Archive for category: Global Health

Information and stories about global health.

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The Effect of Unhealthy Lifestyles in Global Health

“Unhealthy diets are now a greater threat to global health than tobacco,” said U.N. Special Reporter on the Right to Food, Oliver De Schutter. “Just as the world came together to regulate the risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate diets must now be agreed.”

In May, 2014 at the 67th World Health Assembly in Geneva, WHO Director General Margaret Chan announced the creation of a Commission for Ending Childhood Obesity.

In 2012 alone, over 40 million children younger than 5 years old were considered to be overweight. Thirty million of these children live in developing countries. In addition, about 3.4 million adults die due to obesity each year. Furthermore, 7-41 percent of specific cancers and 44 percent of diabetes cases are due to obesity.

Around 1.7 millions deaths are due to low consumption of fruits and vegetables. Eating enough fruits and vegetables has been linked to reducing the chances of heart disease and stomach and colorectal cancers. In addition, compared to the recommended intake of five grams of salt per day, the average global consumption of salt is between nine and 12 grams, thus greatly increasing the chance of heart diseases.

In developing countries with growing economies, citizens have developed a less-active lifestyle and less healthy eating habits.

Schutter offered five potential solutions to the growing epidemic of obesity and unhealthy lifestyles:

  • Imposing a tax on unhealthy foods
  • Imposing regulations for foods with high contents of saturated fats, salt and sugar
  • Restricting advertising for unhealthy foods
  • Eliminating subsidies on agriculture that make some foods cheaper than others
  • Supporting production of local foods

By simply taxing sweet beverages in India, the amount of diabetes would drop by 3-4 percent.

While the focus of the public is often on a lack of access to food and starvation, it is also important to note the negative aspects of unhealthy lifestyles on nations around the world.

— Lily Tyson

Sources: Asia Sentinel, Fox News, SRFood, WHO
Photo: The Guardian

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Solving the Cambodian Toilet Crisis

A Southeast Asian organization has used simple economics to create an effective solution to the Cambodian toilet crisis.

The Ministry of Rural Development reports that 61.4 percent of rural Cambodian households lack toilets. Open defecation has been proven to cause diarrhea, malnutrition, stunted growth and negative impacts on a child’s cognitive development.

However, according to a water and sanitation report published by The World Bank, more than half of the Cambodian households that lack a latrine could, in actuality, afford one. With current awareness and subsidy campaigns, latrine coverage has been increasing by only 1.3 percent per year, which means it could take more than 60 years for Cambodia to be “Open Defecation Free.”

WaterSHED is a Phnom Penh-based organization, founded in 2010. This humanitarian team works on water and sanitation marketing in Southeast Asia. The founders of this agency discovered that building toilets in Cambodia was outlandishly expensive. The price to build and assemble a toilet was between $250 and $400, but with Cambodia’s GDP per capita at around $950, having a toilet has been traditionally reserved for the wealthy.

Using a supply and demand framework, WaterSHED toilet suppliers lower their prices, increase their volume and offer a complete package including toilet installation for only $45. Families can pay for these latrines with microfinance loans targeted only at the very poor.

With this new method WaterSHED has reported the sale of 75,000 toilets in 59 of Cambodia’s 171 districts. This rate of toilet installation increases the annual coverage rate up to 7 percent.

The impact of WaterSHED’s advocacy has seen visible results. IRIN, a humanitarian news agency affiliated with the U.N., interviewed citizens in the Kompong Speu Province. In this village of 160 families, around 100 have recently installed a new toilet. The families have already seen the health benefits of their new latrines, including less frequent fever and diarrhea.

The World Bank argues that making the elimination of open defecation a top priority for policy makers in Cambodia is crucial to the productivity of the next generation. With innovative programs like those implemented by WaterSHED, the future looks brighter for the youth of Cambodia.

