After nearly a two-year battle with Ebola, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that Sierra Leone is finally free of Ebola.
The country recently celebrated the milestone after almost 4,000 people died since the outbreak.
The WHO noted that 42 days have passed since the last confirmed patient was discharged on September 25 of this year. Anders Nordstrom, the Sierra Leone representative for WHO, revealed the positive news.
“WHO commends the government and people of Sierra Leone for the significant achievement of ending this Ebola outbreak,” Nordstrom said.
While the country has reached the 42-day benchmark, it still has to undergo a 90-day surveillance period.
Indeed, reaching the 42-days is a good reason to rejoice. However, it does not mean that Ebola in Sierra Leone is completely eradicated. Neighboring Liberia reached the 42-day goal in May, only to experience new cases before it was declared Ebola-free again.
Still, Sierra Leone remains optimistic with the news WHO has brought forth.
“We have prevailed over an evil virus. We persevered and we have overcome. We must not let down our guard,” said Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma.
The country will continue to take preventative measures to disable potentially new cases. Bodies will still continue to be swabbed and “safe burials will continue for all suspicious cases.”
It seems as though the disease has been prevented from spreading further. However, the people who had contracted the disease have ongoing health issues.
Juliet Spencer is considered by many to be one of the lucky ones. She contracted Ebola while taking care of her husband but was able to beat the virus. While she is happy that she is alive, she is still prevented from accomplishing tasks due to lingering complications.
“I feel good today that I have survived to see this day, witnessing this ceremony,” Spencer said. “My only regret is that I do not have a good health to carry on my business. I am unable to walk, I have joint pains and ear and eye problems.”
The 90-day surveillance period will be sure to test the country. However, the WHO and the people of Sierra Leone are confident that the disease will soon be eradicated. Nordstrom adds that the country could set an example for other countries looking to expunge Ebola.
“We now have a unique opportunity to support Sierra Leone and build a strong and resilient health system ready to detect and respond to the next outbreak of the disease or any other health threat,” Nordstrom said.
Today, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), in the largest public-private partnership in healthcare, has reduced polio by 99 percent.
The two organizations first came together in 1988, a time when wild poliovirus was endemic in 125 countries and about 350,000 people, primarily young children, were paralyzed by polio annually. Since then, it is estimated that 10 million children globally have been saved from paralysis.
According to global polio surveillance data from November 4, 2015, 51 cases of wild poliovirus have been reported this year. Thirty-eight of those cases occurred in Pakistan and the remaining 13 cases appeared in Afghanistan.
The Initiative’s goal is to ensure a polio-free world for future generations by distributing a polio vaccine to every child.
According to NPR, the oral polio vaccine may go down in history as one of the most powerful public health tools of modern times. The vaccine is cheap, easy to administer and has pushed polio to the brink of extinction.
But, there is a downside to this version of the vaccine. Unlike its predecessor, a vaccine which is administered by injection, the oral version contains live polio virus. Under some circumstances, the virus from the vaccine can spread, mutate and cause the same paralysis it intended to prevent.
This occurs when a child who’s been vaccinated sheds live virus in their stool. Like wild poliovirus, these vaccine-derived strains thrive in places where there’s poor hygiene, particularly when drinking water is contaminated with human sewage.
The number of vaccine-derived polio cases relative to the hundreds of millions of doses of oral polio vaccine administered each year is incredibly low. According to the Initiative, to date this year, only 16 cases of vaccine-derived polio have been reported globally.
But, that’s almost 11 percent of all cases of polio globally.
Last month, the WHO announced the beginning of a program to phase out oral polio and switch to a safer oral vaccine by April 2016 that contains no live virus.
“The idea of the polio eradication is…to eradicate viruses whether they’re in vaccines or in the environment,” says Elias Durry, emergency advisor on polio for the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region. “To get rid of the virus we have to also remove the vaccine that contains the virus.”
Eventually, the rest of the oral polio vaccine used around the globe will be withdrawn from circulation and the final vials destroyed.
It is imperative that we make this final push towards eradication a top priority.
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director at the Center for Disease Control, explains, “If we fail to get over the finish line, we will need to continue expensive control measures for the indefinite future . . . More importantly, without eradication, a resurgence of polio could paralyze more than 200,000 thousand children worldwide every year within a decade.”
Clinic-in-a-box (CiB) is an innovative solution to providing facilities with long-term health care to impoverished regions of South Africa and beyond. Manufactured in South Africa, it only takes four to six weeks for a CiB to turn up, and as promised, shipping is free.
The inexpensive design adapts the storage capacity of a freight container to fold out and erect a clinic whose size and shape is determined by the consumer’s needs.
The container that holds all of the equipment is recycled from old freight carriers. It is prefabricated before shipping, and by the time it reaches its destination it will only take four days until the completed product emerges, equipped with a unique selection of technology aimed at providing exactly what the region requires.
The reason clinic-in-a-box is so ingenious is not only because of its mobility but also due to its application to the health system in rural parts of Africa.
They will help to bring sustainable healthcare to those who lack the means to do so, seeing as the upkeep of the clinic can be met by a small community. So once a clinic has been established, it relies on the people to properly maintain it.
