Archive for category: Health

Information and stories on health topics.

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The Compassion Experience: Awareness for Global Poverty

The Compassion Experience
The Compassion Experience is a unique take on raising awareness for global poverty while simultaneously alleviating children out of poverty. Compassion International is providing a first-hand look at the daily lives of the global poor through their interactive Compassion Experience.

The Compassion Experience is an exhibit currently touring the country, hosted by Compassion International, a non-profit organization that provides opportunities for child sponsorship to help lift children out of poverty. Operating since 1952, Compassion has grown from aiding 35 children in South Korea to helping millions of children worldwide become healthy adults.

Compassion’s Accomplishments

The organization also accepts one-time donations to do things such as build a well, provide literacy classes, and cover the neonatal care of a pregnant woman. The Experience is meant to build upon these goals by allowing for a better understanding of the daily difficulties imposed by poverty.

To Lynnelle, an Ohio-based volunteer who has worked with the organization for over 20 years, the work Compassion is doing through their interactive experience is invaluable.

In an interview, she explained, “We talk about [global poverty] all the time, but we don’t have any idea what people in the rest of the world go through.” Raising awareness for global poverty needs to be more than just words, and Compassion knows how to do just that.

A Day in a Compassion Exhibit

The exhibit itself operates out of a large, climate-controlled tent and series of trailers. An audio tour chronicles the lives of three children whose lives have been changed by Compassion, highlighting the positive effects sponsorship has had for them. In the Compassion Experience’s Mentor, Ohio location, these children were Olive, from Uganda; Carlos, from Guatemala; and Kiwi, from the Philippines.

In Olive’s case, Compassion provided for treatment for her tuberculosis and then, once healthy, helped her return to school. She eventually received a volleyball scholarship in the United States, where she went on to earn a master’s degree in social work. She now works for the same organization that changed her life.

The Compassion Experience provides human faces and compelling narratives that demonstrate the daily realities of those living in poverty. Lynnelle described her visit to Rwanda, where she saw those living conditions first hand: a small, closet-sized room and no running water.

However, thanks to the efficacy of foreign aid and organizations such as Compassion International, things are changing. The Gates Foundation cites that the percentage of poor people around the world has dropped by more than half since 1980, with countries such as Brazil and India more than quadrupling their real income per person.

According to Bill Gates in his 2014 Annual Letter, children who have been lifted up out of poverty, “do more than merely survive. They go to school and eventually work, and over time they make their countries more self-sufficient.” Raising awareness for global poverty and increasing levels of activism is a necessity for all countries, not an option.

Lynnelle put it much more simply.

“This to me,” she said, “is changing the world.”

– Sabrina Santos

Photo: The Compassion Experience

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Stronger Anti-Poverty Efforts for Disadvantaged Children

Disadvantaged Children
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) warned that 69 million disadvantaged children under the age of five will die of preventable causes by 2030 unless countries strengthen their anti-poverty efforts.

The World’s Children

UNICEF’s annual flagship report, the “State of the World’s Children 2016,” said that based on current trends, 167 million adolescents will live in poverty and 750 million women will have been married as children by 2030.

Despite recent advances in reducing global poverty, the report reflected the increasing risk that the world’s most disadvantaged face and the need for governments and aid organizations to do more to tackle inequality.

Many countries in the West were unwilling to accept millions of refugees and migrants fleeing poverty and conflict, mostly in the Middle East and Africa, around the time the 172-page report was released.

In a foreword to the report, Anthony Lake, the executive director of UNICEF said that inequities are shaping the survival rates of poor children and “perpetuat[ing] intergenerational cycles of disadvantage and inequity that undermine the stability of societies.”

Progress is Progress, but We Need More

The report acknowledged that progress was made to expand development and improve the plight of the world’s poor. Extreme poverty and global under-five mortality rates have been nearly halved since the 1990s and boys and girls attend primary school in equal numbers in 129 countries.

However, the report noted the benefits of anti-poverty efforts have been unequal and limited in many developing areas around the world.

Children born to uneducated mothers are three times more likely to die before the age of five than those born to women with secondary education in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Girls who grow up in extreme poverty are also twice as likely to be married as children than girls from the wealthiest neighborhoods.

Nearly half of the 69 million disadvantaged children projected to perish from preventable causes will reside in sub-Saharan Africa where 247 children live in multidimensional poverty.

The report also found that insufficient access to quality education is still prevalent. Between 2010 and 2013, development assistance for basic education declined by 11%.

