According to this Article by Celia W. Dugger, the annual number of children dying before reaching age five has dropped below nine million for the first time in recorded history. According to data from Unicef, this noteworthy statistic is largely attributed to global endeavors to better children’s chances of survival, especially in the developing world. Child mortality rates have lowered by over a quarter in the last twenty years–65 per 1,000 live births in 2008 from 90 in 1990–based primarily on greater distribution of fairly inexpensive technologies, such as measles vaccines and anti-malaria mosquito nets, and other simple practices, including breast-feeding for the first six-months of life, protecting children from diarrheal diseases attributed to dirty water. The actions of wealthy nations, international agencies, philanthropists, schoolchildren, and church groups have contributed to the distribution of mosquito nets and have funded feeding programs.
“[This article] is about the recent ICC indictment against Bashir, the leader of Sudan. As a result, 12 of the biggest/well-known aid groups have been expelled from the country. One of the biggest refugee camps in Darfur, Kalma, have now declined from receiving aid from the aid groups that are still there, or from the Sudanese government itself. I found this particularly interesting because the refugees are using health as a weapon, and a tool, for making a political statement. An exceedingly dangerous action considering there has already been a meningitis outbreak in some parts of the camp, clean water is almost completely unavailable, and many have already died from diarrhea. Permanent health clinics run by MSF have closed, and a major concern is that recent improvements in nutrition and epidemic prevention will suffer a setback, especially because the rainy reason is starting soon. What is also striking is that refugees in Kalma have both flat out refused government help (even the setting up of meningitis vaccination clinics) but they also don’t trust the government to actually provide for their health, considering that it has massacred so many of them.”
– Larissa Eltsefon
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sudan-camp21-2009mar21,0,2603175.story
According to a CNN article, a new study finds that recent widows in Iraq have found great challenges as they try to take on the role of breadwinner for their families. The husbands of these women “had been killed, disappeared, abducted or suffered from mental or physical abuse,” as reported in the article. The study estimates that there are now about 740,000 women struggling in their new roles as widows, trying to sustain their livelihoods and families. Follow the link below to learn more about the situation and the ways in which some groups endeavor to counteract it.
“In India, 78,000 women die in childbirth each year; a woman dies every seven minutes due to problems related to pregnancy and childbirth, said a UNICEF report.
The risk of dying at childbirth in India is 300 times higher than in
industrialised countries. ‘No other death rate is so unequal,’ said Dr. Karin Hulshof, UNICEF India Representative at the launch of its The State of The World’s Children 2009: Maternal and Newborn Health report.”
-Sanchita Sharma
This article in The New York Times describes the prevalence of polio in certain regions of the world as well as recent efforts to mitigate the continued presence of the disease. Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan continue to suffer the effects of polio, even though the vaccine for this devastating disease exists and worldwide efforts to eradicate the disease have been ongoing for over twenty years. On Wednesday, January 21, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International, and the British and German governments disclosed the release of $630 million to help keep the cause of polio eradication active for the coming years. This large donation mainly targets the four remaining countries where polio epidemics still plague the people as well as the other regions to which this disease has spread.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/world/africa/22polio.html?ref=world
According to a study released in mid-September by the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, nearly a quarter to a third of all pregnant women (about seven million pregnant women) living in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with hookworm, a parasite that inhabits in the intestine and causes anemia. Anemia is common among pregnant women in Africa due to their poor diet, susceptibility to malaria and genetics. Severe anemia, characterized by a low red-blood-cell count, is a leading cause of deaths among women in labor and of low birth weights, which lead to higher mortality rates among newborns.
Because world health authorities are not completely certain of the role of hookworms in causing deaths of pregnant women, they have not yet introduced de-worming drugs into the maternal care regimen as these drugs may have negative effects on the fetus. However, it has been shown that heavy hookworm loads are associated with low hemoglobin levels in pregnant women, and some researchers believe that such drugs will be more beneficial than detrimental and argue for further study with the drugs.
One of the authors of the aforementioned study currently holds a patent on a hookworm vaccine.
