Showing posts from category global health.
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“There’s only one health”: AVMA Initiative Emphasizes Links Between Human, Animal, Environmental Health
›August 4, 2008 // By Sonia Schmanski“[O]ver the last three decades, approximately 75% of new emerging human infectious diseases have been zoonotic”—transmitted between humans and animals. So states the final report of the One Health Initiative Task Force, warning that “[o]ur increasing interdependence with animals and their products may well be the single most critical risk factor to our health and well-being with regard to infectious diseases.” The One Health Initiative was established by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) in 2006, and the task force was assembled in early 2007 to articulate its goals and vision. Released last month, the report stresses that “[b]y working together, more can be accomplished to improve health worldwide, and the veterinary medical profession has the responsibility to assume a major leadership role in that effort.”
In our interconnected world, human, animal, and environmental health are linked in numerous and complex ways. One organization tackling these connections is the Ugandan NGO Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH). Founded and directed by Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, CTPH works to bolster human and animal health in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP), home to half of the world’s remaining mountain gorilla population. Zoonotic disease transmission is especially prevalent in remote areas like BINP, where people frequently live in close proximity to animals, and is exacerbated by the fact that these remote areas are often woefully underserved by government services like health care. “They’re the last people the government thinks about,” said Kalema-Zikusoka in a presentation at the Wilson Center on May 8, 2008.
The One Health Initiative demonstrates that people are starting to think seriously about the intersections between human, animal, and environmental health. “We are standing at the precipice of a health care transformation,” said Task Force Chair Lonnie King. “[D]isease prevention and health promotion in people, animals and our environment have become a critical strategic need.”
Speaking at the Wilson Center in November 2005, King expressed a desire for a program like the One Health Initiative. “We have to build infrastructures in health systems in developing countries,” he said, “not just human health, but animal health, too.” At the same event, William Karesh, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Field Veterinary Program, said, “[t]he concept we have is ‘one world, one health.’ There is the division of human health and wildlife health. But really, there’s only one health.” The idea of integrated health finally seems to be catching on.
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Former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson Links Global Health, U.S. Security
›July 18, 2008 // By Daniel Gleick“They say good fences make good neighbors, and maybe they do. But what I’ve learned is that good medicine makes good neighbors, and it makes good foreign policy too,” said Tommy Thompson, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in a press release received by the New Security Beat. In an appearance at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Thompson announced his new position as global ambassador for the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). “It is a tragedy,” he said, “that the world’s poorest citizens are suffering from diseases that have been neglected for too long, particularly when we can treat many of them for less than 50 cents a year.”
Thompson’s announcement came amid news of a $3.8 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to raise awareness about the diseases and advocate for increased funding for NTDs, which include leprosy, river blindness, hookworm, and elephantiasis and affect one billion of the world’s poor. Thompson, who will travel to Rwanda next months as part of his new position, was quick to articulate the broader impacts of global humanitarian aid for health. “Through medical diplomacy, we can win the hearts and minds of people in less fortunate areas of the world by exporting medical care, expertise, and personnel to those who need it most,” he said. “America has the best chance to beat the war on terror and defeat the terrorists by enhancing our medical and humanitarian assistance to vulnerable countries.”
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PEPFAR Boon to U.S. National Security, Says Senator Richard Lugar
›July 17, 2008 // By Jackson DroneyIn a rare display of bipartisan unity, the U.S. Senate voted 80-16 Wednesday to reauthorize the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Originally passed in 2003 and set to expire this September, the White House credits PEPFAR with delivering antiretroviral drug treatment to 1.7 million people worldwide.
Reflecting the bipartisan support of the program, the top two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heaped praise on the program and the president. Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), chairman of the committee, said the program is “the single most significant thing the president has done.” Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the committee’s ranking member, argued eloquently that PEPFAR benefits U.S. national security and foreign policy. During the floor debate, he made the following statement:We should understand that our investments in disease prevention programs have yielded enormous foreign policy benefits during the last five years. PEPFAR has helped to prevent instability and societal collapse in a number of at-risk countries; it has stimulated contributions from other wealthy nations to fight AIDS; it has facilitated deep partnerships with a new generation of African leaders; and it has improved attitudes toward the United States in Africa and other regions.
The Senate legislation extends the program five years and triples its funding to $48 billion. The bill met with initial opposition from several conservatives, and the Democratic-controlled Senate defeated several Republican amendments earlier this week. The House passed a slightly different version of the legislation in April; differences between the two bills will be resolved in a conference committee.
In my judgment, the dollars spent on this program can be justified purely on the basis of the humanitarian results that we have achieved. But the value of this investment clearly extends to our national security and to our national reputation. -
African Development, Security at Forefront of G8 Summit
›July 11, 2008 // By Kai CarterWednesday marked the close of the G8 Summit, where critical topics like climate change, global food security, and development were on the table. Much of the discussion of the latter centered on
It seems, however, that the G8 may have renewed its commitment to global health, including maternal and child health and nutrition. The declaration stated:In some developing countries, achieving the MDGs on child mortality and maternal health is seriously off-track, and therefore, in country-led plans, the continuum of prevention and care, including nutrition should include a greater focus on maternal, new born and child health. Reproductive health should be made widely accessible.
The United Nations has urged the G8 to demonstrate its commitment to these areas by increasing funding. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stated that $10 billion dollars would ensure basic coverage of maternal and child health worldwide. The G8 has finally caught on to these critical needs; it is now time to make real financial commitments to global health. -
Weekly Reading
›Mark Jenkins explores the July 2007 murders of the Virunga mountain gorillas in a piece in National Geographic. The piece is accompanied by a stunning photo slideshow by photographer Brent Stirton.