The price of visiting one of these clinics is $10-$15 (R77-R96) which is still not cheap enough for most impoverished Africans. However, the cost is significantly lower than state health care, which only covers about 20 percent in South Africa, the home of CiBs.
This inequality of health provisions brings about the issues of affordable and accessible health care that South Africa faces today.
In South Africa alone there is only one doctor per 4,000 people; this is because nearly 73 percent of the 165,000 qualified health practitioners work in the private sector, which is rather expensive for the 80 percent of people who live in areas where affordable healthcare is hard to come by.
By distributing more health centers in these containers, healthcare will quickly become easily obtainable and the price will become much more fixed.
In comparison to the $3,179 (R45,000) one pays to give birth in a South African hospital, a similar procedure curated in a clinic-in-a-box costs significantly less. This is because the price of building a hospital ($1.05 billion or R 1.5 billion) dwarfs the price of constructing a small clinic ($53,512 or R 757,443) capable of serving a wide variety of ailments–not to mention it only takes a few days to build the clinic and months to place a hospital.
The Clinic-in-a-Box holds promise for the thousands in rural parts of South Africa that healthcare will one day be accessible to the majority of people and not just to those who can afford it.
Because of this, it won an award in the SA Innovation Awards of 2015. The standard model starts at $50,000, but more selections are available and offer different options. However, all come with running water, air conditioning and a toilet—great luxuries for comfort-ability in areas that struggle day-to-day.
https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpg00Borgen Projecthttps://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpgBorgen Project2015-11-17 01:30:172020-06-24 19:46:37Clinic-In-A-Box Helps Bring Healthcare to Africa
There are 795 million undernourished people in the world today. That’s one in nine people who are not getting enough food to lead a healthy life.
Those numbers make hunger and malnutrition the number one risk to health worldwide. That makes malnutrition a greater threat than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Enter the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger today. Each year, the WFP reaches 80 million people with food assistance in around 80 countries.
As an initiative that relies completely on voluntary donations, two managers at WFP, Sebastian Stricker and Bernhard Kowatsh, have created a way to make donating even easier by using technology to fight global hunger.
In fact, thanks to them, donating is right at your fingertips.
That’s because they’ve created an app. It’s called ShareTheMeal.
Currently being hailed as the first of its kind, this free app allows iOS and Android users to fund food rations for as little as $0.50. While a small sum to most in the Western world, in other, poorer parts of the planet, the value can be life-saving. The sum is enough to provide the vital nutrition an individual needs a day.
“The simple act of sharing a meal is how people all over the world come together,” said Ertharin Cousin, the WFP’s executive director, “This digital version of sharing a meal is a tangible way that generation zero hunger can act to end hunger.”
Pilot tests for the app were performed in June 2015 across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Using the technology to fight global hunger, more than 120,000 users provided more than 1.7 million meals for schoolchildren in the southern African country of Lesotho.
The money coming from Thursday’s global launch of ShareTheMeal will initially be used to support 200,000 Syrian refugee children living in the Zaatari camp in Jordan who participate in the WFP’s school meals program.
“By Christmas, we hope to have gathered enough shared meals, to feed these children for one year,” ShareTheMeal’s head of growth Massimiliano Costa says.
Improvements to hunger and living conditions in refugee camps as well as among Syrian communities is widely viewed as crucial to encouraging Syrians not to embark on risky travel to Europe.
If the app does well, the project will expand to other countries and regions. The WFP is already looking at the numbers. With two billion smartphone users worldwide, that statistic outnumbers the hungry children in the world 20 to 1.
The United Nations’ has set the ambitious goal of ending world hunger by 2023. Perhaps ShareTheMeal is the answer.
Think about how much of an issue health care is here in the United States. Then think about how, although not perfect, the majority of us have access to even basic healthcare and the right to go to a hospital if we need care.
In third world countries, the idea of healthcare and regularly scheduled doctors’ visits is almost non-existent. Even where healthcare does exist, there are not enough healthcare workers compared to the ratio of people. It is time to take action in thinking about the effects of poor healthcare and how to improve global health overall.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), close to 60 countries currently have less than 23 health workers for every 10,000 people. Worse yet, 13 developing countries have less than one hospital per million people, a staggering figure that seems impossible but is a reality in these countries. These ratios are expected to get even worse in 2045 when the world’s population is projected to exceed 9 billion. It is clear that the time to implement initiatives to improve global health is now.
Although it is extremely important that there are an adequate number of healthcare workers and doctors in relation to the population that they serve, it is critical to advocate behavioral changes. Diseases and conditions such as HIV, obesity and malnutrition can be fought in part by simply taking the time to educate people on the importance of self-awareness, safety and proper sanitation.
Spending is another component of improving global health. Although the number of pandemic outbreaks such as SARS and Ebola has been increasing, the World Bank projects that less than a third of the $3.4 billion needed to maintain a strong (not excellent) pandemic preparedness system has been committed. Also, according to the World Health Organization, donor countries have only spent $3 billion of the $6 billion needed to maintain the health of the public globally.
