Archive for category: Health

Information and stories on health topics.

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Peru and Ecuador Team Up to Fight Chikungunya Fever


Reports of Chikungunya Fever are on the rise in Peru, raising concerns at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC has added Peru to the Level One Watch List for Chikungunya Fever, as the disease moves toward epidemic proportions in the country. The Peruvian Ministry of Health is taking precautions to limit the spread of the disease in the country, which may have spread from neighboring countries.

Minister Velasquez of the Peruvian Ministry of Health and Minister Candace Vance of Health Ministry of Ecuador have signed an agreement to jointly fight the disease. This agreement allowed Peru to identify the first indigenous case of Chikungunya Fever.

The Peruvian Ministry of Health of has put together a national plan to combat the disease including a surveillance agency MOH to monitor infectious disease coming across the border. They have also placed an epidemiological fence in areas where the disease is prevalent and spray shops and homes to eradicate the disease.

In partnership with Ecuador, the are closely monitoring outbreak and implementing vector control in areas where the outbreaks arise in. Ecuador has suffered more than 15,000 cases of Chikungunya Fever this year alone.

Across Latin America, rates of mosquito-borne disease are increasing; the joint action plan between Ecuador and Peru marks a first step in interstate cooperation to combat mosquito-borne diseases.

Chikungunya fever, much like malaria, Yellow fever, Typhoid fever and Dengue is spread by the bite of a mosquito. Chikungunya symptoms begin about 3-7 days after being bitten by the Aedes Egypti mosquito.

The symptoms include fever, joint pain, headache, muscle ache, rash or swelling. These symptoms left untreated can severely disable an individual. Symptoms can last anywhere from a week to a month depending on the severity of the case.

– Robert Cross

Sources: CDC, EL Universo, Outbreak News Today, PMOH, Peru This Week
Photo: Información desde América Latina

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Korea Battles Blindness in Cambodia

Korea Battles Blindness in Cambodia
When Cambodia fell into chaos and eventual civil war in the 1960s, it lost more than government stability. With war came the loss of reliable healthcare, which left its citizens without proper treatment. Chemical weaponry and blunt force resulted in the widespread development of glaucoma, a buildup of pressure on the eyes that can cause total blindness.

Blindness in Cambodia is especially devastating because of the extensive rice production within the country. Agriculture pulls in a lot of Cambodia’s profit, and many households rely on it for a living. If a family breadwinner is unable to work in the fields, it is difficult to remain above the poverty line.

The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has taken action to assist Cambodia‘s efforts in assisting the visually impaired by offering support to the country’s healthcare infrastructure.

The goal of KOICA is “pursuing harmonization with global partners to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life in developing countries.” It is fulfilling this goal in Cambodia by educating Cambodians about glaucoma and other vision impairments. Glaucoma is preventable if treated in time, but awareness and accessibility are lacking. KOICA hopes to change that.

Korea donated $5.5 million to the Cambodian-Korean Friendship Eye Center to the Preah Ang Duong Hospital in Phnom Penh. The eye center contains 52 beds within four stories, as well as high-quality modern equipment.

“The successful operation of this modern Eye Center is expected to contribute to the blind prevention rate, improve eye care services and capacity of the ophthalmic research,” according to the KOICA Cambodia website.

On May 13, Cambodia completed the construction of the new wing. The Cambodian-Korean Friendship Eye Center offers timely treatments to victims of vision impairment. Furthermore, it trains doctors to better diagnose and help their patients.

– Sarah Prellwitz

Sources: Global Security, KOICA Cambodia 1, KOICA Cambodia 2, KOICA Cambodia 3, KOICA Cambodia 4, WEBMD,
Photo: Flickr

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The Virtual Care Clinic Introduces Hologram House Calls

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The Virtual Care Clinic, recently announced by the University of Southern California, is a pioneer in the field of virtual health care that promises easily accessible and personalized health care across the globe.

