Archive for category: Global Health

Information and stories about global health.

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Biosecurity and Global Health

The spread of infectious diseases is not only a threat to global health, but also to global security.

In recent years, diseases such as mad cow disease, avian flu, antibiotic-resistance tuberculosis and  antibiotic-resistant malaria have spread around the world. In a global age, the spread of disease becomes very easy. Eradicating infectious diseases and establishing effective ways to combat their spread is becoming important to national security.

In February of this year, the President Obama began the Global Health Security Agenda. Led by the United States, this agenda is a collaboration of 30 countries that is seeking to establish a world that is not threatened by the spread of infectious diseases.

In order to reach the goal, the Agenda  seeks to implement better systems of prevention, detection and response for infectious diseases around the world.

As part of prevention, the Agenda is creating laboratories around the world that are able to identify antimicrobial-resistant organisms, enhance biosecurity and biosafety, encourage the elimination of diseases spreading from animals to humans and improve access to vaccinations.

The Agenda is improving detection through improved biosurveilance and diagnostic tests and is also funding the placement of epidemiologists around the world.

In addition, the Agenda is working to set in place a coordinated response to any threats of infectious disease outbreaks.
Most of the efforts that organizations, such as the World Health Organization, are involved with laboratory practices. By providing safe and secure laboratories, much of the spread of infectious diseases is reduced. In addition, through increased training and education, many of the threats can be reduced.

Although biosecurity is often not a focus of national security, diseases can eradicate the human population as effectively as man-made weapons. By working to improve the resources available as well as improve worldwide practices of prevention, detection and response, much of the biosecurity risk can be eliminated.

– Lily Tyson

Sources: World Health Organization 1, World Health Organization 2
Photo: Science Media Centre

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First 28 Days of Life

28 days of life
The first 28 days of life are the most fragile. Because newborns are especially delicate, many child deaths happen within the first 28 days of life. In 2007, out of 9.2 million infant deaths, 40 percent of the deaths were during the newborn stage.

Over half of child deaths occur during the newborn stage in developing countries, as most babies only live a few days after birth. Some of the main causes of early death are serious infections, prematurity, birth asphyxia (a condition arising when the body is deprived of oxygen, causing unconsciousness or death from suffocation) and congenital malformations.

Another major cause of early death is the health of the mother during pregnancy. Some specific examples that lead to early deaths in developing countries are a lack of attention to maternal health because they do not have care from proper skilled caretakers, the lack of knowledge about infant illnesses and the absence of proper birthing facilities.

A committee has been developed specifically for newborn health and development and aims to prevent newborn deaths. This committee is called Every Newborn: an action plan to end preventable deaths. The main partners involved in this community are WHO and UNICEF. Every Newborn (ENAP) is also working with governments who have recently made commitments to look into this issue and come up with solutions. ENAP works to develop solutions. Solutions range  from a wide variety of aid to end preventable deaths in newborns and mothers. The committee claims they have the knowledge, power and skills to prevent two-thirds of newborn deaths.

ENAP’s mission is “a vision of a world in which there are no preventable deaths of newborns or stillbirths, where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth celebrated, and women, babies and children survive, thrive and reach their full potential.”

– Priscilla Rodarte

Sources: Every Newborn, Healthy Newborn Network, WHO 1, WHO 2 UNICEF
Photo: GW Hospital

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Social Media and Global Health

Social media has been transforming the way in which information about global health is being spread. For example, the Strategic Health Operations Centre in the World Health Organization utilizes social media to help manage global health crises. By paying attention to social media, WHO is able to receive up-to-the-minute updates about global health, as well as being able to rapidly share important health information with millions around the world. WHO has two staff members simply devoted to social media. Other world health organizations are beginning to follow suit.

While social media can allow for the rapid spread of information about global health issues, there are also risks involved with using social media with issues about global health. Social media can sometimes provide an avalanche of data that can be difficult to sort through. Similarly, some of the information could be inaccurate or misleading.

Regardless of the benefits and disadvantages of social media and global health, social media does play a large role in global health. Here are three recent popular social media posts that focus on global health:

1. The Council on Foreign Relations generated a map of vaccine-preventable outbreaks around the world.

2. GAVI launched a colorful graph of vaccine introductions organized by countries, diseases and number of people reached for the last few years.

3. A Twitter campaign launched by End Polio Now celebrated India becoming polio free with a picture illustrating its successful immunization campaign.

While there are drawbacks to using social media to discuss global health, the images created by global health initiatives are still effective ways of educating people about important issues relating to global health. Similarly, by using technology to generate graphs or share pictures, social media allows for information that is more interesting and accessible to be shared, while presenting this information in a format that is easy to understand. As long as it is easy to find and accurate, social media can truly be a powerful tool for educating the world about issues relating to global health.