— Grace Flaherty

Sources: IRIN News, World Bank
Photo: Flickr

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Breakthrough Discovered in the Treatment of TB in Children

New findings in tuberculosis among children could mean that diagnosing the disease could be faster, cheaper and more effective for the millions of people infected by the disease each year.

Tuberculosis (TB) is the second largest killer due to a single infectious agent worldwide, only following HIV/AIDS, and is the leading killer of people with HIV. The ones most affected by the disease are low to middle-income countries, where upwards of 95 percent of TB deaths occur.

Developing countries where malnutrition and compromised immune systems affect the overwhelming majority see the most cases of TB. Even though all groups are at risk, children and young adults are at a greater risk of contracting the disease.

The disease is very difficult to diagnose in children — the early symptoms of TB are also present in dozens of other illnesses — and by the time a positive diagnosis is reached, the disease has already spread throughout the lungs, brain and other organs.

In 2012 alone, there were 530,000 cases of TB in children, and out of the children who were HIV-negative, 74,000 died of the disease because of late and improper diagnosis.

A better diagnosis is needed so that doctors can start treating TB earlier (in its early stages) for better chances of overcoming the disease and so children who show false positives for TB do not need to go through unnecessary treatment.

Health staff in several poor countries have been using a standard test for TB which has failed 93 percent of the time, showing false negatives, leaving thousands of infected children untreated.

Recently, after seven years of study and examining the blood of 2,800 children, an international team of researchers discovered that TB can be positively identified by examining 51 genes.

Over 80 percent of cases were discovered positive for TB by examining this specific gene signature. Researchers examined the blood samples to see which genes were activated or suppressed in samples testing positive.

It was found that TB could be distinguished from other diseases in 51 of the 30,000 genes that make up the human genome. A “risk score” was developed from the examination of this gene signature, and when tested, over 80 percent of the samples were accurately diagnosed positive for TB. Tests that were found negative ruled out TB as a diagnosis with just as much accuracy.

“Childhood TB is a major problem in African hospitals. An accurate test for childhood TB would be an enormous breakthrough, enabling earlier diagnosis, reducing long hospital admissions for investigation of TB suspects, and limiting the number of children treated inappropriately,” said head researcher Brian Eley. Eley is part of the University of Cape Town and lead the clinical study in South Africa.

Early, accurate diagnosis of TB would lead to reducing deaths related to TB in children. The discovery of what these 51 key genes demonstrate in relation to TB will help lead the way to a significant global decrease in the disease that currently affects millions.

 — Jerilynn Haddow

Sources: WHO, IRIN Africa, Wellcome
Photo: Blogspot

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A Call for Agriculture in Africa

No dollar does more for the people of the African continent than a dollar invested in agriculture. In fact, as a means of poverty alleviation, growth within agriculture in Africa is 11 times more effective than growth in any other industry.

Recognizing that agricultural investments are crucial to eliminating poverty in Africa, many African leaders promised in 2003 to allocate 10 percent of their national budgets specifically toward agriculture. Unfortunately, very few of those leaders were able to keep that promise – today, over 10 years later, African governments spend on average only 4 percent of their national budgets on agriculture.

Despite this, development experts are hopeful that more African leaders will commit to agricultural investment at the African Union Summit to be held in Equatorial Guinea at the end of this month.

Citizens from a plethora of African nations put pressure on their leaders to target poverty through funding agriculture at the African Union’s Conference of Ministers of Agriculture, Rural Development, Fisheries, and Aquaculture, held in Addis Ababa in May. At this conference, African leaders, farmers and agriculture advocates discussed topics including decreasing food insecurity, supporting female farmers and assisting small farms. Prominent advocates also presented a petition urging leaders to invest in agriculture in order to create jobs and feed families. At the time of the conference, over 600,000 African citizens had signed the petition.

Because governments across the continent have declared 2014 the “year of agriculture and food security,” politicians would be wise to listen to their constituents and make agriculture a priority.