The two main components of this virtual clinic are hologram house calls, which stream video to individuals and an app that assesses someone’s needs based off of archived data as well as the information the patient provides.

The ninth annual University of Southern California’s Body Computing Conference was heralded by the announcement of hologram house calls, a prime feature to the previously announced Virtual Care Clinic which is currently under development.

The house call consists of a hologram or video beamed across the globe to wherever a patient in need resides, giving an incredible advantage for doctors to assess a patient with a little more contextualization.

This feature is important because it allows for a quick diagnosis and also allows doctors to further understand the situation of health care recipients, most of whom live in poverty.

The hologram house call is an essential extremity of the Virtual Care Clinic because this alone provides easily accessible care not just domestically but abroad, which is really an amazing feat.

Just by using the hologram house call anybody may speak to a trained medical physician in seconds and be given a diagnosis in minutes; the potential for giving health care guidance shrinks from providing establishments to providing a device that will stream the video.

Also, the house call operates with wearable or injectable technology that logs data in order to provide an almost complete examination; with these technologies working together, it is as if one were visiting a real doctor who would give him or her a precise consultation.

Along with the hologram house call, a second part of the virtual care clinic is less data intensive and focuses more on providing consistent, non-personnel type of aid.

With the app, all one must do is insert his or her age, medical condition and history of diseases that run in the family to be given accurate and helpful information on what kind of treatment to seek and when to seek it.

The potential for this technology is overwhelming considering that the mobile tech industry is ever-growing in places where development is occurring faster every day. Conceivably, the Virtual Care Clinic would provide consistent and affordable health care with the ultimate utility of being completely mobile.

– Emilio Rivera

Sources: University of Southern California, Co.Design, Popular Science
Photo: Wikipedia

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Global Maternal Newborn Health Conference in Mexico City

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In response to the recent sustainable development goals created by the UN, Mexico City hosted a Global Maternal Newborn Health Conference to focus attention on and propel efforts towards improving maternal and newborn health and healthcare around the world.

Representatives of more than 50 countries, which included policymakers, healthcare workers, researchers and organization leaders, attended the conference.

The general public or those unable to attend in person had ample opportunity to participate virtually through webcasts, live converge and social media engagements. The theme of the Conference was “Reaching every mother and newborn with quality care.”

The talks, group sessions and skill demonstrations focused on six primary tracks: innovating to accelerate impact at scale, measuring for evaluation and accountability, bridging equity divides, generating new evidence to fill critical knowledge gaps, strengthening demand for health care and increasing health systems’ capacity to respond to population needs.

The conference was hosted with the intention of increasing collaboration to encourage innovation and improved global health.

Every day, about 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy or childbirth. These deaths are often due to the fact that the women did not have access to adequate healthcare.

This helps explain why 99 percent of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries where woman are restricted geographically or economically from the medical care they need.

Mexico City was selected to host the conference because Mexico is a recognized global leader in maternal and newborn health improvements.

Their national maternal and newborn health agenda has been greatly improved through successful government policies and programs, as well as through assistance from local and national NGOs, philanthropic entities and academic organizations.

In order to abide by and accomplish the UN’s Sustainable Developmental Goals, nations and international organizations must find ways to work together to set satisfactory standards and procedures and flush out what strategies and techniques work and what ones do not.

Conferences like the Global Maternal Newborn Health Conference allow information to be shared as well as spur insight to solutions and inspire hope for progress.

– Brittney Dimond

Sources: Global MNH 2015, The Guardian, WHO
Photo: Flickr

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USAID Grants Palladium Health Policy Plus

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USAID tasked Palladium with implementing Health Policy Plus (HP+), which is a five-year $185 million project that focuses on strengthening health policy, financing, governance and advocacy in developing countries.

The initiation of Palladium Health Policy Plus is in perfect timing with the establishment of the new Global Sustainable Health Goal (SDGs).