The number of children who do not attend school has also increased since 2011 and almost two in five adolescents who do finish primary school have not learned to read, write or do basic arithmetic.

The report recommended an increase in the investment of youth and education in order to guarantee a better future for the world’s children. According to UNICEF, cash transfers have helped children stay in school longer and each additional year of education that a child receives can increase his or her adult earnings by 10%.

Disadvantaged children need strengthened anti-poverty efforts for increased access to education, disease prevention and lower mortality rates — tasks that the global community can help accomplish.

– Sam Turken

Photo: Flickr

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Improving Water Quality in Haiti Benefits Thousands

Water Quality in HaitiThe water quality in Haiti is in desperate need of improvement. The World Bank hopes to increase access to clean water because “[it] not only saves lives, but [it] also [helps] reduce poverty and improve the livelihood opportunities of these communities,”  reports Mary Barton-Dock of the World Bank Special Envoy.

The lack of proper sanitation and unsafe water quality in Haiti fosters the spread of disease. For example, a cholera epidemic ensued after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and 8,700 lives have been lost since. Although diagnosed cases of cholera have decreased, heavy rains in the early months of 2015 brought a surge of new cases.

Stand pipes or water points with hand pumps are the main systems used for water transportation in Haiti. Due to lack of funding, many of these water systems are no longer in service. Thankfully, the World Bank found a way to improve the situation by funding a program located in the southern region of Haiti. This global organization built professional operators whose main purpose is to maintain many of the water supply systems.

Over 60,000 people have benefited from these system improvements. The program also helped train community health workers and medical personnel, as well as strengthening the country by making it more self-sustaining.

The Board of Directors of the World Bank also authorized a $50 million grant from the International Development Association (IDA). “The Sustainable Rural and Small Towns Water and Sanitation project aims to save lives by preventing cholera and waterborne diseases in high prevalence zones, and strengthen the capacity of local agencies to deliver water and sanitation services in rural areas and small towns.” This grant will help nearly 300,000 people gain access to potable water and proper sanitation.

This project will also be linked to a ten-year, government-supported Cholera Elimination Plan. This long-term plan will save thousands of Haitian kids from waterborne, disease-related deaths. Benito Dumay, the Director General of the National Water and Sanitation Directorate, understands how essential healthy water quality is for Haiti, and is determined for the project to succeed.

Water is a catalyst for life, and now thousands of Haitians will be able to access this life-saving liquid for the first time. The World Bank reached out to the U.N., the U.N.’s development partners and the Haitian Government to collectively discuss the financing gap and what they learned about fighting cholera.

The Borgen Project has also done a great deal of work at the political level when it comes to advocating for clean water and sanitation. This nonprofit helped build support for the Water for the World Act. The organization also met with hundreds of Congressional offices, equating to 410 meetings, to discuss activism regarding water-quality programs.

Between 2009 and 2014, The Borgen Project helped mobilize thousands of Americans to email and call their congressional leaders in support of the Water for the World legislation. The bill was passed in December 2014, and millions of people gained first-time access to potable water and appropriate sanitation.

As numerous organizations fight the battle for water quality in Haiti and around the world, their tremendous progress makes the future of water quality that much clearer.

– Terry J. Halloran

Photo: Flickr

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Protect Against Zika: Can New Trends in Vaccinations Help?

Protect against zikaTop scientists around the globe are working and using new technologies to find out whether new trends in vaccinations could help protect against Zika. With the most recent and most popular public health crisis at the forefront of international attention –the Zika virus outbreak– the world is bringing new information, methodology, literature and scientific measures at a pace that keeps followers baffled. Now, scientists hope to set a world record for the speed at which they can develop a Zika vaccine, and new technologies are helping them along the way.

These novel prevention and intervention procedures could change the way that the public health field addresses epidemics, namely viruses.

Leading the pack with the first grant, biotech company Inovio received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to conduct an experimental Zika vaccine trial on humans. They have already been able to prevent the virus from taking hold in monkeys, and Harvard Medical School reports developing two successful Zika vaccines that have shown promise in mice.

Although many companies and institutions are gunning to be the first, funding can be problematic. President Obama said that a Zika vaccine could be produced relatively quickly should Congress provide a budget for it. Democrats struck down a bill allotting 1.1 billion dollars to research for the vaccine because of tacked-on, unrelated political moves. The president attributed the denial of the bill to typical politics.

Despite this setback, new technology still allows for research to be conducted by private institutions. A relatively recent bit of tech called DNA vaccination now allows current Zika researchers to develop effective vaccines. This form of the shot only contains a fraction of the viral DNA, as opposed to an entire viral unit, allowing the production of these treatments to be more cost-effective and less dangerous.

