The Global Health Council Advances International Health Programs

On August 2018, The Global Health Council welcomed the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Extension Act of 2018 by the House of Representatives. This legislation reauthorizes PEPFAR for 5 years and is an example of bipartisan support for ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic and was sponsored by Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA), Karen Bass (D-CA), Ed Royce (R-CA), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and Eliot Engel (D-NY).

Since 2003, PEPFAR has increased the likelihood of an AIDS-free world by providing more than 13.3 million people around the world with HIV treatments. This is but one example of The Global Health Council’s efforts to work with policymakers and community stakeholders to improve health worldwide.

What Is The Global Health Council?

Global Health Council is a nonprofit membership organization in The U.S. that identifies priority global health problems and reports them to an international and domestic audience. Formed in 1972 and originally called The National Council for International Health, The Global Health Council’s primary intention is to ensure that all who strive to improve global health have the resources they need to do so. The initiatives and programs for which The Global Health Council advocates are funded primarily through membership dues, grants, and sponsorship funding.

Danielle Heiberg, Senior Manager, Policy & Advocacy of Global Health Council told The Borgen Project that The Global Health Council contributes to the implementation of health programs worldwide by supporting its members, who, in turn, work to implement the necessary programs. “Specifically, GHC provides its members with key resources, advocates on their behalf and amplifies their work through its varied communications channels,” Heiberg told The Borgen Project.

Global Health Council is a membership-oriented organization that offers key stakeholders a platform for coordinated global health advocacy. Membership is offered to global health organizations and to individual global health professionals. Members receive important benefits, such as “high-level delegations and networking opportunities,” according to Heiberg. By creating a platform for the unification of global health issues and using the power of collaboration and collective action, The Global Health Council uses advocacy to advance international health programs and policies, such as PEPFAR.

What Does The Global Health Council Do?

Since its inception, The Global Health Council has worked towards advocating for strong global health policies, organizing and mobilizing stakeholders across geographic regions and improving health worldwide by building support. Although The Global Health Council represents a range of global health issues, according to Heiberg, it makes global health security, global health financing, and health systems strengthening” a priority.

In addition to its current initiatives, The Global Health Council’s efforts to advance global healthcare programs are noted in its organized calendar of events. The Global Health Council promotes awareness of global health issues by sharing news via social media, a bi-weekly newsletter, its website and by hosting events. “GHC also meets with U.S. Congressional staff and other government offices to advocate for sound policy and investments,” Heiberg said.

Most recently, The Global Health Council has worked with the global health community to ensure there are U.S. investments going toward global health initiatives to have the maximum impact. The organization intends to implement and maintain a successful global health program by publishing join global health recommendations, promoting member or partner grassroots campaigns and consolidating global health funding.

“With the current administration placing less of an emphasis on foreign assistance, demonstrating how these investments and policies not only save lives around the world but also benefit Americans is crucial,” stated Heiberg. If organizations such as the Global Health Council continue to advocate for international health programs and policies, like PEPFAR, there is hope for improved health worldwide.

– Kara Roberts
Photo: Flickr

Transparent Hands: Providing Life-Saving Healthcare in Pakistan

Poverty contributes to poor health and prevents people from access to treatment, which traps the world’s poor in a vicious cycle. The inverse is true as well. Poor health often forces people to purchase expensive care and medications, which over time reduces spending money on anything other than healthcare. Additionally, poor health can limit a person’s ability to work and earn an income, which, combined with the cost of healthcare, can lead to poverty. This has been the case with healthcare in Pakistan.

A study by the World Bank reported that 100 million people worldwide are forced to survive on merely $1.90 a day because of healthcare expenses for themselves or a family member. This problem is exacerbated in developing countries where healthcare services are underfunded and understaffed. Millions of families are being pushed into poverty for less than ideal care. Poverty is both a cause and consequence of poor health, especially in developing countries, which makes finding a solution crucial to ending the cycle of poverty caused by poor health. Affordable and accessible healthcare in Pakistan can help end this cycle.

Healthcare in Pakistan

Pakistan is one of the developing countries searching for a way to alleviate poverty for its citizens. Healthcare in Pakistan needs a great deal of improvement. In June 2016, the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform found that 39 percent of the country lived in poverty. While poverty rates in the country are declining, there are still over 70 million Pakistanis living on less than $2 a day.  The majority of families living on $2 a day do not have the resources to afford expensive life-saving treatment.