In order to improve global health, the WHO sums it up best when it says that the main areas of focus are health systems, non-communicable diseases, communicable diseases, corporate services and preparedness. If the emphasis, time, effort and money can be placed on these areas of health, then the world will be well on its way to improving the global health of the public.
https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpg00Borgen Projecthttps://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpgBorgen Project2015-11-16 06:12:192020-06-24 19:49:58How to Improve Global Health
At the Millennium Summit in 2000, history was made when a record number of world leaders gathered to adopt the U.N. Millennium Declaration, committing nations to cutting extreme poverty in half through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 and eradicate poverty through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Through the agreement, the MDGs target different dimensions of poverty including hunger, disease, insufficient shelter, gender inequality, global education and environmental sustainability.
With an expiration date of December 2015, the achievements made through the MDGs provide evidence that poverty can be eliminated worldwide by 2030.
MDG 1: Cut Extreme Hunger and Poverty in Half
Since 1990, the amount of people living on less than $1.25 per day decreased from 1.9 billion to 836 million in 2015. While extreme poverty was cut in half, extreme hunger narrowly missed the mark, dropping from 23.3 percent to 12.9 percent.
MDG 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
Primary School Enrollment has seen a slight rise, increasing from 83 percent in 2000 to 91 percent in 2015.
MDG 3: Eliminate Gender Disparity in Education and Empower Women
Since 1990, approximately two-thirds of developing countries have achieved gender unity. In Southern Asia, the primary school enrollment ratio favors girls over boys in 2015.
MDG 4: Reduce Child Mortality by Two-Thirds
The child mortality rate decreased from 12.7 million in 1990 to 6 million in 2015. In addition, the measles vaccine compared to 2000 covered almost 10 percent more children worldwide.
MDG 5: Reduce the Maternal Morality Rate by 75 Percent
Compared to 1990, the maternal mortality rate has been cut in half, narrowly missing the 75 percent benchmark.
MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
Since 2000, the number of new HIV infections decreased by 40 percent, dropping from 3.5 million to 2.1 million in 2013.
MDG 7: Increase Environmental Sustainability
In 2010, the goal to increase access to clean water was achieved five years early. Since 1990, 2.6 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water.
MDG 8: Develop an Open Partnership for Development
Overseas development assistance from developed nations to developing countries increased 66 percent. With the expansion of technology, Internet infiltration increased significantly from 6 percent in 2000 to 43 percent in 2015.
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In Eastern Africa, 70 percent of hospital visits are related to contaminated water. This is due to a lack of clean water sources. The majority of people in developing countries depend on water sources like rivers to drink and bathe, but serious illnesses like typhoid fever, dysentery and guinea worm disease are common diagnoses for those who consume dirty water. In fact, diarrhea is the third leading cause of death in Kenya.
Vestergaard, a Swiss global health company, created a water filtration system called LifeStraw to put an end to these water-related infections. LifeStraw is a lightweight, portable filter that uses hollow fiber technology to filter up to 1,000 liters of water. The filter is also chemical-free and does not require any electrical power — instead, it depends on the suction generated by its user.
Water enters the plastic container and flows through narrow fibers under high pressure. These fibers then trap bacteria and other toxins that are flushed out of the water via backwashing. The clean water travels through pores in the walls of these fibers.
With LifeStraw, households in these regions will no longer have to boil contaminated water to make it drinkable. As a result, there will likely be a reduction in indoor pollution and house fires. People will also burn less firewood, which helps lessen deforestation. According to Vestergaard, the use of LifeStraw reduces carbon emissions by nearly three tons per year, per filter.
Of note, luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) invested in LifeStraw in 2013 in support of sustainability. In partnership with the carbon-offset company ClimateCare, the LifeStraw Carbon for Water project was born. This partnership has provided 1,900,000 people in western Kenya with LifeStraw filters.
Within the next few years, this investment will also provide 300,000 Kenyan schoolchildren access to safe water and filtration training programs. Once LifeStraw filters are installed at a school in Kenya, a JLR team will monitor its use once every term for five years. Teachers and students will also complete training to learn about the significance of clean water.
In 2014, the Follow the Liters campaign was created by 80 LifeStraw volunteers to provide schoolchildren with safe water. If a person purchases one LifeStraw water filter, the company will provide a child from the developing world with clean drinking water for an entire year.
Last year, 158,000 African students were provided with a LifeStraw filter and 300 more schools in western Kenya also received filters.
– Kelsey Lay
Sources: Business Fights Poverty, Jaguar Land Rover, LifeStraw, The Examiner Photo:Flickr
https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpg00Borgen Projecthttps://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpgBorgen Project2015-11-15 09:12:192020-06-24 19:51:02LifeStraw Purifiers: Kenyan Schoolchildren with Drinking Water
1.5 million children die from vaccine-preventable diseases annually. To combat these rising numbers, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation created a partnership with organizations to try a new approach and give children living in developing countries access to vaccines.
Since the development of the modern-day vaccine, millions of lives have been saved each year, becoming the most cost-effective health invention ever created.
While progress has been made, one in five children worldwide are not fully protected by the most basic vaccines.
With the help of a $750 million five-year pledge from the Bill & Melinda Foundation, the Global Alliance for Vaccines Immunization (GAVI) was created in January 2000.
The global public-private partnership’s goal is to save children’s lives and improve health through increasing vaccine access to the world’s poorest countries.
Since the inception of the alliance, the Bill & Melinda Foundation have committed $2.5 billion to GAVI.
