Archive for category: Health

Information and stories on health topics.

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Child Family Health International at a Glance

Child Family Health International (CFHI) at a Glance
There is a plethora of organizations working toward the betterment of our world and the people living in it, however, they often do not get the attention or credit they deserve. So let’s shine a little spotlight on one and take a minute to appreciate others’ hard work and the power of teamwork.

Child Family Health International (CFHI) is a nonprofit organization that is focused on global health education. They offer education programs for individuals interested in global health and related careers. Here are three ways CFHI is working towards improving global health.

Educate Future Global Health Crusaders

CFHI offers education programs for students or volunteers to gain experience with the clinical practices, public health and social services in developing nations. They work within Latin America, Africa and India.

Participants of community-based Global Health CFHI programs can gain the valuable experience needed to build their resumes or earn college credit. CFHI offers more than twenty different programs in seven countries that work within and with the local community on projects like providing healthcare for underserved communities in the Himalayas to training midwives in Oaxaca.

Integrates into the Local Health Care Community

CFHI recognizes that there are already health care professionals and experts residing in the community they are working in and have partnered with existing health care providers. By utilizing local community leaders and health workers, CFHI helps support the development of opportunities for their international partners.

They invest in the continuing of their educations by offering scholarships for higher degrees and including locals in conferences and workshops. CFHI holds that students can learn not only from CFHI staff but also from those living in the communities they are working with.

Invests in Host Community

Students who participate in a CFHI education program pay a fee, which is common amongst study abroad experiences. However, unlike many other programs, CFHI invests half of a student’s fee back into the community they will be working and learning in. The invested funds work to bolster the economy of the countries CFHI works with and compensate the communities for their time, expertise and hospitality.

– Brittney Dimond

Sources: Child Family Health International 1, Child Family Health International 2, GoAbroad.com
Photo: Flickr

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Potential Typhoid Outbreak in Syria

Typhoid_Outbreak
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency’s (UNWRA) health program has dramatically decreased the risk of communicable and vaccine-preventable diseases among Palestinian refugees in Syria. However, doing such great work is challenging among crowded refugee camps that are not easily accessible. The threat of contagious diseases is always present.

The threat of a potential typhoid outbreak spreading to the capital of Damascus was prevalent in July, had UNWRA not been allowed to help. The largest “unofficial” camp at Yarmouk emptied of Palestinian refugees after fighting began between Islamic State, local groups and government forces. Refugees are temporarily in Yalda and other towns close by controlled by armed groups that have reached deals with the government. The groups have strong leaders and civilian committees that collaborate with UN agencies.

UNWRA was able to deliver whatever was needed to refugees between April 23 and June 8. They provided 6,000 food parcels each month, and healthcare. Since June 8, UNWRA has no longer been allowed, as a result of assassinations in Yalda, supposedly by insurgents. Those inaccessible places saw the loss of UNWRA host areas for the distribution of water and medical services.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent and other aid organizations have little access to these areas where there is a strong need for water purification tablets and hygiene kits. In a similar situation last year, access was eventually granted. In other parts of Syria, 10,000 Palestinians have been displaced to a small Aleppo camp with no electricity or water. To the east of Aleppo city, the large Neirab camp is under government control.

UNWRA has done everything it can in the places it can access. UNWRA staff wasted no time when they heard about the potential typhoid outbreak in Yarmouk. They took blood and water samples from those who showed symptoms, and within 24 hours typhoid medicine was delivered to Yarmouk. Currently, the number of cases is decreasing and under control.

UNWRA is hopeful about preventing outbreaks, with its rapid response of reporting cases to UNWRA senior staff, having medicine in Damascus office and 3 month supply kept at clinics. The concern for areas that are not easily accessible is still present.

Agencies are preparing for worsening conditions in Deraa and Aleppo. Before the conflict started in 2011, there were 560,000 Palestinian refugees registered with the UNWRA in Syria; today, there are 480,000, 95 percent of which need constant aid. The number of consultations for medical services has gone up from 100 to 500.

Palestinian refugees are closed off from Jordan and Lebanon, which leaves them with two options: staying in a war zone or being smuggled to Turkey, where they will take unreliable boats to Europe.