The problem is compounded by the lack of adequate care for the families that can afford health expenses. Less than 3 percent of Pakistan’s domestic budget is targeted towards healthcare, which has impeded medical research and infrastructure from flourishing. The public Pakistani healthcare system has a current backlog of more than 2 million people who are waiting to get surgery due to this lack of infrastructure and funding. Affordable and accessible healthcare is almost nonexistent for poor Pakistanis. This has motivated several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) within Pakistan to work to improve health care and make it more affordable.

Transparent Hands

One of the NGOs in Pakistan is Transparent Hands.  Transparent Hands seeks to make life-saving surgery more affordable and accessible for poor Pakistanis by crowdfunding expensive surgeries and building medical camps where patients can receive these surgeries. Currently, the organization has performed 342 surgeries, spent over $350,000 and developed 25 medical camps that have served 8133 patients. Each of these surgeries has had a life-changing impact on different poor Pakistani families.

A representative for Transparent Hands told The Borgen Project that “most of the patients who reach us suffer from serious health conditions due to which they are unable to even perform their household chores. After they undergo surgical treatment, not only do they become active again, they also start working and earning for their family.”

As an example, they shared the story of a patient who actualized this incredible recovery process. “There was a patient who was unable to sit and walk due to Ankylosing Spondylitis. He was dependent on his family for every little need. After the surgery, he is not only able to walk and sit, but he has also started working and is now an independent person.” This alone shows how proper access to healthcare could have a positive impact on the economy.

Affordable and accessible surgery can change someone’s life for the better. It is crucial to bolster the efforts of organizations like Transparent Hands in order to expand their impact throughout the country. Transparent Hands plans to eventually expand their operations from the province of Punjab to all provinces of Pakistan. Affordable and accessible healthcare in Pakistan will help 70 million Pakistanis escape the devastating cycle of poverty and poor health.

– Anand Tayal
Photo: Flickr

A Life-Changing Partnership for Cleft Lip and Palate Surgeries

Each year, more than 200,000 children in developing countries are born with a cleft lip or palate. It is the leading birth defect in nearly all developing countries. A cleft lip or palate may lead to premature death due to its effect on a person’s ability to eat, speak and even breathe properly. Many of these children are unable to lead normal lives because they often face discrimination in terms of access to education and job opportunities later in life.

The good news is that it only takes 45 minutes to surgically fix a cleft lip or palate, and this simple fix lasts a lifetime.

A Life-Changing Partnership

On July 19, Smile Train, an international children’s charity, and GSK Consumer Healthcare, a world leader in oral health care, announced a 5-year partnership to bring free cleft lip and palate surgeries and care to children around the world. With GSK providing funding and scientific expertise and Smile Train continuing their legacy of life-changing free care, this partnership has the potential to assist the wellbeing of both individual children and their communities.

Smile Train works using a sustainable model of education, training in locations across the globe. Since their inception in 1999, the charity has been responsible for more than one million cleft lip and palate surgeries and has left stronger, more capable communities in their wake. Smile Train is dedicated to empowering local medical professionals to create change for those around them, such as the ability to provide a better life for a child in just 45 minutes. However, Smile Train’s care continues after this life-changing surgery by providing orthodontic care and, in many locations, speech therapy to assist in the transition.

While the surgery itself costs around $250 USD, Smile Train, and now GSK, pays the bill for all patients. The communities themselves also benefit through Smile Train and GSK’s partnership; the education and training Smile Train provides helps communities continue their progress in creating a healthier world, which benefits the economy as a whole.  Due to an increase in patients’ economic prospects, local communities may benefit up to $42,000 per individual who undergoes this surgery.

Local and Global Benefits

In addition to local benefits, there is a connection between basic surgeries such as cleft lip or palate surgery and an economic boost on a global scale. One study shows that Smile Train’s one million new smiles added roughly $3 billion USD to the global economy between 2001 and 2011.

By providing free surgeries to children with cleft lips and palates, Smile Train and GSK are providing opportunities for education, socialization, jobs and, most importantly, for a healthy life. In a study on the economic benefits of cleft lip and palate surgeries provided by Smile Train over the past 11 years in 84 developing countries, it was determined that cleft lip and palate surgical programs could contribute up to $20.7 billion USD. The study’s author, Daniel Scott Corlew, states that the “expansion of surgical capacity in the developing world is of significant economic and health value and should be a priority in global health efforts.”

