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Time to take “neglected” out of neglected tropical diseases
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This morning in London, 13 pharmaceutical companies, the US, UK, UAE governments, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and other global health organisations announced a new plan to eliminate or control 10 neglected tropical diseases. These 10 diseases disproportionally effect 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest people.
The aim is to eliminate Guinea worm, leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, blinding trachoma and sleeping sickness by 2020, and control schistosomiasis, river blindness, soil-transmitted helminthes, Chagas disease and visceral leishmaniasis. These diseases cause misery, suffering, disfigurement and death – and when they don’t kill the seriously affect the lives of many people. At the event today $785 million dollars was pledged to support research efforts into the diseases, and to strengthen distribution to make sure the vital drugs get to the people who need them.
You can read more in depth information about the 10 diseases, and watch a recording of today’s event at unitingtocombatNTDs.org Here’s a great Infographic that explains the problem and solution (click to enlarge):
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GAVI Alliance programme raises US$ 38 million for child immunisation
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The following is a guest post from David Ferreira Managing Director, Innovative Finance, of the GAVI Alliance from the World Economic Forum meeting held in Davos last week. I have long believed that a group of committed people can accomplish almost anything.
I saw it in my native South Africa. I have seen it in my work for the GAVI Alliance, which in just over a decade has helped immunise 326 million children and save more than 5.5 million lives. And, in Davos, Switzerland, I was privileged to have breakfast with a group of very committed people. In the past year, a handful of visionary government and business leaders have stepped forward to create an unusual partnership that could save millions of lives over the next few years. That partnership is the GAVI Matching Fund. Under the GAVI Matching Fund, the British government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have pledged about US$ 130 million combined (GBP 50 million and US$ 50 million, respectively) to match contributions to GAVI from corporations, foundations and other organizations, as well as from their customers, employees and business partners. The goal – including the match – is to raise US$ 260 million for immunisation by the end of 2015, bringing us much closer to ensuring that GAVI can help immunise 225 million children and save 3.9 million lives over that period. This programme has shone a light on an increasing number of private sector champions for global health. They range from financial services firms such as JP Morgan and the Spanish bank “la Caixa” (through its foundation), to prominent global enterprises such as Anglo American and nimble, creative foundations such as Comic Relief, Absolute Return for Kids (ARK) and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). Collectively, these champions are contributing their voices, skills and financial resources to the fight for child immunisation in the world’s poorest countries. This is a model that works. The GAVI Matching Fund was launched in June 2011 and in just a few months has already raised around US$ 40 million for immunisation. This new model was an important theme that at the breakfast I attended in Davos, where the World Economic Forum is holding its annual meeting. The gathering literally was a “breakfast of champions.” There, several GAVI Matching Fund partners and other global business leaders met with Andrew Mitchell, the British Secretary of State for International Development and Bill Gates. They spoke convincingly of how a public-private partnership can succeed, whether through Comic Relief raising funds from the general public for global health, “la Caixa” organising business partners to help fund the roll-out of vaccines in Central America, or companies offering their technologies and core business skills to save lives. For instance, the same know-how that gets soft drinks to remote areas of Africa could help the countries that GAVI supports deliver vaccines to those areas. Or cellphone technology could be used to efficiently monitor the use of vaccines. Even a US$ 3 million donation – matched by the British Government or the Gates Foundation – would buy enough vaccine to immunise more than 500,000 children this year against pneumococcal disease, one of the main causes of death from pneumonia. Or nearly a million children against potentially fatal diarrhoea caused by rotavirus. The GAVI Matching Fund is an example of what can be achieved when governments, corporations, foundations and the general public work together to solve difficult problems, such as the inequity in the availability of vaccines for children living in poor countries. It represents a rare chance to be part of something guaranteed to change the lives of millions of people for the better. It represents a new era of champions for public health. |
Uniting to fight neglected tropical diseases
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This Monday at 11 am GMT you can watch a historic live event that demonstrates how building partnerships between aid agencies and pharmaceutical companies can make big differences in health and development for millions of people living in the world’s poorest countries. World experts including Bill Gates and Dr Margaret Chan (Director of the World Health Organisation) will be taking part in a live webcast from London to discuss neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) – diseases which effect 1 billion poor people around the world. You can watch the event on this page, and follow the buzz online using #NTD, #NTDs and #partnership hashtags. We will also be tweeting updates on the @ONEcampaign account. Over the past week there have been a number of events celebrating the progress that’s being made towards saving lives – Bill Gates has published his annual letter and defended aid spending during difficult times at the European Parliament, and the Global Fund has celebrated 10 years of saving over 7.7 million lives. But there’s still much more to do, the partners speaking at this event aim to combat NTDs and drive progress toward the World Health Organization’s goals for control or elimination by 2020. The event will feature:
We have the opportunity to help the more than one billion people affected by NTDs lead healthier, more productive lives. And by working collaboratively, we can achieve more together than any one of us could on our own. For more about neglected tropical diseases check out http://www.unitingtocombatntds.org |
10 Years of Lives Saved Through the Global Fund
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In celebration of the Global Fund’s 10th anniversary, ONE Global Health Policy Manager Erin Hohlfelder reflects on the organization’s accomplishments over the years. When I was ten, I was busy doing important things like mastering long division, practicing softball and rocking the plastic glasses/bowl cut combo. While I’m proud of those accomplishments, I have to say I’m even more proud today to honor all the incredible things that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has achieved in its first ten years of existence. To understand the Global Fund’s impact, it’s important to remember just how bad things were before it existed: Fewer than 50,000 Africans had access to AIDS treatment. Malaria was killing nearly 1 million people annually. Treating TB was considered too expensive for most of the developing world.