UNWRA needs $414 million just for Syria this year due to the 2014 appeal being only half funded. Due to under-funding, it will have to postpone the school year for 700 schools for half a million children unless they receive $101 million from donors by August. A source believes they should qualify, considering they are one of the countries taking part in the US-led campaign against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, which already has cost $5 billion.

UNWRA devotes half of its budget to education; schools ensure continuity and stability for children in conflicted Syria and Gaza, unstable Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Jordan, all trying to manage the influx of Palestinian and Syrian refugees.

In the past decade, donor contributions have not kept up with population growth. UNWRA offers protection and services to 5 million refugees, but it currently only has enough money to provide relief and healthcare, leaving education out of the equation.

– Paula Acevedo

Sources: Europa, Irish Times
Photo: Mashable

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Folate-Rich Rice for Malnourishment

Golden Rice grain compared to white rice
Recently, scientists at the Ghent University have successfully engineered a new folate-rich rice strain. The most notable achievement of this experiment has been the stabilization of the bio-engineered nutrition richness.

Biofortification is a relatively new venture into the field of agricultural biotechnology. It involves modifying the genetic makeup of an agricultural plant to yield a more nutrient-rich product. The results of biofortification of plants have been tested for nutritional value and bio-availability for the consumers, with promising results.

In addition to increasing the nutrition value of food products, scientists are also focusing on making the products more sustainable. New research in this area is committed to not only increasing the dietary value of the crops, but also providing for practical answers for food shortage problems globally. For instance, crops that are more resistant to droughts and natural adversities are being manufactured. Food staples such as grains are being engineered to comprise nutrients from more expensive and inaccessible vegetables.

A significant issue in the provision of sufficient food for the whole world is the problem of food wastage and storage. The world today produces more food per person than ever before; however, food insecurity continues to be an issue with the improper handling and storage of food.

Crops such as rice, wheat and other grains are generally easier to store than most foodstuffs. However, the long-term storage of food deprives them of much of their nutritional value. Micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals are likely to be degraded as a result of long-term storage, as well as the methods of storage.

Folate, or Vitamin B9 as it is popularly known, is one such nutrient. It is found in abundance in leafy green vegetables such as spinach; such vegetables are, however, difficult to store for extended periods of time. Folate is a water-soluble vitamin; consequently, it cannot be stored in the body, and needs to be replenished constantly. Folate deficiency can lead to abnormally large blood cells, and ultimately anemia, which is particularly dangerous for pregnant women.

To tackle this problem, the researchers at Ghent University took a two-pronged approach: making the rice folate-rich, as well as stabilizing the folate to ensure its availability after long periods of storage. They used a folate-binding protein- found originally in animals- to stabilize the folate molecules. The resulting molecule was found to be more resistant to degradation after storage.

The rice strain manufactured has not been introduced commercially as of yet; the public use of the strain remains subject to testing and approval by appropriate authorities. This research is, nevertheless, an innovative step in the quest for engineering more nutritious and healthier crops for ending hunger and malnourishment.

– Atifah Safi

Sources: Ugent, NIH
Photo: cbnnews

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Improving Global Health Opportunities: India’s Tremendous Progress

global health
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has helped save millions of lives among the world’s poor. Through their work, they are helping to find a way to stop the spread of global health diseases such as polio and malaria and support initiatives for proper sanitation.

Recently, there has been a great deal of success with projects like these in India. The country has been certified polio-free for over a year. To meet the requirements, the country had to go four years without a case of wild poliovirus. “This is a giant achievement in the global effort to eradicate polio,” according to an article on the Gates Foundation blog called Impatient Optimists. “As recently as 2009, India was home to nearly half the world’s cases and considered the hardest place on earth to stop the disease.”

To stay polio-free, India must maintain its high levels of immunity. In partnership with the government, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF conduct two nationwide, as well as three sub-national, vaccination campaigns annually.

Where malaria is concerned, India is also making progress; having halved the number of its cases from two million in 2000 to 882,000 in 2013, according to WHO. The country is working towards the eradication of malaria through powerful campaign tactics and ensuring that rapid response diagnostic tests are available and easily accessible.

India is hoping to reach a pre-elimination phase of malaria in 2017 and to then move forward to total elimination by 2030.