A Better Future for Children

One patient has already seen the benefits of free cleft lip and palate surgery and care provided by the Smile Train and GSK Consumer Healthcare partnership. Eight-month-old Jaya, from Chennai, India, was the first child to undergo a GSK-funded surgery. Her first surgery was successful, and she has one final surgery scheduled within the next few months to completely correct her cleft lip and palate. Jaya is just one example of the lives these surgeries will change. 

This five-year partnership will enable Smile Train and GSK Consumer Healthcare to provide life-changing cleft lip and palate surgeries and care to children of the developing world, changing lives both locally and globally.

– Anna Lally
Photo: Flickr

The Significance of Cuts to Global Healthcare Funding

President Trump’s budget request for the fiscal year of 2018 includes drastic cuts — 32 percent — from foreign aid. The drop of 4.6 billion in humanitarian assistance and global health spending comes along with a call for “the world to pay their fair share” in terms of global healthcare funding.

While the U.S. did contribute nearly one-third of the global spending on Development Assistance for Health in 2016, foreign aid makes up less than 1 percent of the national budget; that same year it was only 0.22 percent.  Looking at countries’ spending as a percentage of gross national income, the U.S. ranks 23^rd for foreign aid and healthcare funding.

What Would Cutting Aid Mean?

Cutting foreign aid would lead to:

• Less disease surveillance
• Decreased diagnostic testing and vaccines
• A shortage of research
• Less life-saving medications
• Fewer healthcare facilities
• Instability
• Decreased economic productivity
• More deaths from curable or treatable diseases
• Mitigated interest from local governments
• Increased risk of domestic disease
• Diminished soft power and global influence

The Brookings Institute forecasts that the domestic cut to foreign aid would drop healthcare funding from 39.2 to 28.8 billion, marking the lowest American investment in the last decade.

How Does Foreign Aid Help Global Healthcare?

Since pathogens such as zika, influenza, and Ebola are prone to spread across borders, aid cuts threaten the health of U.S. citizens. The Ebola breakout killed over 11,000 people; an additional 21,000 died due to a reduction in access to healthcare services.

Investment in surveillance programs greatly reduces the risk of a pandemic and eliminates the spending that an outbreak necessitates. The entire Ebola outbreak cost a total of $3.6 billion — $2.3 billion of which came from the U.S.

Foreign investment also inspires a response from local governments and organizations. By prioritizing health, global support helps to foster expectations that governments should do the same. Funding for HIV/AIDS research, testing and education have resulted in every African country possessing a national AIDS strategy and commission. Between 2011 and 2015, African countries increased their own funding by 150 percent.

How Does Promoting Healthcare Help the World?

Supplying vaccinations promotes prevention and may lead to a complete eradication of deadly diseases. Every dollar invested in childhood immunizations begets $44 in economic benefits, which includes saving money that families lose when a child is sick and the parent is unable to work.

Global healthcare funding and other types of humanitarian spending tend to increase a nation’s soft power — supporting basic human rights and humanitarian causes generally garner influence and respect. In aiding global healthcare funding, the U.S. is able to look out for foreign policy priorities, address national security concerns, and bolster global economic productivity and development.

A healthy individual will become a more productive member of society at large than his/her sick or dead peer; health is a direct determinant for economic stability.

Waves of Improvement

Bill and Melinda Gates sum up the importance of global healthcare funding in saying: “By preventing the spread of disease, we save lives in other countries and at home. By stimulating economic development, we open new markets for our country’s goods. By making conflict less likely, we advance our own national security. And by lifting up the poorest, we express the highest values of our nations.”

Global healthcare funding relates to each point, and thereby creates waves outside of the medical sector.

– Jessie Serody
Photo: Flickr

Top 10 Causes of Death in Guyana

In Guyana, the life expectancy is anywhere from 64 to 69 years-old. However, the probability of death occurring before the age of 60 is much higher due to a number of health issues affecting the people of Guyana every day. The World Health Organization and The Pan American Health Organization have made substantial progress in lowering fatality rates caused by communicable disease and have since shifted focus to more chronic conditions. These are the top 10 causes of death in Guyana as listed by the HealthData.