Another result of May’s conference was a list of 10 policy recommendations attendees had for African leaders. Among their recommendations were to “work to eliminate the gender and youth gap in agriculture,” “foster access to markets for small-scale farmers” and “integrate sustainability and climate resilience into national agriculture plans.”

These recommendations are not only reasonable and sustainable, but address a number of flaws in the agriculture industry.

Clearly, the people of Africa are working to prioritize agriculture. International aid organizations should follow their lead – after all, it’s the most effective way of eliminating poverty in Africa.

—Elise L. Riley

Sources: African Union, ONE 1, ONE 2, ONE 3
Photo: African Organisation for Standardisation

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Paran: A Town of Peaches and the Blind

Paran is a small community that rests at the foothills of the Andes in Lima, Peru. It is an isolated little area surrounded by mountains and home to only 300 people, and one in eight of those people are blind.

The unusual rate of blindness in Paran was discovered about two years ago when a mining company sent a team of doctors to the area as an outreach effort. Most of the Paranos had never visited a doctor before then, and therefore had no one to report the condition to although they understood it was abnormal.

The blind and their families were hoping for treatment or glasses to cure the affliction but they were given an even more complicated prognosis. Doctors found that the condition was caused by a genetic mutation in the X chromosome. This means that women can carry it, but men are more likely to express symptoms.

The condition works by knocking out cells in the retina like pixels in a screen. Victims experience blurriness in their vision that gradually worsens until all sight is lost. Onset takes place between the ages of 10 and 40 and the ability to see at night is lost early on.

While the discovery of the disease, named retinitis pigmentosa, was a breakthrough for the people of Paran whose ancestors have dealt with the condition for over a hundred years, many feel that they were given life-changing information and then abandoned.

The discovery of the disease two years ago brought a lot of attention to the area by doctors and journalists alike. When the doctors left and Paran became yesterday’s news, the people were left without a cure and a bad reputation. What was once known as a village with sweet peaches became the town of the blind.

Even to this day the people of Paran carry a stigma and are treated as outcasts by the surrounding areas. They are unwanted out of fear of contaminating other populations and told to move far away if they choose to leave their community. The women of Paran are avoided as spouses out of fear they may pass the disease onto their children.

However, despite what may seem like bleak circumstances, the Paranos persist with amazing vigor. With no government assistance or facilities fit to accommodate blindness, the men in the area prepare for a life of darkness before total blindness sets in. People like Lorenzo, an elderly man with nobody to care for him, make the two-hour trek up and down the rocky hills they live on to the village center every day on their own.

Another man named Agapito Mateo and his two brothers are all blind. Agapito is a pastor and a farmer who never stopped tending to his peaches after losing his sight. He thanks God for his ability to continue working but insists that those less fortunate need government assistance. Meanwhile, people like Agapito work to uphold the reputation that Paran may be home to a good number of blind men, but they also grow really sweet peaches.

– Edward Heinrich

Sources: Oscar Durand, PRI, YouTube

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Battling the Solomon Islands Diarrhea Outbreak

The nation of Solomon Islands is facing a new and deadly threat after flooding destroyed delicate water infrastructure. The Solomon Islands diarrhea outbreak has already killed 18 people and threatens to claim more lives if measures are not taken soon.

Solomon Islands was decimated in early April by a series of destructive floods. The small nation, located north and east off the coast of Queensland, Australia, saw 60,000 of its residents made homeless by the storms—over 10 percent of its population.

The flood’s direct damage to human life was great enough, but two months later, outbreaks of diarrhea in late May and early June are extending the death toll. The rotavirus, a deadly and highly-contagious virus transmitted by vomit and fecal matter, has claimed victims in six of Solomon Islands’ ten provinces.

The virus is communicable by food, drink and, depending on the sick person’s hygiene, basic physical contact. Those who contract the virus show symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea within 1-3 days of infection.

Though upward of 20,000 children were vaccinated against the rotavirus following April’s flooding, the contamination of Solomon Islanders’ water supply was complete enough that over 1,000 cases of extreme diarrhea have been reported in the past two weeks. Most of the infected are young, and all 18 of the reported deaths have been children under the age of 5.