“Investments in global immunization have yielded an extraordinary return,” said Julian Lob-Levvt, CEO of the GAVI Alliance. “The GAVI Alliance was founded just 10 years ago and has already saved 5 million lives by increasing access to immunization in the world’s poorest countries. The potential to make bigger strides in the coming decade is even more exciting.”
Through the global partnership, GAVI works with the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, and UNICEF to deliver life-saving vaccines to developing countries.
By maximizing existing systems, the GAVI Alliance uses the following organizations so life-saving vaccines reach the poorest developing countries.
WHO: Since GAVI is not present on the ground, it works with WHO regional offices to decide where vaccines are desperately needed.
UNICEF: Using its supply division, UNICEF procures the vaccines while GAVI provides the funding. UNICEF procured $3.38 billion worth of supplies and services in 2014.
World Bank: The financial institution provides insight on supply and demand and plays a key role in innovative financing.
Since 2000, GAVI has contributed to the immunization of 500 million additional children.
Through continued partnerships, vaccines can prevent 264 million illnesses by 2020.
“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” said Bill Gates. “Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives in developing countries. Innovation will make it possible to save more children than ever before.”
Back in 1999, Nigerian farmer Abdullahi Rabiu faced an agonizing reality. An estimated 84 worms, narrow in form and each of them two to three feet in length, had painfully ruptured through his skin. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Rabiu, who eventually recovered from the ordeal, contracted a waterborne parasitic disease called Guinea Worms by drinking contaminated pond water.
It’s a cycle: an infected person seeks relief from the painful rupturing of the worms by entering the water. There, the worms release hundreds of thousands of larvae. The larvae are then eaten by tiny water flies barely visible to the human eye. Finally, people who drink from that pond run the risk of consuming the flies and becoming infected with the worm.
In 1986, an estimated 3.5 million cases of guinea worm were reported across 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Since then, the Carter Center, founded by former President Jimmy Carter, has led an international campaign to eradicate the disease.
And they are winning.
After visiting more than 26,300 villages, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, and training people in health education, the eradication of the guinea worm is not only possible — it’s in sight. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 of this year, only 15 cases were reported across four countries.
“The potential for disease eradication to permanently improve quality of life worldwide is tremendous,” said Dr. Donald Hopkins, vice president for Carter Center health programs. Once a disease that incapacitates people like Rabiu is eradicated, the health of individuals improve and economies benefit from increased productivity.
Eradication of the guinea worm would make it the first human disease to have been wiped out since smallpox in 1980. It stands to be the first disease to be eliminated without a vaccine or medicine.
In the case of guinea worms, the key was as simple as education. People in these communities have learned to filter water, making it safe for drinking. Those who have become infected know not to enter the water.
While it is impossible to predict exactly when guinea worms will be completely eradicated, there is hope to see it gone in the next two to three years at the latest.
Now facing terminal cancer, Jimmy Carter was recently asked what he would like to accomplish before dying. His response: “I would like the last guinea worm to die before I do.”
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been the development foundation for the past 15 years, and as the movement comes to an end, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon describes it as “the most successful anti-poverty movement in history.” At the beginning of the millennium the world leaders gathered at the United Nations to strategize methods for fighting poverty; they created eight goals to guide them in fighting poverty in its many elements. The victories of the MDGs are as follows:
The extreme poverty rate in developing countries was at 47 percent in 1990 and has since dropped to 14 percent in 2015. In those same 25 years the global number of people living in extreme poverty has dropped from 1,926 million to 836 million. And undernourished percentage in developing countries has dropped from 23.3 to 12.9.
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
The number of out-of-school children has dropped by half between 2000 and 2015: 100 million to 57 million. In sub-Saharan African, net enrollment rate has increased by 20 percent from 2000 to 2015. The global 8 percent increase in literacy rates has also narrowed the literacy gap between men and women.
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
In Southern Asia, for every 100 boys enrolled in primary education, 74 girls were enrolled in 1990, and now 103 girls are enrolled for every 100 boys. In 1990 women made up 35 percent of the paid workforce outside the agricultural sector; today they make up 41 percent of said work force.
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
The global number of deaths for children below the age of 5 has dropped from 12.7 million to 6 million between 1990 and 2015. The measles vaccination has prevented 15.6 million deaths between 2000 and 2013.
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Globally, the mortality ration has dropped by 45 percent since 1990 with most of its decline occurring since 2000. Contraception use has increased by 9 percent among women between the ages of 15 to 49.
Goal 6: Combat HI/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
In 2003 0.8 million people with HIV were receiving Antiretroviral Therapy Treatment (ART), and by 2014 13.6 million people with HIV were receiving ART. Nine hundred million insecticide-treated mosquito nets were delivered to malaria prone countries in sub-Saharan Africa between 2004 and 2014.
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Since 1990, 1.9 billion people have gained access to clean, drinking tap water. Improved sanitation is now available to 2.1 billion people.
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Between 2000 and 2014, the official development assistance from developed countries rose from USD $81 billion to USD $135 billion. The global effort of the MDGs has also brought mobile-cellular signal to 95 percent of the world population, and access to Internet has grown from 6 percent to 43 percent between 2000 and 2015.