In late January of 2002, leaders came together in Switzerland to launch the Global Fund. Built to be what Kofi Annan called a “war chest” to respond to these global health emergencies, it had the backing of donors, public health officials, developing country leaders and NGOs. Intentionally, it was designed to be different than other aid models; it was rooted in having local stakeholders (rather than donors) say what they wanted to do to fight AIDS, TB or malaria, and how much money it would take to get the job done. Though no aid model is perfect, the Global Fund has clearly been doing something right, because it has delivered incredible results over the last decade: In delivering these services — often in partnership with aid efforts including PEPFAR and with national health systems — the Global Fund has helped change the global health landscape. Though they each still claim far too many lives, all three diseases are all on the decline globally. Now, the mantra has shifted from a “stop the bleeding” approach to a more hopeful, long term approach characterized by phrases like “we can achieve the beginning of the end of AIDS” and “we know how to end malaria deaths by 2015.” And, just as my own personal style has thankfully evolved from those outdated plastic glasses to contact lenses, the Global Fund has gone through its own strategic reforms in the last 12 months to become an even more targeted, efficient mechanism in the years to come. SEE ALSO: The beginning of the end of AIDS Funding — as always — remains a challenge. The Global Fund has said it is currently unable to fund new programs until 2014 due to a roughly $2 billion funding gap. Constricting global budgets, coupled with persistent whispers of corruption, are convenient excuses for donors to pull back on their contributions to these diseases. But the Global Fund has made the changes necessary to ensure that money invested in its programs will be monitored transparently, evaluated rigorously and directed toward specific outcomes. As a result, donors should feel confident that maintaining or increasing their contributions will go toward the achievement of bold new goals: saving 10 million lives and preventing 140 to 180 million new infections between 2012 and 2016. Of all the aid projects I’ve been able to visit, the one individual who stands out most is a playful little girl named Madeline who I met at a Global Fund clinic in Ghana. She was born HIV-positive, but thanks to the Global Fund, her mother was able to access the antiretroviral treatment that will keep her alive and healthy. I get that 10 million lives saved through the Global Fund seems too overwhelming to conceptualize. So instead, I’d suggest we simply think of Madeline, and then think of all the other Madelines out there who, thanks to the Global Fund, will be able to grow up healthy and one day also master long division and practice softball like me. I just hope they all skip the bowl cuts! |
Watch: 10 years of the Global Fund, 7.7 million lives saved
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To celebrate 10 years of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS TB and Malaria, they have launched a video celebrating some of their achievements over the last decade: If you feel inspired, please share! |
ONE CEO Michael Elliott at the World Economic Forum in Davos
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This week ONE CEO Michael Elliott has been attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, and you can follow his progress on twitter or by searching for the #Davos hashtag. This morning he took part in a Facebook Live chat, answering questions posted by ONE members on facebook: You can read more about the message Michael will be taking to Davos on behalf of ONE on his blog post: Required reading in Davos. |
Required reading in Davos
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But even if you think that the prophets of global economic doom and gloom are right – I don’t, as it happens, but that’s another story – there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful about the state of the world. Some of them were collected in Bill Gates’s annual letter on the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which should be required reading for the Davos crowd. The letter detailed some of the extraordinary advances that have been made in global health, for example, over the past decades, with the roll out of vaccines on a massive scale, tremendous progress, especially in India, on the eradication of polio, and, indeed, on the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. I was particularly pleased that Bill’s letter made mention of the rotavirus vaccine that GAVI is rolling out to tackle one of the leading causes of diarrhea – an appalling killer of children, and one which has rarely gotten the public or political dissension that it deserves. Of course, the letter pointed out how much more needed to be done so that all people, everywhere, could live lives of equal dignity. More funding needs to be devoted to research and development in agriculture – a key goal of ONE this year. Those of us who advocate for increased resources to go to the world’s poor appreciate that in tough economic times, we have our work cut out for us. But when generous funders like the Gates Foundation and taxpayers around the world have done so much to combat extreme poverty and preventable disease in the last ten years, now would be the very worst moment to give up the fight. That fight is more likely to be won, as Bill pointed out in a passage on the need for more resources for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that is worth quoting at length, if citizens in the rich world understood just how much could be done with comparatively few resources.