It directly focuses on Goal 3, which is to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages,” and goal 17: “strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.”

Palladium is greatly experienced in leading initiatives on social and economic development. They have led projects in 84 countries in collaboration with the U.S. Government and World Bank.

Ed Abel, president of Palladium’s U.S. business unit, said: “We are grateful to USAID in recognizing Palladium’s leadership in bringing positive impact to its global effort to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies through health policy and financing.”

HP+ builds upon the previous Health Policy Project (HPP) that ended on Sep. 29, 2015. HPP was active from 2010 to 2015 and was implemented in 48 countries worldwide.

The USAID-funded HP+ was initiated on Aug. 28, 2015. Palladium plans on using the following “four pillars” to achieve success: International Development, Strategy Execution Consulting, Research Development and Training and finally Impact Investing.

These approaches will also take into account gender equality and equity issues, family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH), maternal and child health (MCH) and HIV and AIDS.

Palladium will be working in collaboration with Avenir Health, Futures Group Global Outreach, Plan International USA, Population Reference Bureau, RTI international, The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and ThinkWell.

Suneeta Sharma, HP+ Director, commented: “We’re looking forward to collaborating with USAID, health ministries and civil society actors worldwide to foster more equitable, sustainable, rights-based health services, supplies and delivery systems using evidence-based approaches for decision making and resource allocation.”

– Marie Helene Ngom

Sources: PRNewswire, Federal Grants, UN Sustainable Development, Palladium
Photo: Rachel Yang

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Sustainable Blood Flow in West Africa

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Sisu Global Health has developed a device that recycles blood without using electricity for hospitals in developing countries.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “75 countries report collecting fewer than 10 donations per 1,000 population.” The vast majority of these countries are located in Africa.

Not only is blood itself in short supply (and expensive), clean and effective ways to obtain and transmit it are also lacking.

Of the donations low-income countries receive, only 16% are monitored through external quality assessment schemes, says the WHO. This leads to the continued spread of diseases, such as HIV.

In addition, unnecessary and unsafe transfusions run rampant in low-income clinics, creating even more problems.

Fortunately, a hospital in West Africa came up with a blood-collecting technique that would become the inspiration for a revolution in blood technology.

When Carolyn Yarina and Gillian Henker visited the hospital, they saw doctors use a cup to collect and reuse blood from internal bleeding, reports The Baltimore Sun.

Using this idea as a foundation, they created Sisu Global Health, a medical device company for emerging markets.

Their breakthrough technology, called the Hemafuse, is a manual autotransfusion device used to retransfuse a patient’s own blood during an internal hemorrhage, according to their website.

The Hemafuse does not need electricity to run, which makes it the perfect solution for clinics in developing countries.

With such a revolutionary, environmentally-friendly product, Sisu has already attracted attention from big-time investors.

According to The Baltimore Sun, the company has obtained a $100,000 investment from AOL Co-Founder Steve Case, after entering his “Rise of the Rest” startup competition.

Yarina and Henker have stumbled onto an immensely valuable idea here, one that will help ensure blood safety and sustainable blood flow in countries that have a desperate need for plasma.

– Ashley Tressel

Sources: Baltimore Sun, WHO, SISU Global Health, Rise of Rest

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The Global Burden of Disease: Bringing Data to the People

Global Burden of DiseaseChris Murray, a professor of global health at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, wanted to understand one simple question, “Why do people get sick and die?” To get the answer, he created a comprehensive database known as the Global Burden of Disease (GBD).

The tool is incredibly useful to policymakers and health care providers whose mission is to keep people healthy. Health is affected by a variety of factors including one’s demographics. Where someone lives play a role in his or her vulnerability to certain health risks; some countries experience higher rates of heart disease due to cultural dietary influences while others lose children at early ages because they do not have access to necessary vaccinations.