In the past, one pitfall for researchers was the potency of the vaccine. This type of shot has to enter a cell in order to take hold (unusual in the world of vaccines), so it became necessary to invent new delivery technologies. Now, an electric shock may replace the classic puncture-style injection– a development claimed by Inovio.

So, can new trends in vaccinations help protect against Zika? Researchers hope to have a successful answer and vaccine in mass production by 2018.

– Connor Borden

Photo: Pixabay

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Hunger in Developing Countries: Five Facts You Need to Know

hunger in developing countries
Hunger in developing countries is one of the most significant hindrances to poverty reduction and global development around the world. Below are five facts about hunger in developing countries that everyone should know.

  1. Hunger is one of the most widespread problems across the globe.

    One in nine people globally is currently undernourished. Of these 795 million people, 98% live in developing countries. This means that hunger in developing countries represents one of the most significant issues facing the developing world and development assistance programs.

  2. Hunger in developing countries is not just concentrated on Africa.

    While the population of Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest percentage of undernourished people, Asia is home to the most hunger people in the world. Nearly 70% of the world’s hungry live in underdeveloped countries within Asia.

  3. Women and children are most negatively impacted.

    Every ten seconds a child dies of malnutrition, making up 45% of all child deaths under age five in developing countries. Those who do survive are often forced to go to school hungry, which hinders their ability to grow and learn and puts them behind in school. Hunger largely contributes to many underdeveloped countries’ educational gaps.

  4. Rural farmers experience the highest rates of undernutrition.

    Three-quarters of the world’s hungry live in rural areas. Most are low-income farmers whose lands are plagued by frequent natural disasters, making them one of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

  5. It is not completely out of reach.

    In July 2014 the heads of the African state department committed to ending hunger in Africa by 2025. To achieve this admirable goal, the country has committed to investing in agriculture and improving peace and stability in the region. Both of these actions have been found to have significant positive impacts on hunger-reduction. Hefty progress has already been made throughout the world — nutrition improved for 26 million people between 2011 and 2013 alone.

Hunger in developing countries is a detrimental hurdle to effective growth. The fight against global hunger is essential; ending hunger in developing countries could bring the world one step closer towards eliminating global poverty and sparking growth in much of the developing world.

– Sara Christensen

 

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21st International AIDS Conference Held in South Africa

International AIDS Conference

The International AIDS Society (IAS) hosted the 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa from July 18 to July 22. The conference discussed the various improvements in HIV/AIDS science as well as challenges the medical community needs to address.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Access Equity Rights Now.” The event was designed to tackle inequalities in access to medical treatment, including barriers such as poverty, gender, race and location.

South Africa has the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence in the world. According to UNAIDS, anywhere between 6.7 and 7.4 million people live with HIV in the country. Yet, more than 60 percent of those infected are not on antiretroviral treatment.

The previous International AIDS Conference held in Melbourne, Australia called for the Victorian State government to repeal a law discriminatory to the HIV-positive population. Additionally, the 2012 conference in Washington, D.C. led to the government removing the country’s travel ban on individuals with HIV.

The equity rights movement within the 2016 conference is a push toward equality for marginalized communities affected by the virus.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), two-thirds of new HIV infections occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Men who have sex with men, drug users and sex workers are among the various groups that are at a higher risk of infection. Even women face higher chances of transmission and greater barriers to treatment.

The International AIDS Conference brings together health professionals to improve the state of HIV/AIDS detection and treatment around the world. While there is still a long way to go in the struggle against this virus, statistics over recent years show promise.

The WHO reports a 35% decrease in new HIV cases in addition to a 28% decrease in deaths due to AIDS since 2000. With the majority of HIV cases in low and middle-income countries, the support of the international community is crucial to saving lives.

– Saroja Koneru

Photo: Flickr

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5 Things You Should Know About World Breastfeeding Week

World Breastfeeding Week

Breastmilk is a baby’s best protection against illness and disease, but data has shown that the number of newborns breastfed within the first hour of life has not improved over the past 15 years. World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated annually from August 1–7 in over 170 countries, and global organizations are sharing how early breastfeeding can make the difference between life and death.