According to Ban Ki-moon, the MDGs results have taught world leaders lessons that will help with carrying out the Sustainable Development Goals for the next 15 years. He said, “Reflecting on the MDGs and looking ahead to the next 15 years, there is no question that we can deliver on our shared responsibility to end poverty, leave no one behind and create a world of dignity for all.”
https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpg00Borgen Projecthttps://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpgBorgen Project2015-11-14 01:30:592020-06-24 19:35:48Victories of the MDGs
Sierra Leone Declared Ebola-Free
The country recently celebrated the milestone after almost 4,000 people died since the outbreak.
The WHO noted that 42 days have passed since the last confirmed patient was discharged on September 25 of this year. Anders Nordstrom, the Sierra Leone representative for WHO, revealed the positive news.
“WHO commends the government and people of Sierra Leone for the significant achievement of ending this Ebola outbreak,” Nordstrom said.
While the country has reached the 42-day benchmark, it still has to undergo a 90-day surveillance period.
Indeed, reaching the 42-days is a good reason to rejoice. However, it does not mean that Ebola in Sierra Leone is completely eradicated. Neighboring Liberia reached the 42-day goal in May, only to experience new cases before it was declared Ebola-free again.
Still, Sierra Leone remains optimistic with the news WHO has brought forth.
“We have prevailed over an evil virus. We persevered and we have overcome. We must not let down our guard,” said Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma.
The country will continue to take preventative measures to disable potentially new cases. Bodies will still continue to be swabbed and “safe burials will continue for all suspicious cases.”
It seems as though the disease has been prevented from spreading further. However, the people who had contracted the disease have ongoing health issues.
Juliet Spencer is considered by many to be one of the lucky ones. She contracted Ebola while taking care of her husband but was able to beat the virus. While she is happy that she is alive, she is still prevented from accomplishing tasks due to lingering complications.
“I feel good today that I have survived to see this day, witnessing this ceremony,” Spencer said. “My only regret is that I do not have a good health to carry on my business. I am unable to walk, I have joint pains and ear and eye problems.”
The 90-day surveillance period will be sure to test the country. However, the WHO and the people of Sierra Leone are confident that the disease will soon be eradicated. Nordstrom adds that the country could set an example for other countries looking to expunge Ebola.
“We now have a unique opportunity to support Sierra Leone and build a strong and resilient health system ready to detect and respond to the next outbreak of the disease or any other health threat,” Nordstrom said.
– Alyson Atondo
Sources: CNN, ABCNews, The Atlantic
Photo: Wikimedia
Progress in Polio Eradication
The two organizations first came together in 1988, a time when wild poliovirus was endemic in 125 countries and about 350,000 people, primarily young children, were paralyzed by polio annually. Since then, it is estimated that 10 million children globally have been saved from paralysis.
According to global polio surveillance data from November 4, 2015, 51 cases of wild poliovirus have been reported this year. Thirty-eight of those cases occurred in Pakistan and the remaining 13 cases appeared in Afghanistan.
The Initiative’s goal is to ensure a polio-free world for future generations by distributing a polio vaccine to every child.
According to NPR, the oral polio vaccine may go down in history as one of the most powerful public health tools of modern times. The vaccine is cheap, easy to administer and has pushed polio to the brink of extinction.
But, there is a downside to this version of the vaccine. Unlike its predecessor, a vaccine which is administered by injection, the oral version contains live polio virus. Under some circumstances, the virus from the vaccine can spread, mutate and cause the same paralysis it intended to prevent.
This occurs when a child who’s been vaccinated sheds live virus in their stool. Like wild poliovirus, these vaccine-derived strains thrive in places where there’s poor hygiene, particularly when drinking water is contaminated with human sewage.
The number of vaccine-derived polio cases relative to the hundreds of millions of doses of oral polio vaccine administered each year is incredibly low. According to the Initiative, to date this year, only 16 cases of vaccine-derived polio have been reported globally.
But, that’s almost 11 percent of all cases of polio globally.
Last month, the WHO announced the beginning of a program to phase out oral polio and switch to a safer oral vaccine by April 2016 that contains no live virus.
“The idea of the polio eradication is…to eradicate viruses whether they’re in vaccines or in the environment,” says Elias Durry, emergency advisor on polio for the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region. “To get rid of the virus we have to also remove the vaccine that contains the virus.”
Eventually, the rest of the oral polio vaccine used around the globe will be withdrawn from circulation and the final vials destroyed.
It is imperative that we make this final push towards eradication a top priority.
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director at the Center for Disease Control, explains, “If we fail to get over the finish line, we will need to continue expensive control measures for the indefinite future . . . More importantly, without eradication, a resurgence of polio could paralyze more than 200,000 thousand children worldwide every year within a decade.”
– Kara Buckley
Sources: CDC, Gates Foundation, NPR, Global Polio Eradication Initiative, WHO
Photo: Flickr
Clinic-In-A-Box Helps Bring Healthcare to Africa
Clinic-in-a-box (CiB) is an innovative solution to providing facilities with long-term health care to impoverished regions of South Africa and beyond. Manufactured in South Africa, it only takes four to six weeks for a CiB to turn up, and as promised, shipping is free.
The inexpensive design adapts the storage capacity of a freight container to fold out and erect a clinic whose size and shape is determined by the consumer’s needs.
The container that holds all of the equipment is recycled from old freight carriers. It is prefabricated before shipping, and by the time it reaches its destination it will only take four days until the completed product emerges, equipped with a unique selection of technology aimed at providing exactly what the region requires.