In order to effectively address health issues in a given country, there needs to be a clear picture of what the biggest health culprits are. While data that could help paint that picture has existed for years, it has been scattered among researchers, hospitals and governments, making it inaccessible and consequently less useful.

Murray created the GBD data collection to provide information to health workers, policymakers and the general public. It is the largest effort to measure epidemiological levels and health trends globally and contains the collected and analyzed data of more than 1,000 researchers in more than 100 countries.

The GBD is open to everyone and contains a visualization of data that allows for greater contextualization of what has been collected and observed. Experts from around the world have collaborated and continue to update the database to ensure it stays as accurate as possible.

In the 2013 systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease, researchers found that since 1990 the global life expectancy for both sexes has increased from 65.3 years to 71.5 years. However, an individual’s life expectancy and the likely cause of death differs based on where he or she lives and the economic status of his or her home country, which understandably plays a considerable role in the individual’s health.

For instance, while there have been reductions in the number of child deaths attributed to diarrhea, lower respiratory tract infections and neonatal causes in low-income regions, these health complications are still the leading cause of death in children younger than 5 years and are more prominent in poor countries compared to wealthy countries.

The GBD delivers information to the hands of people who can provide solutions. It allows health care workers to pinpoint the problem in order to begin addressing it. If governments know their citizens are vulnerable to certain health risks they can work toward identifying the causes and implementing solutions. There has always been power in knowledge, and the GBD allows for the consolidation of knowledge, thereby increasing its untapped power.

– Brittney Dimond

Sources: WHO, The Gates Notes, IHME

Photo: Flickr

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Clinton Global Initiative Launches Health Plan

Clinton Global InitiativeA lack of access to adequate health care is often a risk factor or symptom of poverty, as the inability to prevent or treat illnesses in a timely, affordable manner can devastate communities.

Following the aftermath of the Ebola crisis, USAID, the Clinton Global Initiative and other organizations have teamed up to create the Aspen Management Partnership for Health.

The Aspen Management Partnership for Health (AMP Health) is the first multi-sectoral partnership in the community health sector to focus on the leadership driving community health systems in developing nations.

Specifically, AMP Health hopes to strengthen the leadership and management of community health organizations. AMP Health combines the power of several different organizations in order to facilitate effective change.

This multi-sectoral partnership utilizes the power of USAID, the Aspen Institute, MDG Health Alliance, Born Free Africa, Margaret A. Cardill Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, Partners in Health, the Harvard School of Public Health and McCann Health.

The partnership was announced at the Clinton Foundation’s 2015 Annual Meeting as one of their Commitments to Action for the Clinton Global Initiative.

“In addition to establishing mentor networks and cross-country convenings, the partners will recruit, train, and deploy in-country management professionals to work side-by-side with Ministries of Health on high-priority community health projects, ultimately strengthening health systems,” Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton said at the meeting.

The networks of trained, values-oriented health care professionals will be critical in advancing community health systems in developing nations.
Initially, the partnership will be utilized in sub-Saharan Africa, where community health interventions could save up to three million lives per year.

It will prove particularly relevant to reducing child and maternal mortality rates.

AMP Health incorporates businesses, governments, educational institutions, think tanks, multilateral organizations, and philanthropic foundations in order to affect change for community health systems.

While this may be just one of the Clinton Foundation’s 3,200 Commitments to Action, it carries much power and support from myriad organizations.

As a result of the multi-sectoral partnership, AMP Health can support sub-Saharan Africa as it works to prevent future epidemics, lower child and maternal mortality rates, and manage the treatment of chronic, non-communicable diseases.

– Priscilla McCelvey

Sources: Aspen Institute, Market Watch
Photo: Flickr

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Health Poverty Action: Combating Poverty and Poor Health

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Extreme poverty and poor health conditions are inextricably linked. According to the World Health Organization, about 1.2 billion people worldwide are currently living on less than $1 a day, which places them in the extreme poverty category.

This is why it is important to tackle the causes of poor health, which will in turn help to drastically improve poverty levels and vice versa.