In addition to eradicating these infectious diseases, efforts are being made to improve sanitation conditions to reduce illness and death. For example, in some parts of the country as many as 80 percent of the population do not own a toilet, which can be expensive to purchase and install. However open defecation can lead to diarrheal disease. More than 450,000 children died from the disease in 2014. Women and girls are also put in danger of being raped when they go off to find a private place to use the restroom.

Thanks to microfinance loans through the Centre for Development Orientation and Training (CDOT), families are able to purchase a toilet and improve their living conditions.

Through organizations like WHO, UNICEF, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, incredible feats for global health are being reached in India and all around the world.

– Drusilla Gibbs

Sources: Impatient Optimists 1, Impatient Optimists 2, Impatient Optimists 3, WHO
Photo: hydratelife

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Nature’s Answer to Antibiotic Resistance


Overuse of antibiotics throughout the world has led to a growing problem of antibiotic resistance that could lead to the total ineffectiveness of these often life-saving drugs. In the developing world, the problem is especially acute.

According to an article in the journal Nature, some studies have suggested that in Nigeria, as many as 88 percent of Staphylococcus aureus infections cannot be treated with methicillin — once a potent weapon against the microbe.

Antibiotic resistance is also a significant issue in the emerging economies known as the ‘BRIC’ states: Brazil, Russia, India and China, the article says, as well as in India and Pakistan.

The problem is especially worrisome to public health officials due to the lack of new antibiotic compounds introduced into medical practice.

But last January, researchers at Northeastern University and NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals announced they had developed a new potential antibiotic, called Teixobactin, that has some exciting new properties.

In addition to proving itself effective in the treatment of MRSA, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and M. Tuberculosis in animal efficacy trials, the compound has the potential to become resistance-proof.

Richard Novick, a microbiologist at New York University’s Langone Medical Center has called it “a major breakthrough because it is virtually certain to be effective for the multi-resistant strains that are now all but impossible to treat.”

Doctors are eager for new medicines to treat infectious diseases. In the past, most antibiotics were developed through screening soil samples for microorganisms. But soil samples eventually gave way to millions of dollars fruitlessly spent on synthetic attempts to produce antibiotics.

The team from Northeastern and Novobiotic decided to turn back to mining soil-based uncultured bacteria by using a new technology called Ichip. In this approach, soil samples are diluted with agar, allowing a single bacterial cell to be isolated. Researchers are able to isolate up to 96 cells in individual “chambers” in each Ichip device. Teixobactin was discovered from a soil sample from Maine.

Seventy years of antimicrobial use and overuse have given bacteria ample time to genetically fortify themselves for a new wave of infectious disease. Now, the CDC estimates that antibiotic-resistant bacteria will infect two million people and among those two million, 23,000 will die from those infections.

The techniques used to extract Teixobactin from the Maine soil sample have opened up millions of microorganisms for future study. Ichip allows researchers to harness this biodiversity in traditionally rich environments such as forest soil and even marsh water.

“This biodiversity is also hiding a lot of chemical diversity that may include new, other antibiotics,” wrote Gerard Wright, director of the Institute for Infectious Disease Research in Canada.

– Emma Betuel

Sources: The Scientist, Nature 1, The Lancet, Nature 2, ACS, CDC, Popsci
Photo: medicaldaily

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Addressing the Measles Outbreak in DR Congo

Measles_Outbreak
The Democratic Republic of Congo is facing the worst measles outbreak since 2011, according to Doctors Without Borders. So far this year, over 23,000 cases of measles were reported in the Katanga region of the country. The UN and Doctors Without Borders have calculated over 400 deaths.

The epidemic started in February of this year. In just one village with a population of 500, 30 children died in just 2 months. Despite the number of deaths, the central government in Kinshasa hadn’t recognized the measles epidemic and the deaths caused by it until earlier this month.

Doctors Without Borders has vaccinated over 300,000 children, despite the difficulties of having to keep the vaccine cold and requiring 2 shots, weeks apart for effectiveness.

An additional difficulty has been the lack of infrastructure with bad roads and railroads that are usually never fixed or where fuel runs low. Some villages are hardly accessible, only way to get there is by foot, motorcycle or canoe.

The UN has estimated $2.4 million to vaccinate everyone. The vaccine is effective enough it has wiped out the measles outbreak in western countries. The problem in countries such as the DR of Congo is children’s immune systems have been weakened from malnutrition, malaria and cholera.