10 Causes of Death in Guyana

1. Ischemic/ Coronary heart disease (CHD) – CHD is characterized by narrowed arteries that disrupt the flow of blood and oxygen to the heart leading to heart attacks. This disease is caused by poor health habits such as drinking, smoking and inactivity. In Guyana, coronary diseases make up 32 percent of all deaths. To combat this issue, The Public Health Ministry of Guyana, The Canadian High Commission and Guyana Program for Advanced Cardiac Care are using PSAs to educate the population.
2. Cerebrovascular disease (Stroke) – Strokes are attacks on the brain because oxygen and nutrients can’t reach the brain, which leads to the death of brain cells. The most common way to prevent a stroke is by adopting healthy dietary habits such as not smoking, exercising regularly and eating a predominantly vegetarian diet. A stroke doesn’t always result in death, but it can still cause a number of physical problems that require the availability of rehabilitation treatments.
3. Diabetes Mellitus – In 2017, there were 52,400 cases of diabetes in Guyana, putting the prevalence of this disease at about 11.3 percent. Those most affected by diabetes are individuals between the ages of 45 and over. One strategy that has been taken to reduce the number of patients getting diabetes is the introduction of a tax on sugary beverages.
4. Lower Respiratory Infection – According to The Guyana Budget & Policy Institute, respiratory infections make up for 31 percent of all child deaths between the ages of 0-1 in Guyana. Lower respiratory infections like pneumonia and bronchiolitis are the result of poor living conditions such as lack of hygiene, inaccessibility of clean water or sanitation as well as contact with unvaccinated individuals, which is common in Guyana.
5. Self-harm/Suicide – Guyana has the third highest suicide rate in the world. In Guyana, the rate is 29 suicides per 100,000 deaths. It is also the second leading cause of death for youths between the ages of 15 and 24. Organizations like The National Suicide Prevention Plan and The Suicide Hotline are making efforts to improve mental health services, opening lines of communication and raising awareness about related factors such as alcohol abuse and mental health issues that can lead to suicidal thoughts.
6. Hypertensive Heart Diseases – These are conditions that are caused most often by high blood pressure and include conditions such as heart failure, coronary artery disease and thickening of the heart muscle. According to an assessment study in Charleston, Guyana, hypertension is the major cause of death for individuals 45-64 years old. In the study, it was shown that 7 of the 22 subjects, who were between the ages of 27 and 78, had high blood pressure readings and benefited from receiving medication. Certain cases of hypertension can be greatly reduced through long-term efforts. Creating awareness through education such as seminars and workshops and making more heart-healthy foods can contribute to the reduction of these conditions.
7. HIV/AIDS – In 2016, it was reported that 8,500 people were living with HIV. Almost 100 of those infected were children who had contracted it from their mother. To combat this, Guyana has received more financial support, which allowed for the development of treatment sites and more resources for Voluntary Counselling and Testing clinics. As a result, the availability of antiretroviral drugs had increased to 83.5 percent in 2008, and the prevalence of HIV/AIDS had decreased to 1.1 percent in 2011.
8. Chronic Kidney Disease – This is on the list as one of the causes of death in Guyana because of associated costs. Screening and identification are insufficient to detect chronic kidney disease. As such, many Guyanese people end up being checked into emergency rooms for kidney failure. The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation is able to provide transplants at no cost to patients, but patients have to pay the cost of cross-matching tests to find a suitable donor. These tests are currently done in the U.S. and cost least $1 million. In order to avoid kidney failure, it has been recommended to drink sufficient amounts of water and avoid the consumption of large amounts of alcohol.
9. Road Injuries – According to World Health Rankings, road injuries have accounted for 2.05 percent of all deaths in Guyana. Furthermore, survivors of road accidents are left disabled and, therefore, can’t work, which creates financial instability. The estimated cost of care for accident victims is $100 million. Identified major factors include unlit roads, inexistence of sidewalks and bad driving habits.
10. Interpersonal Violence – Guyanese people are encouraged to learn how to protect themselves and to seek help from authorities, especially since the police force has undergone a number of reforms such as modernization and more detailed instructions on how to deal with violence. The highest form of violence in Guyana is domestic violence towards women. The First Lady revealed that domestic partner violence has risen from 74.8 percent to 89 percent in just 6 years. As a result, she is increasing efforts to conduct research to find and address the root cause of this violence. She is also calling to educate and empower women in regions of Guyana where domestic violence is high. She is planning to enact The U.K. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security to accomplish these goals.

Despite the efforts made to decrease communicable diseases, there still remains a number of conditions that are in need of attention since they continue to claim the lives of many Guyanese people. The goal, therefore, is to achieve higher life expectancy through the elimination of these non-communicable diseases as well as education and awareness of health risks due to violence, mental health issues, unsafe road conditions and preventable illness.

– Stephanie Singh
Photo: Flickr