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As the world’s business, political and media elite made their annual trek to the Swiss town of Davos – blanketed in more snow than I have seen there for a decade – conventional wisdom had it they should have all the lightheartedness of a gray, winter, Alpine sky. The Eurozone crisis, the difficulty of getting tough political decisions in the United States, and worries in some of the champions among emerging markets – the chance of a property crash in China, for example, or of runaway inflation in India – were all said to contribute to a note of pessimism among Davos devotees.Watch Bill Gates and Hans Rosling LIVE on the challenge of fighting global poverty
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The live online event, hosted by our friends at the Global Poverty Project, marks the launch of its Global Poverty Ambassadors Initiative, which invites people from all walks of life to engage their communities in the campaign against extreme poverty. Hosted by the London School of Economics (LSE), Bill Gates will cover the key themes of his 2012 Annual Letter, including how innovations in agriculture and health are driving down extreme poverty worldwide. He will be joined by renowned Swedish statistician and advisor to the Global Poverty Project, Hans Rosling. Elisha London, UK Director of the Global Poverty Project said:
You can watch the event live at 13.30 GMT / 14.30 CET on the Global Poverty Project website and follow the conversation and tweet questions to #BillsLetter |
It’s been a busy few days for Bill Gates. After presenting My 2012 Annual Letter
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In this guest post, Bill Gates discusses the themes of his annual letter, which looks back on progress made and lessons learned in the fight against extreme poverty. Originally published on Impatient Optimists, blog of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
I want people to know about the amazing progress we’ve made. I also want them to see how much more progress it will take before we live in a truly equitable world. In this year’s letter, I focus on food and agriculture (though I also provide updates about all the global health and U.S. education work we do). When I was in high school, a popular book called The Population Bomb painted a nightmarish vision of mass starvation on a planet that has outgrown its carrying capacity. That prediction was wrong, in large part because researchers developed much more productive seeds and other tools that helped poor farmers in many parts of the world multiply their yields. As a result, the percentage of people in extreme poverty has been cut in half in my lifetime. That’s the amazing progress part of the story, and not enough people know it. But there’s the progress-yet-to-come part, and people need to know that, too. There are still more than 1 billion people who live in extreme poverty. They are located primarily in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and they live on the edge of starvation. There is an irony in this, because most of them are farmers. We can help these 1 billion achieve self-sufficiency, just like we helped billions before them, but we stopped trying. At a certain point, the sense of crisis around food dissipated, and the proportion of foreign aid dedicated to agriculture dropped from one-fifth to less than one-twentieth.
My hope for my annual letter is that it helps people connect to the choice we all have to make. Relatively small investments changed the future for hundreds of millions of small farm families. The choice now is this: Do we continue those investments so that the 1 billion people who remain poor benefit? Or do we tolerate a world in which one in seven people is undernourished, stunted, and in danger of starving to death? In times of tight budgets, we have to pick our priorities. It’s clear that in this particular time, we’re in danger of deciding that aid to the poorest is not one of them. I am confident, however, that if people understand what their aid has already accomplished—and its potential to accomplish so much more—they’ll insist on doing more, not less. That is why I wrote my letter. I hope you’ll take the time to read it and share it with your friends and family. I’ve invited students from around the world to write their own annual letters too. You can send your letter, or any questions you have for me, to annualletter@gatesfoundation.org. I’ll be answering and talking about the ideas in your letters in a live webcast on February 2 on my Facebook page. |
My job is to learn about global health and development—and to travel to poor countries to meet farmers who can’t grow enough food, mothers who can’t keep children healthy, and heroes in the field who are doing something about those emergencies. Very few people can devote the time to really understand these complex problems. Even fewer can actually meet the people who are struggling to overcome them. That is why I write an annual letter every year.
Music legend Hugh Masekela joins our Hungry No More campaign
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This blog post was first published on the ONE Africa Blog As our Hungry No More campaign continues, famed musician and trumpeter Hugh Masekela joins us in calling on African leaders to focus investments in their agricultural sectors, which will contribute to growing their economies and reducing extreme poverty.
Hugh’s support couldn’t come at a better time as the African Union Summit begins this week with our Heads of State in Addis Ababa. Now’s the perfect opportunity to continue our campaign and press our leaders to take action. We’ll be presenting your petition and signatures at the AU later this week! Here’s what Hugh has to say:
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: Health, Neglected Tropical Diseases, ONE