The reason clinic-in-a-box is so ingenious is not only because of its mobility but also due to its application to the health system in rural parts of Africa.
They will help to bring sustainable healthcare to those who lack the means to do so, seeing as the upkeep of the clinic can be met by a small community. So once a clinic has been established, it relies on the people to properly maintain it.
The price of visiting one of these clinics is $10-$15 (R77-R96) which is still not cheap enough for most impoverished Africans. However, the cost is significantly lower than state health care, which only covers about 20 percent in South Africa, the home of CiBs.
This inequality of health provisions brings about the issues of affordable and accessible health care that South Africa faces today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGHnr4DMwU8
In South Africa alone there is only one doctor per 4,000 people; this is because nearly 73 percent of the 165,000 qualified health practitioners work in the private sector, which is rather expensive for the 80 percent of people who live in areas where affordable healthcare is hard to come by.
By distributing more health centers in these containers, healthcare will quickly become easily obtainable and the price will become much more fixed.
In comparison to the $3,179 (R45,000) one pays to give birth in a South African hospital, a similar procedure curated in a clinic-in-a-box costs significantly less. This is because the price of building a hospital ($1.05 billion or R 1.5 billion) dwarfs the price of constructing a small clinic ($53,512 or R 757,443) capable of serving a wide variety of ailments–not to mention it only takes a few days to build the clinic and months to place a hospital.
The Clinic-in-a-Box holds promise for the thousands in rural parts of South Africa that healthcare will one day be accessible to the majority of people and not just to those who can afford it.
Because of this, it won an award in the SA Innovation Awards of 2015. The standard model starts at $50,000, but more selections are available and offer different options. However, all come with running water, air conditioning and a toilet—great luxuries for comfort-ability in areas that struggle day-to-day.
– Emilio Rivera
Sources: South Africa, Bus-Ex, SA Private Hospitals, PFSCM 1, PFSCM 2
Photo: Flickr
ShareTheMeal App Uses Technology to Fight Global Hunger
Those numbers make hunger and malnutrition the number one risk to health worldwide. That makes malnutrition a greater threat than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Enter the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger today. Each year, the WFP reaches 80 million people with food assistance in around 80 countries.
As an initiative that relies completely on voluntary donations, two managers at WFP, Sebastian Stricker and Bernhard Kowatsh, have created a way to make donating even easier by using technology to fight global hunger.
In fact, thanks to them, donating is right at your fingertips.
That’s because they’ve created an app. It’s called ShareTheMeal.
Currently being hailed as the first of its kind, this free app allows iOS and Android users to fund food rations for as little as $0.50. While a small sum to most in the Western world, in other, poorer parts of the planet, the value can be life-saving. The sum is enough to provide the vital nutrition an individual needs a day.
“The simple act of sharing a meal is how people all over the world come together,” said Ertharin Cousin, the WFP’s executive director, “This digital version of sharing a meal is a tangible way that generation zero hunger can act to end hunger.”
Pilot tests for the app were performed in June 2015 across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Using the technology to fight global hunger, more than 120,000 users provided more than 1.7 million meals for schoolchildren in the southern African country of Lesotho.
The money coming from Thursday’s global launch of ShareTheMeal will initially be used to support 200,000 Syrian refugee children living in the Zaatari camp in Jordan who participate in the WFP’s school meals program.
“By Christmas, we hope to have gathered enough shared meals, to feed these children for one year,” ShareTheMeal’s head of growth Massimiliano Costa says.
Improvements to hunger and living conditions in refugee camps as well as among Syrian communities is widely viewed as crucial to encouraging Syrians not to embark on risky travel to Europe.
If the app does well, the project will expand to other countries and regions. The WFP is already looking at the numbers. With two billion smartphone users worldwide, that statistic outnumbers the hungry children in the world 20 to 1.
The United Nations’ has set the ambitious goal of ending world hunger by 2023. Perhaps ShareTheMeal is the answer.
– Kara Buckley
Sources: ShareTheMeal, Forbes, Reuters, The Guardian Photo: Pixabay
How to Improve Global Health
Think about how much of an issue health care is here in the United States. Then think about how, although not perfect, the majority of us have access to even basic healthcare and the right to go to a hospital if we need care.
In third world countries, the idea of healthcare and regularly scheduled doctors’ visits is almost non-existent. Even where healthcare does exist, there are not enough healthcare workers compared to the ratio of people. It is time to take action in thinking about the effects of poor healthcare and how to improve global health overall.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), close to 60 countries currently have less than 23 health workers for every 10,000 people. Worse yet, 13 developing countries have less than one hospital per million people, a staggering figure that seems impossible but is a reality in these countries. These ratios are expected to get even worse in 2045 when the world’s population is projected to exceed 9 billion. It is clear that the time to implement initiatives to improve global health is now.
Although it is extremely important that there are an adequate number of healthcare workers and doctors in relation to the population that they serve, it is critical to advocate behavioral changes. Diseases and conditions such as HIV, obesity and malnutrition can be fought in part by simply taking the time to educate people on the importance of self-awareness, safety and proper sanitation.
