global Initiative but before the world’s attention turns to the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, I wanted to flag two pieces of great news on global health that came out this afternoon, which you understandably may have missed.

First, it was announced that an extra $1 billion has been secured in support of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), which funds major programmes to protect children from preventable diseases, such as pneumonia, measles, meningitis and diarrheal diseases. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown helped make the announcement yesterday during one of the many events in New York. GAVI will use the additional funding not only to support and distribute more vaccinations to save more children’s lives from these diseases, but also to improve health systems in comprehensive ways in poor countries.

ONE sees this as an especially important announcement in light of the fact of last week’s historic UNICEF report on child mortality, which found the number of children dying before their fifth birthdays each year had been cut to the lowest level ever on record—8.8 million. This progress was largely thanks to scaled up support for relatively inexpensive solutions, many of which GAVI supports, such as vaccinations and supplements.

However, the UNICEF report also found that although great gains were made thanks to the targeting of many major diseases, a lack of investment in pneumonia and diarrheal diseases have made them the two main causes of children’s deaths worldwide. Today’s $1 billion announcement means that vaccines that can help prevent deaths from these two diseases—which account for 3 million deaths each year—will be available soon at greatly reduced costs through GAVI.

As ONE’s President David Lane said in a press release ONE put out: “We know how to stop deaths from pneumonia and diarrheal diseases, but these conditions are the biggest killers of children under five. Today’s GAVI announcement is an important step to accelerate progress in areas where we’ve seen big results, but will also target more diseases that so far have not been targeted and that needlessly take the lives of children.”

The second big announcement was a new airline ticket programme that will allow you to voluntarily contribute $2 each time you fly to help fight global disease. The programme was announced today, also in New York, by the U.N. agency UNITAID, which is attached to the World Health Organization. UNITAID helps reduce the costs of treatment for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, making these lifesaving medicines available to those that need them.

As David Lane said in the press release: “Paying $2 to help save lives in the fight against preventable disease sure beats baggage fees.”

The initiative, which in particular will help fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa as well as help improve maternal health, is backed by several major travel industry companies, the Clinton Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Recipients of the donations will include UNICEF and the Clinton Foundation. It looks like you can expect to see the initiative start at airports this January.

We expect lots more news in the days ahead, so stay tuned to the blog. To read more about ONE’s reaction to today’s two announcements, you can see ONE’s full press release here.

-Steve Wilson

New UNICEF Report: State of the World’s Children

Jan 16th, 2009 12:09 PM EST
By Lisa.Fleisher

Yesterday, UNICEF released its new State of the World’s Children report which calls for the big gap in maternal and child death rates between the developing world and industrialized countries to be addressed more aggressively. The report examines maternal mortality in developing countries and reports that too many women and children are dying of causes that could be prevented or easily treated.

In the world’s least developed countries, having a baby is among the most serious health risks for women. Every day, 1,500 women die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth – mostly in Africa and South Asia. And the younger the mother, the higher the risk: girls who have children before they turn 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20’s. While the child mortality rate in developing countries has decreased by 27% since 1995, a child born in a developing country is still 14 times more likely to die during the first month of life than a child born in a developed country. Most of these deaths are preventable. UNICEF’s Executive Director Ann Veneman states: “Progress has been made in reducing child mortality, but much more must be done especially in addressing maternal and newborn health.” Proven, cost-effective interventions exist which can save mothers’ lives and consequently, improve the chances that their children will survive too.

The barriers to bringing these interventions to the women and girls most in need are significant, but not insurmountable. The report cites weak health systems and a shortage of trained health workers as two of the biggest obstacles to reducing maternal mortality rates (and address other key health issues) in Asia and Africa. The health worker shortage is felt most acutely in Africa, which has 24% of the global disease burden but only 3% of the global health workforce. In countries where fertility rates are high and where women are not empowered to make decisions about their healthcare, these problems are compounded.

Efforts to address these problems and generate declines in maternal mortality are increasing. Just within the past five years, the number of new initiatives designed to generate new money for health systems and expand the reach of maternal and child programs have increased dramatically. Donor funding for maternal, neonatal, and child health has (more…)

UNICEF reports some success in the fight against HIV/AIDS

Apr 4th, 2008 12:26 PM EST
By Jessica.Warren

UNICEF announced yesterday that some progress is being made in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS in children. According to UNICEF’s “Children and AIDS: Second Stocktaking Report”, significant improvements have been made in reducing rates of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and increasing the number of children receiving life-saving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). In 2006, 350,000 HIV-positive pregnant women in low- and middle-income countries received drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission, a 60% increase from 2005. Also in 2006, more than 125,000 HIV-positive children were receiving AIDS treatment, up 70% from the year before.

In particular, steady progress has been made in eastern and southern Africa. Two years ago, only 11% of HIV-positive pregnant women in the region were receiving drugs to prevent transmission of the virus to their babies. That number rose to 31% by 2006. The number of children receiving ARVs also rose dramatically, from 70,000 to 127,000 over the same period.

Despite this progress, the world is still far from reaching UNICEF’s target of 80% treatment coverage by 2010. “Poor geographical service reach, aggravated by weak health systems, and the fear, stigma and denial that discourage many women from being tested for HIV are significant barriers to wider coverage,” the report said.

- Jessica Warren