In developing areas of the world, poverty increases people’s chances of getting sick due to poor nutrition, overcrowding and a lack of clean water. Some people are forced to put themselves into dangerous, health-hazardous situations in order to provide for and keep their families safe.

On the flip side, poor health causes an increase in poverty when a family loses a source of income due to an inability to work, perhaps causing them to sell assets such as livestock or equipment and tools essential to their work.

This will significantly decrease a family’s ability to fight poverty, especially during times of extreme political, economic or natural shocks.

In order to combat and tackle both issues at once, which will significantly reduce the prevalence of both extreme poverty and poor health conditions, Health Poverty Action, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting both poverty and poor health, suggests several things:

1. Aid should be more long term and have a stable, predictable structure. When tackling health concerns, the focus should be on improving the country’s health system and not just on one specific disease.

2. There is a need for more health workers to be trained in their own countries and to stay where they are most needed. Wealthier countries should avoid taking away sorely needed health professionals.

3. Emphasis needs to be placed on prioritizing health and reasonable global health coverage.

4. Issues such as nutrition, education, clean water and sanitation much be addressed.

5. It is important that there be affordable, easy access to a variety of medicine for the poor.

All around the world, organizations like Health Poverty Action are already enacting change.

Along the border between China and Burma, there is a high risk of malaria infection. Health Poverty Action is giving communities their access to treatments and prevention. A similar story is true of TB in Cambodia and HIV in South Omo, Ethiopia.

The poverty rate has been steadily decreasing but it is time for the world to take the next big steps as one. By implementing initiatives to address the points above, we have a true shot at ending global poverty and poor health conditions.

– Drusilla Gibbs

Sources: Health Poverty Action 1, Health Poverty Action 2, World Health Organization, Inequality Watch
Photo: Pixabay

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UNAIDS And Faith-based Organizations Strengthen HIV Response

UNAIDSUNAIDS and United States President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) collaborated with faith-based organizations (FBOs) in East Africa to launch a two-year initiative to strengthen their capacity to respond to HIV.

On Sep. 15, 2015, in the seventieth session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, it was revealed that the five focus areas of the U.S. $4 million program are: collecting, analyzing and disseminating data; challenging stigma and discrimination; increasing demand for HIV services and retaining people in care; improving HIV-related service provision; and strengthening leadership and advocacy.

This new program is the result of suggestions made by faith leaders at a deliberation in April 2015. The conference hosted over 50 faith leaders from Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania.

The faith leaders called for more access to data, heightened accountability and better collaboration between FBOs and international partners.

The report, Building on Firm Foundations, which was released by the United Nations General Assembly, UNAIDS, PEPFAR and Emory University last month, highlights the impact of faith-based responses to epidemics in the four East African countries.

FBOs provided a majority of health services and sustained collaborative communities which maintain a disease-free environment for future generations.

PEPFAR’s partnership with FBOs has allowed them to reach 7.7 million people with lifesaving antiretroviral treatment, and treat 14.2 million pregnant women, thus decreasing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

The recently launched PEPFAR 3.0 – Controlling the Epidemic: Delivering on the Promise of an AIDS-free Generation set the ambitious goal of 90-90-90.

By 2020, PEPFAR aims to achieve: 90% of people living with HIV who know their status, 90 percent of people who know their status and are receiving treatment and 90% of people on HIV treatment who have a suppressed viral load.

Thus it is important to strengthen partnerships with FBOs, as they are primary health providers for many communities, and allow UNAIDS and PEPFAR to expand their impact.

Luiz Loures, UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director, stated that “Faith-based organizations are essential partners, particularly in the areas of health service delivery and addressing stigma and discrimination. The partnership with faith-based organizations is critical to ending the AIDS epidemic and making sure that no one is left behind.”

– Marie Helene Ngom

Sources: UNAIDS, PEPFAR Report
Photo: Flickr