Rotavirus causes intense diarrhea, which in turn leads to severe dehydration. If untreated, this dehydration can kill. At a certain point, children simply stop drinking water despite their desperate need for it, and proper medical intervention is required to save a child’s life.

Fortunately, UNICEF is fighting the Solomon Islands diarrhea outbreak with two very basic tools: soap and information. The soap is distributed in the hardest-hit areas, and colorful, hand-shaped information cards are also given out. These cards not only emphasize the importance of hand-washing by their shape, but they also contain valuable tips for staying safe and healthy during the outbreak.

Instructions for preventing the spread of the rotavirus include washing hands for at least 10 seconds after using the toilet, before handling or eating food and after caring for or coming into contact with any infected individuals.

Health officials currently do not plan on bringing the rotavirus vaccine back to Solomon Islands. Instead, they predict that proper hygiene should be enough to put an end to the outbreak.

In the meantime, parents who notice signs of illness in their children are urged to bring them to a doctor right away. Doctors can provide a child with oral rehydration salts and zinc tablets, both of which help prevent dehydration and can reverse even severe cases.

However, this safety net may not be so reliable. Dorothy Wickham, correspondent for Radio New Zealand, reports that hospitals in Solomon Islands are becoming overburdened. Doctors may not be able to treat all of the children who are brought in, and epidemiologist Jennie Musto predicts the outbreak could last up to another month.

For now, both parents and aid groups are doing what they can to combat the outbreak and to keep their children safe.

– Patricia Mackey

Sources: World Vision, WHO, Australia Network News, 3 News, Radio New Zealand International, Pacific Scoop
Photo: Parade

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How Do We End Global Poverty?

Putting an end to global poverty seems like a huge undertaking, but the world is making itself a better place every single day.

There is no one set way to end global poverty, and it definitely will not be happening overnight. However, so many people and organizations have already taken strides in order to make things better.

When many consider global poverty they think of commercials in which a man comes out and says, “With just a dollar a day you could save this young child’s life.” But global poverty is so much more than that.

There is a lot more work involved, for one, and there are a lot more people that need help. Those children in that commercial are just one facet of what global poverty really is.

So, how do we end global poverty? The answer is different for everyone. Perhaps, the question to ask is: “What am I good at?” and then find a way to turn talents into something that can be good for everyone around the world.

There are hundreds if not thousands of ways people, charities and politicians around the world are trying to help impoverished nations.

There are people who make billboards that can use humidity and rainwater to create freshwater for the surrounding people, or buildings that use special concrete to suck up air pollution, or even the smallest thing such as the “donate now” button from PayPal.

There are business tycoons that use impact investing to help companies that want to give lanterns to children in Africa so they can do their homework and learn by accelerating investments in the solar lighting industry.

In addition to impact investing, there are also businesses like Domino’s Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Wal-Mart that have expanded in the African Markets bringing jobs, food and have even created advocacy and buzz to help provide donations to the impoverished peoples near their companies.

There are numerous nonprofits and charities dedicated to advocacy, food collection, shoe donation, vaccine donation and more. Nothing But Nets is one that’s as simple as giving a family in Africa an insecticide-treated mosquito net to help prevent the spread of malaria. Even the smallest things can impact global poverty in a big way.

There are even charities like Girl Up, dedicated to simply telling young girls and boys they can get through it and become better. Global poverty can be impacted by something as simple as positive encouragement.

The question “How do we end global poverty?” may seem intimidating at first, but once you decide what you can do and see what everyone else is already doing, it seems a lot easier.

The goal of ending global poverty is attainable, all it takes is asking yourself two simple questions: “What am I good at?” and “How can it help end global poverty?”