Poor nutrition and impoverished living conditions often stunt the growth of a population. During the first presidential debate, Senator John McCain referred to North Korea as a “repressive brutal regime” and drew on the growing height difference between North and South Koreans – with the average South Korean standing a full three inches above his Northern counterpart – as further evidence for this condition.
However, this height gap now also exists between Americans and Northern Europeans. These differences are not the result of increased immigration of shorter people to America — the study examined Americans that were English-speaking and native-born. The author argues that the Northern European countries do a better job of dispensing wealth to its populous and caring for their children.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/short-north-koreans-and-americans/
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recently released a study that reveals the alarming rate of HIV infection in the city. The study reported an average of 72 infections per 100,000 people, more than three times the national rate of 23 infections per 100,000 people. The project employed a novel formula created by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and researchers were able to precisely estimate that 4,762 New Yorkers were infected in 2006. However, since this method was previously untested, it was impossible to determine whether the number of new infections in the city had increased or decreased from years past. As previously discovered, the incidence of HIV infection was highest among blacks and homosexual men.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/health/research/28hiv.html?ref=health
There was a change in atmosphere at the 17th International AIDS Conference, which took place in Mexico this year, as activists, political leaders and researchers focused, not on exciting scientific findings, but on long-term proposals. Although the recent lack of success in the search for the cure has been disheartening, those at the forefront of the fight are looking to the future. Researchers believe that the most effective weapon against H.I.V. is a vaccine, but medical trials have failed. Developers face the difficulty of a dearth of knowledge on the specific agents of the immune system that fend off the virus and even with the recent development of antiretroviral drug treatments, doctors are unsure of how and when to prescribe the drugs. Nevertheless, researchers remain hopeful for a new generation of treatments. In the meantime, the United States will develop President Bush’s five-year, $48-billion-dollar AIDS program, a notable step forward in its global health initiative. The next International AIDS Conference will be held in Vienna in 2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/health/19docs.html?pagewanted=1&ref=health
I thought that I’d take Spring Break to recap on two lectures that occurred recently.
The first lecture, sponsored by Cover Africa and the African Flood Relief Campaign, centered on the Ghana flood relief efforts. The speaker Dr. Osei Darkwa, Principal of Ghana Telecom University College, began with some background information on the colonization of Africa, followed by a description of the flooding that affected the Upper West, Upper East, and Northern Regions of Ghana in August 2007 (see YouTube video above).
Dr. Darkwa cited two main causes for the flood: 1) nonstop torrential rains from August 24-29, and 2) the opening of a dam in neighboring Burkina Faso (north of Ghana). The flooding resulted in many deaths, large population displacement, as well as food and clean water shortages. Since then, relief has come from a number of sources including the Ghanian government’s NADMO (National Disaster Management Organisation) and various NGO’s.
Besides water, sanitation, and shelter, communication technology proved to be an integral part of the relief efforts. Dr. Darkwa mentioned one NGO in particular, Telecoms Sans Frontieres (TSF), who helped set up emergency telephone centers in the area.
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The second lecture, sponsored by PATCH, featured Dr. Per Pinstrup-Andersen, who is a H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy, and also the World Food Prize laureate in 2001.
A faculty member in the nutrition department at Cornell, Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen has worked extensively on international nutrition in various countries around the world. He enlivened his talk with interesting anecdotes from his experiences.
Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen also offered advice to students interested in contributing to the health field, at and after Cornell. He urged the audience to think of multidisciplinary solutions and to learn 2-3 relevant disciplines outside of their main study. He encouraged students to attend grad school to generate much needed knowledge, and also mentioned opportunities with NGO’s and international agencies such as UNICEF and WHO. For those interested in a government position, Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen cheekily advised going for the Minister of Finance over the Minister of Health position because the Minister of Finance has much more power…
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Common to both lectures:
Dr. Darkwa emphasized that relief providers should not assume that they know what a village needs. Similarly, Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen cautioned everyone to understand the circumstances of the intended beneficiaries before applying a program or a policy.