Spending is another component of improving global health. Although the number of pandemic outbreaks such as SARS and Ebola has been increasing, the World Bank projects that less than a third of the $3.4 billion needed to maintain a strong (not excellent) pandemic preparedness system has been committed. Also, according to the World Health Organization, donor countries have only spent $3 billion of the $6 billion needed to maintain the health of the public globally.
In order to improve global health, the WHO sums it up best when it says that the main areas of focus are health systems, non-communicable diseases, communicable diseases, corporate services and preparedness. If the emphasis, time, effort and money can be placed on these areas of health, then the world will be well on its way to improving the global health of the public.
– Drusilla Gibbs
Sources: Time, Clinton Foundation, WHO, APA
Photo: Global Health
MDGs: What They Achieved After 15 Years
Through the agreement, the MDGs target different dimensions of poverty including hunger, disease, insufficient shelter, gender inequality, global education and environmental sustainability.
With an expiration date of December 2015, the achievements made through the MDGs provide evidence that poverty can be eliminated worldwide by 2030.
MDG 1: Cut Extreme Hunger and Poverty in Half
Since 1990, the amount of people living on less than $1.25 per day decreased from 1.9 billion to 836 million in 2015. While extreme poverty was cut in half, extreme hunger narrowly missed the mark, dropping from 23.3 percent to 12.9 percent.
MDG 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
Primary School Enrollment has seen a slight rise, increasing from 83 percent in 2000 to 91 percent in 2015.
MDG 3: Eliminate Gender Disparity in Education and Empower Women
Since 1990, approximately two-thirds of developing countries have achieved gender unity. In Southern Asia, the primary school enrollment ratio favors girls over boys in 2015.
MDG 4: Reduce Child Mortality by Two-Thirds
The child mortality rate decreased from 12.7 million in 1990 to 6 million in 2015. In addition, the measles vaccine compared to 2000 covered almost 10 percent more children worldwide.
MDG 5: Reduce the Maternal Morality Rate by 75 Percent
Compared to 1990, the maternal mortality rate has been cut in half, narrowly missing the 75 percent benchmark.
MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
Since 2000, the number of new HIV infections decreased by 40 percent, dropping from 3.5 million to 2.1 million in 2013.
MDG 7: Increase Environmental Sustainability
In 2010, the goal to increase access to clean water was achieved five years early. Since 1990, 2.6 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water.
MDG 8: Develop an Open Partnership for Development
Overseas development assistance from developed nations to developing countries increased 66 percent. With the expansion of technology, Internet infiltration increased significantly from 6 percent in 2000 to 43 percent in 2015.
– Alexandra Korman
Sources: The Guardian
Photo: NaijaLog
LifeStraw Purifiers: Kenyan Schoolchildren with Drinking Water
Vestergaard, a Swiss global health company, created a water filtration system called LifeStraw to put an end to these water-related infections. LifeStraw is a lightweight, portable filter that uses hollow fiber technology to filter up to 1,000 liters of water. The filter is also chemical-free and does not require any electrical power — instead, it depends on the suction generated by its user.
Water enters the plastic container and flows through narrow fibers under high pressure. These fibers then trap bacteria and other toxins that are flushed out of the water via backwashing. The clean water travels through pores in the walls of these fibers.
With LifeStraw, households in these regions will no longer have to boil contaminated water to make it drinkable. As a result, there will likely be a reduction in indoor pollution and house fires. People will also burn less firewood, which helps lessen deforestation. According to Vestergaard, the use of LifeStraw reduces carbon emissions by nearly three tons per year, per filter.
Of note, luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) invested in LifeStraw in 2013 in support of sustainability. In partnership with the carbon-offset company ClimateCare, the LifeStraw Carbon for Water project was born. This partnership has provided 1,900,000 people in western Kenya with LifeStraw filters.
Within the next few years, this investment will also provide 300,000 Kenyan schoolchildren access to safe water and filtration training programs. Once LifeStraw filters are installed at a school in Kenya, a JLR team will monitor its use once every term for five years. Teachers and students will also complete training to learn about the significance of clean water.
In 2014, the Follow the Liters campaign was created by 80 LifeStraw volunteers to provide schoolchildren with safe water. If a person purchases one LifeStraw water filter, the company will provide a child from the developing world with clean drinking water for an entire year.
Last year, 158,000 African students were provided with a LifeStraw filter and 300 more schools in western Kenya also received filters.
– Kelsey Lay
Sources: Business Fights Poverty, Jaguar Land Rover, LifeStraw, The Examiner
Photo: Flickr
Company Partnerships Aim To Increase Access to Vaccines
Since the development of the modern-day vaccine, millions of lives have been saved each year, becoming the most cost-effective health invention ever created.
While progress has been made, one in five children worldwide are not fully protected by the most basic vaccines.
With the help of a $750 million five-year pledge from the Bill & Melinda Foundation, the Global Alliance for Vaccines Immunization (GAVI) was created in January 2000.
The global public-private partnership’s goal is to save children’s lives and improve health through increasing vaccine access to the world’s poorest countries.
Since the inception of the alliance, the Bill & Melinda Foundation have committed $2.5 billion to GAVI.
“Investments in global immunization have yielded an extraordinary return,” said Julian Lob-Levvt, CEO of the GAVI Alliance. “The GAVI Alliance was founded just 10 years ago and has already saved 5 million lives by increasing access to immunization in the world’s poorest countries. The potential to make bigger strides in the coming decade is even more exciting.”