-Lily Tyson

Sources: Huffington Post, Impatient Optimists, SciDevNet
Photo: hcsmmonitor

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3 Most Infectious Diseases Among Children

infectious diseases among children
Every year, more than six million children die before they reach their fifth birthday due to preventable infectious diseases according to the U.N. In a recent report, USAID revealed that the following three diseases are the greatest contributors to that statistic:

3 Most Infectious Diseases Among Children

  1. Pneumonia is the cause of approximately 17 percent of deaths in children under the age of five. Especially among infants, pneumonia is a serious lung infection. Pneumonia causes more deaths in children than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined according to UNICEF.
  2. Diarrhea is the second most deadly condition for children under five, causing nine percent of deaths. Compared to adults, children are particularly susceptible to diarrhea because a greater proportion of their body weight is made up of water. Even though it is such a dangerous condition for children, only 44 percent of children in developing countries suffering from diarrhea receive treatment according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
  3. Malaria closely follows diarrhea, causing about seven percent of all child deaths. Even though malaria is easily spread through a mosquito bite, this disease can be just as easily prevented through insecticide-treated mosquito nets and effective antibiotics. Although 1.1 million deaths caused by malaria have been averted since the start of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals in 2000, malaria is still a major health issue in developing countries.

Pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria together account for about a third of all child deaths globally. The symptoms and effects of these diseases can become severe if the infected person is malnourished or does not receive the proper necessary treatment. As a result, these three diseases are all the more rampant in developing countries.

Similarly to the U.N.’s goal to reduce the child mortality rate by two-thirds, WHO and UNICEF staff members worked together to create the Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhea (GAPPD). This integrated plan seeks to end child deaths caused by these two preventable diseases by 2025. The GAPPD will also combine the practices for treating both pneumonia and diarrhea since the causes and treatment for these two diseases are interrelated.

Global poverty is directly related to the spread of infectious diseases in developing countries. This is why The Borgen Project along with so many other organizations work to decrease the multi-layered issue of poverty across the globe.

– Meghan Orner

Sources: Daily Times, WebMD, World Health Organization, World Health Organization
Photo: UNICEF

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You Are What You Eat: Nutrients for All

Nutrients for All
The world is presently facing a nutritional crisis. Over 2 billion people across the globe are malnourished. Both poor and rich countries alike are suffering from a nutrient crisis. Over a third of the United States population is suffering from obesity. Nutrients for All is an initiative to help repair this nutritional problem by carrying out a design called the nutrient value chain, which is the link between soil, farm, food and people.

Obesity is linked to diabetes and heart disease, which are growing problems. Recent studies show that there is a link between pregnant women suffering from malnourishment, which may cause obesity later in life. Access to the foods needed for proper nourishment has become a global problem. Many developing countries are living on nutrient-less subsidized diets.

Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, is working with Nutrients for All to help fight major social, environmental and economic concerns. Ashoka is a global network that whose goal is to bring these innovative ideas around the world.

Ashoka and other organization leaders from around the world are putting unconventional agricultural and management techniques to the test to help fight the global need for proper nutrients. These organizations implement plans that enrich soils in ways that nourish both crops and local ecological systems. This helps nourish communities and produce the right foods to farm. There are many factors that Ashoka and Nutrients for All entails for success.

The Nutrients for All soil plan includes reducing topsoil erosion, providing nutrient-rich food for local, regional and global supply chains, stabilizing and increasing recharge of groundwater and watersheds and reducing pollution and sanitation problems from industrial and residential sources.

These factors create a better understanding of soil management, and are used to help strengthen developing countries‘ economies and the well-being of those people.

The transformations of the economy provides proof that the Nutrients for All is a successful and innovative plan. Communities are more prepared for weather and natural disasters. Human vitality increases and communities share a lack of diseases across the board. More economic and food choices are brought to each community where Nutrients for All has been placed.

Nutrients for All wants to engage women farmers to produce not only for their household, but as a means to increases household income. A study performed by Ashoka staff shows that for a household with female farmers, the income and well-being increases 11 times.

One way we can take action to help get Nutrients for All’s message out is to empower others with new information. Either by being a consumer or practitioner, providing this information about nutrient conscious decisions for not only yourself, but for those around you, benefits everyone.

Help from sources like Nutrients for All can help change not only the way we eat, but the way we live. The evidence of the link between health and food is shown in the rising rates of cardiovascular disease and even cancer.

– Rachel Cannon

Sources: Nutrients for All, Nutrients for Life

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Genetically Engineered Bananas Could Save Lives

Genetically Engineered Bananas
Deficiency in Vitamin A causes preventable blindness and an increased chance of disease and death for children across the globe in developing countries. Approximately 250 million preschool-aged children are deficient in Vitamin A. Between 250,000 and 500,000 children become blind every year due to Vitamin A deficiencies and around half of these children die within a year after becoming blind.