5 Things to Know About Breastfeeding

  1. Delayed breastfeeding, even only 24 hours after birth, increases the child’s risk of dying within the first 28 days of life by 80 percent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Several factors contribute to this issue—from inadequate healthcare during delivery to babies being fed less nutritious alternatives, such as formula, cow’s milk or sugar water. These alternatives all decrease a newborn’s chance of survival. As such, government policymakers and organizations are targeting this issue by raising awareness and encouraging others to protect and promote exclusive breastfeeding.
  2. Research has found a clear connection between breastfeeding and higher IQ scores and educational achievement. Giving children the proper nutrition at the start of life supports optimal development and leads to higher earnings later in life–specifically, 12 percent higher per hour in high-income countries, and 16 percent in low to middle-income countries.
  3. The Global Breastfeeding Advocacy Initiative led by UNICEF and WHO is working with international partners to help build a healthy society. Lawmakers can show their support by ensuring a minimum of four months paid maternity leave, requiring employers to provide protection for mothers to pump milk at work and preventing discrimination against women and mothers in the workplace.
  4. Approximately 200 million children alive today will fail to reach their full physical, mental and social potential. Why? Negative factors inhibiting early childhood development–not being breastfed is among those factors. For this reason, WHO is working with countries to increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months up to, at least, 50 percent by 2025, in order to turn things around and save millions of lives.
  5. Breastfeeding produces long-term health benefits for both the mother and the child. The act of breastfeeding produces oxytocin, protects against diarrhea and common illnesses like pneumonia, and reduces the risk of obesity in childhood and adolescence. It is crucial that people are knowledgeable on the subject of breastfeeding and the effects it has on a child’s life.

Though some of the statistics given might seem shocking, World Breastfeeding Week takes the initial steps necessary to create change by raising awareness of the problem and producing individuals that can implement solutions.

– Mikaela Frigillana

Photo: Flickr

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The Fatal 4: Top Diseases in Madagascar

Top Diseases in MadagascarMadagascar is the fourth-largest island in the world and has a population of nearly 24 million people. Madagascar also has a majority rural population of 16 million. Due to remoteness, many people become isolated during flooding seasons and can lose all contact with health facilities, thus the top diseases in Madagascar are more deadly than they may ordinarily be.

Here is an in-depth look at four of the most deadly diseases in Madagascar.

Bacterial Diarrhea

Diarrhea often hits tourists while visiting new places around the globe. Yet, most travelers do not fear for their lives when they are afflicted. Unfortunately, diarrhea is a much more serious issue for those who live without clean water or proper sanitation. In fact, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), diarrhea is the second leading killer of children under the age of five globally.

For those in Madagascar, lack of clean water and proper sanitation is a major cause of diarrhea, but there are cultural factors at work as well. Often, the Malagasy have been taught to believe that using an outhouse can cause miscarriages and that fecal matter does not belong in the ground where ancestors are buried. These beliefs only further instances of diarrhea-related death.

In order to dispel these myths, locals are being educated about the advantages of proper hygiene. This can even be done in the form of puppet shows for illiterate communities in Madagascar.

Lower Respiratory Infections

There are multiple causes of lower respiratory infections, but the WHO estimates that indoor and outdoor pollution is responsible for 18,700 deaths in Madagascar annually.

Indoor pollution is especially dangerous in Madagascar because many households still rely on solid fuel such as coal and wood for cooking and heating. In addition to the use of solid fuel, many houses in Madagascar are small and have poor ventilation which leads to higher exposure to pollutants.

The solution to this problem is to move away from solid fuels and increase education about the dangers of poor ventilation and inhaling pollutants.

Perinatal Conditions

Perinatal conditions are a killer in developing countries worldwide. These conditions occur just before or after birth and can affect both mothers and children. Low birth weight, prematurity, neonatal diseases, birth trauma and birth asphyxia are all perinatal causes of death and contribute to one of the top diseases in Madagascar.

Death from perinatal conditions tends to be easily avoidable, but many in developing countries lack the knowledge and resources necessary for prevention. In fact, according to UNICEF, 90% of the population of Madagascar lives on less than two dollars a day. This type of poverty often leads to malnutrition and most of the conditions mentioned above.

Potential solutions may include increased education of perinatal care, food aid and increasing the amount of neonatal care and supplies available.

Non-communicable Disease

In other words: cancer. Cancer is the most prevalent of the top diseases in Madagascar, and the most deadly. Of the types of cancer affecting Malagasies, cervical cancer is predominant.

Unfortunately, options for cancer treatment in Madagascar are limited. Very few hospitals have cancer wards and many farmers and unemployed citizens cannot afford the costly treatment for cancer.

One measure to fight cervical cancer in Madagascar has been taken. In 2008, the University of Washington School of Medicine put forth an education and screening program. This program was an effort to increase early detection so that there was a greater possibility of getting help.