Through the global partnership, GAVI works with the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, and UNICEF to deliver life-saving vaccines to developing countries.
By maximizing existing systems, the GAVI Alliance uses the following organizations so life-saving vaccines reach the poorest developing countries.
WHO: Since GAVI is not present on the ground, it works with WHO regional offices to decide where vaccines are desperately needed.
UNICEF: Using its supply division, UNICEF procures the vaccines while GAVI provides the funding. UNICEF procured $3.38 billion worth of supplies and services in 2014.
World Bank: The financial institution provides insight on supply and demand and plays a key role in innovative financing.
Since 2000, GAVI has contributed to the immunization of 500 million additional children.
Through continued partnerships, vaccines can prevent 264 million illnesses by 2020.
“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” said Bill Gates. “Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives in developing countries. Innovation will make it possible to save more children than ever before.”
– Alexandra Korman
Sources: Gates Foundation 1, Gates Foundation 2, Gavi
Photo: Flickr
Eradicating the Guinea Worm Disease
Rabiu, who eventually recovered from the ordeal, contracted a waterborne parasitic disease called Guinea Worms by drinking contaminated pond water.
It’s a cycle: an infected person seeks relief from the painful rupturing of the worms by entering the water. There, the worms release hundreds of thousands of larvae. The larvae are then eaten by tiny water flies barely visible to the human eye. Finally, people who drink from that pond run the risk of consuming the flies and becoming infected with the worm.
In 1986, an estimated 3.5 million cases of guinea worm were reported across 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Since then, the Carter Center, founded by former President Jimmy Carter, has led an international campaign to eradicate the disease.
And they are winning.
After visiting more than 26,300 villages, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, and training people in health education, the eradication of the guinea worm is not only possible — it’s in sight. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 of this year, only 15 cases were reported across four countries.
“The potential for disease eradication to permanently improve quality of life worldwide is tremendous,” said Dr. Donald Hopkins, vice president for Carter Center health programs. Once a disease that incapacitates people like Rabiu is eradicated, the health of individuals improve and economies benefit from increased productivity.
Eradication of the guinea worm would make it the first human disease to have been wiped out since smallpox in 1980. It stands to be the first disease to be eliminated without a vaccine or medicine.
In the case of guinea worms, the key was as simple as education. People in these communities have learned to filter water, making it safe for drinking. Those who have become infected know not to enter the water.
While it is impossible to predict exactly when guinea worms will be completely eradicated, there is hope to see it gone in the next two to three years at the latest.
Now facing terminal cancer, Jimmy Carter was recently asked what he would like to accomplish before dying. His response: “I would like the last guinea worm to die before I do.”
– Kara Buckley
Sources: The Carter Center 1, BBC 1, BBC 2, The Carter Center 2, The Carter Center 3
Photo: CNN
Victories of the MDGs
Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
The extreme poverty rate in developing countries was at 47 percent in 1990 and has since dropped to 14 percent in 2015. In those same 25 years the global number of people living in extreme poverty has dropped from 1,926 million to 836 million. And undernourished percentage in developing countries has dropped from 23.3 to 12.9.
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
The number of out-of-school children has dropped by half between 2000 and 2015: 100 million to 57 million. In sub-Saharan African, net enrollment rate has increased by 20 percent from 2000 to 2015. The global 8 percent increase in literacy rates has also narrowed the literacy gap between men and women.
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
In Southern Asia, for every 100 boys enrolled in primary education, 74 girls were enrolled in 1990, and now 103 girls are enrolled for every 100 boys. In 1990 women made up 35 percent of the paid workforce outside the agricultural sector; today they make up 41 percent of said work force.
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
The global number of deaths for children below the age of 5 has dropped from 12.7 million to 6 million between 1990 and 2015. The measles vaccination has prevented 15.6 million deaths between 2000 and 2013.
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Globally, the mortality ration has dropped by 45 percent since 1990 with most of its decline occurring since 2000. Contraception use has increased by 9 percent among women between the ages of 15 to 49.
Goal 6: Combat HI/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
In 2003 0.8 million people with HIV were receiving Antiretroviral Therapy Treatment (ART), and by 2014 13.6 million people with HIV were receiving ART. Nine hundred million insecticide-treated mosquito nets were delivered to malaria prone countries in sub-Saharan Africa between 2004 and 2014.
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Since 1990, 1.9 billion people have gained access to clean, drinking tap water. Improved sanitation is now available to 2.1 billion people.
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Between 2000 and 2014, the official development assistance from developed countries rose from USD $81 billion to USD $135 billion. The global effort of the MDGs has also brought mobile-cellular signal to 95 percent of the world population, and access to Internet has grown from 6 percent to 43 percent between 2000 and 2015.
According to Ban Ki-moon, the MDGs results have taught world leaders lessons that will help with carrying out the Sustainable Development Goals for the next 15 years. He said, “Reflecting on the MDGs and looking ahead to the next 15 years, there is no question that we can deliver on our shared responsibility to end poverty, leave no one behind and create a world of dignity for all.”
– Marie Helene Ngom
Sources: UN, The Guardian
Photo: Pixabay, Wikipedia