Mozambique plans to have 8,000 people living with AIDS on free triple-therapy antiretroviral (ARV) treatment through its public health system by the end of the year. Although this is only a small proportion of the estimated 200,000 people in need of treatment, it is seen as a breakthrough for one of the world's poorest countries, where in the past ARVs were regarded as a luxury for Western countries only.
Equity in Health
Sant'Egidio ARV programme in Mozambique records success
Scandal of fake and substandard drugs
During the past 100 years, disasters associated with prescription drugs have led to the introduction of laws to protect the consumer. The Biologics Control Act, for example, was passed by US Congress in 1902 after the death of ten children given diphtheria antitoxin contaminated with live tetanus organisms. Such tragedies are rare nowadays, but two reports in The Lancet this week signal renewed concern about the quality of orthodox medicines in some countries.
Scientists close in on a mass murderer;
Genome map a big advance but, for now, malaria is still best fought with bednets
Malaria scythes a similarly deadly path across much of Africa, sparing only higher elevation areas that aren't hot enough or countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe, where it has been brought under control. The continent's annual malaria death toll is well over a million and could be as high as two million, with children five and under making up 90 per cent. So you might expect people like Graham Reid - a British tropical medicine expert who manages a Canadian-financed health project in two rural districts of Tanzania - to be very excited about the multi-million-dollar deciphering of the genetic codes for the most prevalent malaria mosquito and the deadliest malaria parasite, dual breakthroughs announced this week by huge teams involving 160 researchers in 10 countries. Experts generally agree that these gene catalogues should accelerate development of affordable malaria vaccines, improved drugs to treat the disease, more effective chemicals to repel the biting mosquitoes and a range of techniques to neutralize mosquitoes that carry the parasite, including designer insecticides. Instead Graham is thinking about $3 bednets and how many lives these could save while the malaria genome breakthroughs struggle through an expected decade-long development process before producing the promised new anti-malaria weapons.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29356
Scientists react to US attacks with shock and fears for the future
Scientific leaders must now think beyond their immediate emotional responses and consider the practical consequences of the current crisis. Today's scientific enterprise relies heavily on international collaboration, the free exchange of data, and unrestricted travel. In the current unstable geopolitical climate, it is unclear how each of these will be affected.
Seeking care for life threatening malaria in southern Tanzania
Prompt treatment with relatively cheap and effective drugs can prevent deaths from malaria. So why does this disease still cause more deaths than any other throughout Tanzania? The growth in the use of modern medicines has reduced the delaying impact of traditional remedies. The introduction of the 'integrated management of childhood illness' approach, which focuses on the overall wellbeing of a child, is crucial in reducing malaria deaths.
Senegal: President Sacks Head of Aid Group
Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade has announced the dismissal of Latif Gueye, a Senegalese citizen and head of the humanitarian organization -Africa Helps Africa, on national television, accusing him of committing "extremely serious errors" for his alleged role in trafficking AIDS drugs that were meant for Africa but were sold in Europe. "It is unfortunate that medicine meant for African AIDS patients is diverted and sold at higher prices in Europe," Wade has said
Further details: /newsletter/id/29389
Seventy Third World Health Assembly and Resolution 73.1 on the COVID-19 response
World Health Assembly: WHA 73.1 Geneva, 19 May 2020
The May 2020 session of the World Health Assembly was held as a virtual 'de minimis' meeting by video conferencing, with consideration of most items deferred to written procedure or a resumed meeting later in the year. In opening the Assembly the WHO Director General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus stated "COVID-19 is not just a global health emergency; it is a vivid demonstration of the fact that there is no health security without resilient health systems, or without addressing the social, economic, commercial and environmental determinants of health". The full speech is available at https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA73/A73_3-en.pdf. The virtual WHA discussed and endorsed a key resolution sponsored by multiple countries, including Zambia in the east and southern Africa region and the Africa group and its member states. The resolution is shown at the website provided. The chair of the Africa group noted in the deliberations the importance of making full use of the flexibilities contained in the TRIPS Agreement and the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health and called for the transfer of technology and know-how for medicines for vaccines, diagnostics and other commodities to meet demand and ensure equity. He also called for debt relief to enable countries to meet the demands of responses and the economic impact of the pandemic. The statements by countries to the WHA73 are reported at https://apps.who.int/gb/statements/WHA73/
Sexual Mores Fuel AIDS Spread: African Official
Attitudes toward sex and sexuality are at the core of the African AIDS pandemic, according to a leading South African health official. He argues that researchers and politicians must involve the African public in an open discussion of human behavior if they hope to combat the disease successfully.``Sex is regarded as a taboo in Africa--you don't speak openly about it,'' said Dr. Malegapuru William Makgoba, president of the Medical Research Council of South Africa. ``We all know that this is a sexually transmitted disease and that's the bottom line, and we're doing everything except focusing on the real major factor that determines whether or not you get the disease.''
Shaping the world to illustrate inequalities in health
Dorling D, Barford A: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 85(11): 821-900, November 2007
Visualizing inequalities in health at the world scale is not easily achieved from tables of mortality rates. Maps that show rates using a colour scale often are less informative than many map-readers realize. For instance, a country with a very small land area receives less attention, whereas a large, sparsely populated area on a map is more obvious. Furthermore, unlike our visual ability to compare the lengths of bars in a chart, we do not have a natural aptitude for translating different colours or shades to the magnitudes they represent. Here we introduce another approach to mapping the world that can be useful for illustrating inequalities in health. This article looks at various ways of mapping and visualising global health statistics.
Situation in Southern Africa
Second Regular Session of UNICEF Executive Board, September 2002
Eastern and Southern Africa continues to be plagued by deepening poverty, continued armed conflicts and an increasingly devastating HIV/AIDS catastrophe. Given current trends the Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved in the region, or in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. And that means that these goals, endorsed by so many conferences, will not be achieved globally. In addition to all this, Southern Africa is experiencing a terrible crisis, manifested by extreme food shortages. It is important to understand that these different crises are interconnected and constantly reinforcing each other.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29394