As is the case with the top diseases in Madagascar, developing countries tend to be more susceptible because they may lack resources to fight them. Often, providing simple education or inexpensive medications can make a huge difference for those who have very little.

– Weston Northrop
Photo: Flickr

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Drones Now Delivering Lifesaving Vaccines

DroneDeploying unmanned drones in low and middle-income countries could save money and increase vaccination rates, according to new research conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.

Many low- and middle-income countries struggle to deliver lifesaving vaccines to sick people who are fighting preventable diseases.

Bruce Y. Lee, director of operations at the International Vaccine Access Center at the Bloomberg School says “[We] make all these vaccines but they’re of no value if we don’t get them to the people who need them. So there is an urgent need to find new, cost-effective ways to do this.”

Currently, vaccines such as hepatitis B, tetanus, measles and rotavirus are typically transported by road through two to four storing sites before they reach clinics where the doses are finally administered to patients. The majority of vaccines require refrigeration until they are used or else they will spoil.

In addition, non-vaccine costs of routine immunization are expected to rise between 2010 and 2020, mostly derived from supply chain logistics.

In the meantime, unmanned drones have proliferated. They can traverse all land and topography, decrease labor costs and substitute the need for vehicle transportation. They have been heavily used for surveillance and in humanitarian aid delivery.

A study conducted at Johns Hopkins University found that utilizing drones to transport vaccines to their final destination could slightly increase the rate of immunization, immunizing 96 percent of the target population as compared to 94 percent using land-based transport. This simultaneously produced significant savings, eight cents for every dose administered (roughly 20 percent savings).

“Assuming the drones are reliable, are capable of making the necessary trips and have properly trained operators, they could be a less expensive means of transporting vaccines, especially in remote areas,” says Lee. He adds, “They could particularly be valuable for urgent orders.”

An initiative led by the United Parcel Service Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has raised $800,000 grant to support the launch of a zip line drone project in Rwanda that will commence later this year. The government of Rwanda will use zip line drones to make 150 life-saving blood deliveries per day to 21 transfusing facilities in western part of the country.

According to Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, “It is a totally different way to deliver vaccines to remote communities and we are extremely interested to learn if UAVs can provide a safe, effective way to make vaccines available for some of the hardest-to-reach children.”

The Rwanda drone network has been initially focused on delivering blood supplies, but plans to expand to include vaccines and treatments for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

In rural Virginia, Bhutan and Papua New Guinea, drones are currently being tested for medical supply deliveries. UNICEF is also testing their viability of use in Malawi and in Tanzania.

– Sarah Poff

Photo: Pixabay

Mount Sinai is Transcending Borders for Global Healthcare

Mount Sinai

On June 8, 2016, The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai released news of its Department of Health System Design and Global Health. The program is the first in the nation to utilize the strengths of U.S. health care systems and integrate them into global health systems.

A Worthy Leader

Leading this evolutionary integration and development project is Dr. Prabjot Singh, MD, PhD. Director of The Arnhold Institute for Global Health at Mount Sinai, Dr. Singh plans on having both departments work together in transforming and improving global healthcare.

Dr. Singh wishes to address typical but significant issues and borders surrounding global healthcare, namely quality healthcare at affordable costs and prevention as well as sustainable treatment. In order to achieve these goals, Dr. Singh stressed the need to break down the borders between U.S. health systems and the rest of the world.

According to Dr. Singh, “Our new Department, in conjunction with The Arnhold Institute for Global Health, will focus on training practitioners, designing new methods and developing solutions that collapse this barrier. The groundswell of interest from across the Mount Sinai Health System and Icahn School of Medicine signals a promising future.”

A Global Vision

The Mount Sinai Hospital already has built a stellar reputation in the world of medicine and healthcare. According to U.S. News & World Report, Mount Sinai is ranked amongst some of the top hospitals nationwide. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is also lauded as one revolutionaries in clinical and basic science research.

Essentially, Mount Sinai’s Department of Health System Design and Global Health will focus on transcending the borders and hurdles global healthcare faces. The Department will create better healthcare systems based on cost-effective business strategies and advanced technology.

Running these healthcare models will be a diverse faculty with expert-level backgrounds from economic and policy analysis, operations research, data science and interaction design. The well-rounded staff complete with the collaboration of Mount Sinai’s multiple departments is expected to reform and break the challenges surrounding global healthcare practices and accessibility.

– Jenna Salisbury

Photo: Wikidot