The Toronto Star takes a look at female feticide and infanticide in India, and how young women are now being trafficked from rural areas to serve as brides in areas where the gender gap is widest.
Climate change is responsible for an upswing in malaria in Kenya’s highlands, reports IPS News. “There is a clear correlation between climatic variations and malaria epidemics,” said Dr. Willis Akhwale, head of Kenya’s National Malaria Control Programme.
A New York Times article explores the causes of low birthrates in Europe—and particularly low ones in southern Europe.
The World Health Organization has released Safer water, better health, the first report to provide country-level estimates of the burden of disease caused by unsafe water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene. -
Aggressive Prevention Measures May Help International Community Avert Major Avian Flu Flap
›July 2, 2008 // By Jackson DroneyThe days of dire avian flu pandemic forecasts may one day be behind us. “The situation is really improving…it doesn’t mean that we can say that the situation globally is completely under control—we have the situation in countries where it is still quite entrenched—but it does mean that in the rest of the world there is a great deal of vigilance and action under way,” said UN System Influenza Coordinator David Nabarrom recently.
He noted that government and private sector actors—particularly in the UK, South Korea, the United States, and Australia—have taken aggressive steps to prepare for an outbreak and have reduced the risk factors that lead to the spread of the disease. Also, he was pleased that Sanofi Pasteur, a pharmaceutical company, has donated 60 million H5N1 vaccines to a growing global stockpile.
Despite this progress, concerns remain. Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Egypt, and Indonesia have the highest incidence rates of the virus, with the prevalence of the disease in Indonesia particularly startling. In March, UN Food and Agriculture Organization Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech said, “I am deeply concerned that the high level of virus circulation in birds in the country could create conditions for the virus to mutate and to finally cause a human influenza pandemic.”
Nabarrom credited international vigilance for the success we’ve had thus far. Although avian influenza has largely faded from the front page headlines, that vigilance must continue, as birds and people continue to die from avian flu. Hold the champagne bottles: There is still work to be done. -
Growing Food Insecurity Threatens Ethiopians With HIV/AIDS
›June 27, 2008 // By Kai CarterPlusNews recently reported on the harmful impact of rising food prices on HIV-positive Ethiopians. According to the nation’s Central Statistical Agency, the price of food has increased 40 percent since last year. The situation has been particularly devastating for those with HIV, as poor nutrition weakens the immune system and “hastens the development of HIV into AIDS.” For those on antiretrovirals, malnutrition reduces the treatment’s effectiveness and increases its toxicity to the body. As Gideon Cohen of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) explained, antiretroviral treatment “can’t work if people aren’t eating enough.”
The consequences extend far beyond HIV-positive individuals themselves, however. For infected mothers who have been advised against breastfeeding, purchasing milk or formula drastically increases household expenses and is often unaffordable. In addition, HIV augments adults’ energy requirements by 10-30 percent. Without sufficient nutrition, it becomes difficult for these individuals—who constitute almost eight percent of Ethiopia’s urban population—to work and provide for their families, undermining food security even further. So as the current food crisis threatens the lives and livelihoods of the HIV-positive in Ethiopia, it also increases the rest of the population’s susceptibility to the virus and other illnesses.
Unfortunately, this problem is not a new one. At a 2006 Wilson Center event, Jordan Dey, director of the U.S. Relations Office at WFP, said, “Hunger weakens immune systems, increases vulnerability to disease, and creates a platform for disability.” A Wilson Center On the Hill event today from 12:00 noon to 1:15 p.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building will examine what the United States can do to relieve the global food crisis.
According to PlusNews, WFP’s HIV/AIDS feeding programme in Ethiopia has exceeded its budget by 44 percent, and has had to borrow funds from other UN programmes. This alarming situation illustrates the severity of the situation in Ethiopia and calls not only for increased humanitarian aid, but also for mechanisms to ensure long-term food security. Nations will not be healthy, prosperous, and peaceful until their people are properly nourished and given the chance to develop to their full capacity. -
Public Health in the Wake of Disasters: An Overlooked Security Issue
›June 16, 2008 // By Kai Carter“Public health and public health infrastructure and systems in developed and developing countries must be seen as strategic and security issues that deserve international public health resource monitoring attention from disaster managers, urban planners, the global humanitarian community, World Health Organization authorities, and participating parties to war and conflict,” argue Frederick Burkle and P. Gregg Greenough of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative in a new article in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. Burkle, who is currently a public policy scholar at the Wilson Center, will discuss public health management after natural disasters at the Center on June 17th.
In their article, “Impact of Public Health Emergencies on Modern Disaster Taxonomy, Planning, and Response,” Burkle and Greenough discuss the public health consequences of disasters, which they classify as natural; failures of human or technological systems; or conflict-based. The authors contend that disasters’ indirect effects are often overlooked, despite the fact that they continue months and even years after the event. Disaster severity is typically measured by direct morbidity and mortality; however, Burkle and Greenough highlight the need to account for the indirect deaths and illnesses caused by the devastation of public health and other infrastructure, poor and overcrowded living conditions, displacement, food insecurity, and disrupted livelihoods. Furthermore, as acute deaths decrease, humanitarian aid wanes—at a time when it is desperately needed to rebuild public health infrastructure.
In the case of conflict-based disasters,“health care and other essential services . . . may not return to baseline for more than a decade.” The authors note that in 2004, the Iraqi Ministry of Health announced that more lives had been lost to insufficient health services than to violence. Yet the former fails to garner the same attention and condemnation as the latter.
The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that the safety, health, and infrastructure of even the wealthiest nations are at risk. No nation can afford to overlook the challenges highlighted by Burkle and Greenough.