– Cara Morgan

Sources: The Borgen Project, Girl Up, Nothing But Nets, Shot@Life, Wal-Mart
Photo: World Relief

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New Initiatives to Combat Global Obesity

Olivier De Schutter, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, recently stated that obesity has become a bigger threat to global health than tobacco use.

Believing that there should be stricter regulations on consuming unhealthy foods, De Schutter gave a speech during the World Health Organization’s (WHO) annual summit and expressed concern that the world has not been actively tackling the issue of obesity. The WHO established the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health 10 years ago, but the global obesity epidemic is still expanding. Diabetes, heart disease and other obesity-induced health complications have become more prevalent as a result. To counter the growing issue of global obesity, De Schutter declared, “a bold framework convention on adequate diets must now be agreed.”

Many international groups agree with De Schutter’s comments. Though the Food and Drink Federation has stated that the food industry is making clear efforts to provide healthier meal options, organizations like Consumer International and the World Obesity Federation are demanding the adoption of compulsory guidelines for the food and drink industry to follow. In 2005, the number of global deaths caused by obesity and being overweight was 2.6 million. The same figure had risen to 3.4 million by 2010.

The proposed rules include reducing the levels of sodium, saturated fat and sugar in various foods. Artificial trans-fats were recommended to be completely removed from all food and drink products in the next five years. Organizations have also asked for improved meals in hospital and schools, stricter guidelines for food advertising and increased efforts to educate the public about healthy eating. Governments could help control the global obesity issue as well by introducing taxes, changing licensing controls, funding new research projects and reviewing the prices of different food items.

If implemented, these new guidelines would be at the “highest level of global agreement.” In contrast to the current practice of “opting out” of imposed regulations on the food industry, governments would be required to enforce them. Dr. Ian Campbell, the founder of the United Kingdom’s National Obesity Forum, says that the proposed recommendations are within reason. “The inescapable fact is obesity is killing on a massive scale and only action from governments to tackle head-on the fundamental causes of obesity will lead to any meaningful decreases.”

Obesity has long been linked to poverty. The majority of overweight and obese people can be found in developing rather than developed countries. North Africa, the Middle East and Latin America have nearly the same percentage of obese people as Europe does.

Currently, people living far below the poverty line rely on cheap, processed foods that are high in fats and sugars. Compared to diets rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, these unhealthy meals have high energy content per dollar spent, making them more convenient and accessible to the poor. In South Africa, a typical healthy meal costs approximately 69 percent more than an unhealthy one. For households living in extreme poverty, pursuing a healthy diet could take away up to 30 percent of the total income.

Placing taxes on unhealthy foods could help combat the problem. Collective action is crucial. “If obesity was an infectious disease,” stated World Obesity Federation’s Dr. Tim Lobstein, “we would have seen billions of dollars being invested in bringing it under control.”

– Kristy Liao

Sources: BBC, Huffington Post, Time
Photo: Earth Times

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Shot@Life Provides Vaccinations for Impoverished Nations

The United Nations Foundation Shot@Life aims to give everyone the shot they need to live a happy and healthy life.

The Shot@Life campaign is almost exactly like it sounds. This campaign works with volunteers to provide much needed vaccinations to the extremely impoverished nations of the world through advocacy and donations.

Shot@Life educates, connects and empowers the American people to support vaccines, and vaccinations are one of the most cost-effective ways to save the lives of children in developing countries.

The campaign is basically a national call to action for a worthy global cause. The foundation rallies the American public and members of Congress to help them understand the fact that together they can save a child’s life every 20 seconds just by expanding access to vaccines.

The global foundation encourages the American public to learn about, advocate for and donate to provide vaccines. Shot@Life aims to noticeably decrease vaccine-preventable childhood deaths and give every child a shot at a healthy life within the next 10 years.

This campaign began in 1998 as a U.S. public charity by philanthropist Ted Turner. The Shot@Life campaign was created in order to build upon the U.N. Foundation’s 13-year legacy in global vaccine efforts as a leading partner in the Measles Initiative and Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

The Shot@Life campaign draws on their core abilities through advocacy, community-building and communications in order to raise awareness for their cause.