Recently, scientists at Queensland University of Technology have been working on genetically engineering a banana that will help prevent deficiencies in Vitamin A.

Genetically modified foods are foods that do not occur naturally but, instead, are created by scientists altering their genetic material. Genetically modified foods have been used to increase food production by making plants larger or making them more resistant to disease. Genetically modified foods could be used to increase the amount of nutrients in food — such as with Vitamin A-concentrated bananas — decreasing food allergies or making foods easier to grow.

While recognizing the advantages to global health that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) would offer, many are worried about the possible negative side effects. Critics have noted the lack of research about future health issues that may arise due to the consumption of genetically modified foods. More research over time would be necessary for scientists to weigh their advantages and disadvantages.

These genetically engineered bananas have an increased level of beta-carotene in them. Beta-carotene is then converted to Vitamin A by the body after being ingested.

In the past few years, similar research has been done to create “golden rice”— rice with increased levels of beta-carotene. Critics have also been skeptical about the risks involved with this project.

If the bananas are effective in increasing Vitamin A levels, the scientists will work to begin distributing these genetically engineered bananas in Uganda by 2020 to begin decreasing the rates of Vitamin A deficiency-related diseases, blindness and death.

– Lily Tyson

Sources: The Guardian, HealthLine, PHG Foundation, WHO
Photo: Carnarvon

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Arsenic Poisoning in Rural Asian Waters

Arsenic
Reawakening the global health problem of unclean, polluted drinking water, rural Asian villages have been plagued with arsenic-ridden water. Most of these rural villages are near mines which leak and pollute local water sources with the carcinogen arsenic. In the past decade, the Heshan village in China has seen nearly 20 percent of the population get cancer from the polluted water.

The arsenic has been traced back to runoff and residue from a local mine that was closed in 2011. The 190 living cancer patients have petitioned the local governments for monetary compensation and aid, but the $1,600 reimbursement is insufficient for even one round of chemotherapy or radiation. For many of these poor rural villagers, the cancer diagnosis from arsenic poisoning is nothing less than a death sentence because of the unaffordable cost of treatment.

Tests of the ground water have resulted in arsenic amounts 15 times the safe amount of arsenic. The water is so toxic that many of the agricultural staples are not viable in the region, stripping these people of their livelihood and reinforcing the cycle of poverty in the area.

Similar cases have been reported throughout China and India. With water security being of the utmost importance, cancer patterns have sprung up around villages with arsenic in the water. Local medical professionals have denied the correlation between the high arsenic levels and the cancer hotspots, despite the fact that arsenic has been recognized by many health institutions as a known carcinogen.

The lack of transparency between health officials and the villagers coupled with insufficient cleaning methods has resorted in the outbreaks of cancer caused by arsenic. The toxicity of the element, both for humans and agriculture, has stunted the regional economies and has restricted the employment pool. A needless tragedy, the arsenic-laden drinking waters have destroyed families and the economies of the rural villages afflicted by the toxic water.

– Kristin Ronzi

Sources: American Cancer Society, Reuters, Times of India
Photo: Trip Advisor

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The World’s First Hookworm Vaccine

One-third of children and women living below the World Bank’s poverty line are infected with hookworm today, which often causes moderate to severe anemia. Hookworm and other Neglected Tropical Diseases, or NTDs, disproportionately affect the poorer Islamic countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mali, Nigeria and others in North Africa and the Middle East.

Children and pregnant women are by far the most drastically affected by this disease. Children with long-standing blood loss from hookworm often experience sufficient mental and motor development delays. They can actually lose IQ points as well. These detrimental effects undoubtedly follow them into adulthood, making productivity more difficult.

The blood loss caused by hookworm may affect women in labor, making their chance of death much higher. Additionally, the baby is more likely to be born prematurely or with low birth weight. This makes those babies less likely to survive, contributing to the child mortality rate.

Additionally, the link between hookworms and anemia is a large concern because of its relation to disabilities. Anemia accounted for 8.8 percent of the total disability of the world in 2010. Today, children under 5 years old and women of all ages still hold the heaviest burden.

Fortunately, the Sabin Vaccine Institute’s Product Development Partnership is developing the world’s first hookworm vaccine for human use. The Sabin Institute was established in 2000 with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is the only Product Development Partnership in the world working to develop a vaccine for human hookworm infections.

The institute is receiving support from the European Commission FP7 program and uniting professionals from around the world to build research. This global consortium has been coined HOOKVAC and includes members from the Netherlands, the United States, Belgium, England, Germany and Gabon. This project aims not only to perfect the manufacturing process of the vaccine, but also to increase and share research on NTDs.

The first clinical testing of the vaccine will take place in Sub-Saharan Africa once it is ready. Gabon’s Lamberene Research Centre will lead clinical testing in adults and children in Gabon, a region plagued with hookworm.

The vaccine is being called the “anti-poverty” vaccine due to its vast potential to lower child mortality rates, save mothers in labor and improve health conditions for agricultural workers, who are the backbone of many poorer economies.

The vaccine, as of now, is intended only for use in the poorest regions of the world, where hookworm thrives. This means that the product will likely not be sold commercially by pharmaceutical companies, but will remain in the nonprofit sector with HOOKVAC.

The project will hopefully conduct trials in the coming years and bring health relief to millions, while contributing to the united fight against global poverty.

– Cambria Arvizo

Sources: Huffington Post, Sabin Vaccine Institute, American Society of Hematology
Photo: The Guardian

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Father Invents Bionic Pancreas for Diabetic Son

Type 1 diabetes diagnoses break the hearts of parents to almost half a million children worldwide each year. Once caught, the implications of a lifestyle change are immediate and lifelong, and worried parents will continuously contemplate their child’s safety and future.

Such was the case for Ed Damiano, who was told that his infant son David was a Type 1 diabetic at only 11 months old. From that moment on, Ed and his wife, Toby Milgrome, became 24-hour human monitors of their son’s blood sugar levels. Diabetes is a condition that does not sleep. As a matter of fact, sleep is one of the most dangerous events of a diabetic’s life since blood sugar levels can surge, which can result in death.

Ed has gone as far as to make it a habit to check his son’s levels in the middle of the night while he sleeps, even now that he is 15 years old. He has also displayed another significant response to address his son’s disease – developing a “bionic pancreas.”

Ed is part of a team of scientists at Boston University who are now pushing the bionic pancreas into its first long-term testing period with volunteer diabetics after recent approval. Previously, 20 adults and 32 adolescents monitored in hotel rooms for five days were hooked up to the devices with almost full dietary freedom. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the participants were healthier than when administering levels themselves.

Traditionally, diabetics test blood sugar levels several times a day with a portable device that uses small blood samples. If blood sugar is too low, the diabetic takes a glucagon hormone injection; if blood sugar is high, they take an insulin injection to lower it. A diabetic’s pancreas does not produce these hormones naturally, making sugar toxic to their blood.

The new bionic pancreas automatically checks blood sugar levels regularly. It is secured to the patient’s abdomen with tiny tubes inserted under the patient’s skin. The device decides when to make glucagon or insulin increases without any manual operation. Levels can be read real-time with the use of an app on an Apple gadget.

Study participants such as Ariana Coster, a 23-year-old diabetic, expressed how great the feeling of neglect can be – even simply eating a cookie without having to check blood sugar levels. For David and his parents, they are just relieved that the device is likely to be ready by the time he goes off to college in a couple of years.

“My whole life I’ve just known – just had this knowledge that my dad is going to have this bionic pancreas out when I go to college,” says David. “I’m confident in him. He works really hard – really hard.”

— Edward Heinrich

Sources: Time, NPR, USA Today
Photo: Public Broadcasting

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END7 Diseases by 2020

END7
END7, an international advocacy campaign, aims to end seven neglected tropical diseases (NTDS) by 2020. It is currently raising awareness of the seven most common NTDs, and the easy and cheap resources available to eliminate them.

Cheap is not an understatement — it takes only 50 cents to treat and protect one person against all seven NTDS.

While 2020 may seem like an overly optimistic date to have eliminated seven diseases, treatments for all NTDs exist — it’s just a matter of getting them to those in need. The seven diseases include Hookworm, Roundworm, Whipworm, Elephantiasis, Trachoma, River Blindness and Snail Fever.

Nearly one in six people worldwide, including over half a billion children, have these diseases living and breeding inside their bodies. The effects of these diseases can be devastating, causing blindness, massive swelling in limbs, severe malnutrition, pregnancy complications and anemia.

Apart from the horrific effects of NTDs, these diseases makes it increasingly difficult for affected families to lift themselves out of poverty. They prevent children from going to school.

In order to spread the word about their cause and the work being done to help victims of NTDs, END7 utilizes social media outlets, hoping to target young activists who will then share the word with others. The goal is to get the general public involved, not just doctors and health care professionals.

The campaign asks the community to donate to NTD prevention and treatment programs. These programs deliver the medications to schools and poor communities all over the globe.

How can it be so cheap? Drugs to treat NTDS are donated by pharmaceutical companies, allowing for the remaining cost to come only in distributing the drugs to those in need.

Bill Nighy, who provides a voice for many of the END7 videos, describes his astonishment in the opportunity at hand, stating, “I’m shocked by how much devastation these diseases cause. But what shocks me more is how simple the solution is.”

If pocket change can provide a cure for seven diseases, it seems that a cure in 2020 may not seem so far out of reach after all.

 — Caroline Logan

Sources: END7, TwitChange
Photo: Northeastern