There are a few causes in which they already have seen excellent success: the campaigns Nothing But Nets and Girl Up.

The Nothing But Nets campaign is dedicated to providing insecticide treated mosquito nets to impoverished peoples in order to prevent the spread of malaria from mosquito bites.

The Girl Up campaign was started in order to provide aid to young girls in poverty-laden nations. This campaign utilizes the help of teenage leaders in order to raise awareness about how young girls are being treated around the world.

Shot@Life is also partnered with some of the largest names in fundraising, nonprofits and charities. They have received partnerships from UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Lions Club, to name a few.

This U.N. Foundation is uniquely positioned with in-house expertise and leadership to successfully bring Shot@Life to the awareness of an American audience.

The nonprofit also utilizes social media in participation with news companies and webpages to give a portion of its advertising revenue on each company’s behalf for each like or share an article or blog post receives.

Providing vaccinations to the world’s poor is another huge step in the process to end global poverty. Getting vaccinations mean children will not die from diseases that are preventable such as smallpox, measles, polio and tuberculosis.

More children living into adulthood could potentially slow the birthrates and stabilize the life-expectancy of the people living in African nations as well as extremely impoverished parts of India.

The Shot@Life campaign is dedicated to providing peace of mind to all the nations of the world.

– Cara Morgan

Sources: CDC, GirlUp, HuffPost 1, HufFPost 2, NothingButNets, Shot@Life
Photo: Children’s Futures

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No Ordinary Novel: The Drinkable Book

In the age of tablets and e-books, there is one book everyone should have a hard copy of.

It doesn’t matter where you live or who you are, millions of people die each year from drinking contaminated water. That’s why the humanitarian organization WaterIsLife has partnered up with the advertising agency DDB to develop The Drinkable Book.

The Drinkable Book looks normal on the outside and is just a few inches thick with about 20 printed pages, but on the inside the book contains the gift of fresh water.

The book not only contains step-by-step instructions on how to purify drinking water, including simple things like washing hands and not leaving trash near a water source, but its pages are also filters to help purify water around the world.

“One of WaterisLife’s biggest challenges (beyond providing clean water) is teaching proper sanitation/hygiene, so this was a perfect opportunity to not only introduce the new filters, but also to do it in a way that meaningfully addresses both problems,” said Brian Gartside, the senior designer of The Drinkable Book in an interview with Slate.

Each page of The Drinkable Book is coated in bacteria-killing silver nanoparticles and can be torn out and used as a water filter. The pages kill the bacteria that cause cholera, E.coli and typhoid, among other diseases and can last up to a month each time they are used.

“A lot of water issues aren’t just because people don’t have the right technology, but also because they aren’t informed why they need to treat water to begin with,” says Theresa Dankovich, the chemist who developed the filter paper.

To use the book, you rip one of the pages in half and slide it into the filter box — which doubles as a cover for the book — and pour contaminated water through. After a few minutes, the bacteria in the water is reduced by 99.9%  and is comparable U.S. tap water.

“Our main goal is to reduce the spread of diarrheal diseases, which result from drinking water that’s been contaminated with things like E. coli and cholera and typhoid,” Dankovich says in the interview. “And we think we can help prevent some of these illnesses from even happening.”

Trying to prevent diseases caused by contaminated water truly aids in the fight against global poverty. Helping those people without access to a clean water source fight contaminants and battle disease means the people who would have previously been ill have a chance to live.

This chance could mean they have the opportunity to work, to open a new business, to expand to new markets or even visit other countries, and have more resources to make life better for themselves and the place they grew up in.

WaterIsLife printed an initial run of 100 copies in English and Swahili to be sent to Kenya and distributed among the impoverished people there, but the brand also plans to distribute The Drinkable Book around the world.

– Cara Morgan

Sources: HuffPost, NPR, Slate, TheGistOfWater
Photo: Design Boom