The vaccine while effective, cannot prevent death when complications such as blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhea and related dehydration, or severe respiratory infections.

In addition, vaccination has proved difficult in a region which has tried to become independent from the rest of the country. The ongoing fighting between local militia and Congolese army over mining areas leads to villagers fleeing for days or weeks. However, efforts are ongoing to improve the current living conditions for Congolese citizens, especially children.

– Paula Acevedo

Sources: New York Times, Yahoo
Photo: CDN

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The Magic of ORS

ors
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has expressed a strong belief that providing access to known health interventions will go a long way toward saving lives, specifically the lives of children.

Because global health has been such a priority over the last 25 years, preventable child deaths have been reduced to half since 1990. That still leaves many children dying from diseases that are entirely preventable. One of the leading causes of death in children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia is diarrheal disease.

Diarrheal disease causes a child to lose enormous amounts of fluids which then causes them to become extremely dehydrated. This disease can have a long-term effect on a child’s overall health and development.

Fortunately, there is a low-cost solution that will help to re-hydrate children who have lost a dangerous amount of fluids quickly and effectively. The Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) is a simple, yet highly effective sugar and salt mixture. There are many benefits to this relatively new solution, which include:

  1. Helping to combat other diseases that cause dehydration such as Cholera and Ebola.
  2. It can cost as little as 10 cents a packet (Although it is most often given out for free in developing and/or impoverished countries).
  3. Not only hydrates but provides the body with natural, essential salts.
  4. ORS was first introduced in 1979 and has a proven, growing track record.
  5. Easy to administer; parents with limited instructions can do it themselves.
  6. ORS is improved upon not just by one country but many, which expedites its improvement as well as allowing countries to personalize their solution, tailoring it to their specific needs.

Unfortunately, this life-saving solution is not being used in many countries that could benefit from it. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is dedicated to making sure preventative treatments such as ORS are available where they are needed most.

– Drusilla Gibbs

Sources: Impatient Optimists, Rehydrate, WHO
Photo: defeatdd

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Fighting the TPP’s Bad Medicine

pills
After months of negotiation, the public has spoken. Public health outcry surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) resounds online, in print and on television.

“We have raised our voice as loudly as we can,” said Manica Balasegaram, executive director of Doctors Without Borders’ (DWB) access campaign. “This is a terrible deal for access to affordable medicines.”

The idea behind campaigns like the one headed by DWB is to remove the intellectual property laws (many pertaining to pharmaceuticals that treat life-threatening conditions) from the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP).

As it stands, according to a November 13 Wikileak, the TPP would seek to extend the patent on brand-name pharmaceuticals an additional five years (delaying the onset of cheaper generic drugs that compete with brand-names), as well as 12 years of “data exclusivity” for biologic drugs, of which include many cancer and multiple sclerosis therapies.

While these intellectual property rights are sure-fire ways to keep pharmaceutical prices high—even unreachable for many in developing countries—defenders of the TPP laud them as ways to improve health, not hamper it.

The first line of the secret TPP document that was leaked by Julian Assange in 2013 decries that the thought process behind these intellectual property laws is to “enhance the role of intellectual property in promoting economic and social development in relation to the new digital economy, technological innovation, and transfer the dissemination of technology and trade.”

As increases in antibiotic resistance demands more innovation in pharmaceuticals, they remove incentives for Big Pharma to pursue antibiotic options (data shows that the more times you use these antibiotics, the less effective they are, so profits are capped).

Beneath this intellectual property clause that is a roadblock to doctors and patients everywhere, lies a real problem–how can we incentivize further development of life-saving antibiotic therapies?

The best way our society knows how to incentivize something is to monetize it. The idea of writing hours of code at a computer was abhorrent, for many, until Bill Gates and Steve Jobs turned personal computers into million-dollar industries.

The intellectual property laws surrounding pharmaceuticals (especially, antibiotics) exist to serve this purpose—to create an industry that is robust, profitable and differentiated.

It is even present in the existing TRIPS free trade agreement which guarantees some intellectual property laws in free trade agreements, even providing special waivers to certain developing countries that exempt them having to abide by pharmaceutical patents until at least January 2016.

“The LDC waivers [exemption from TRIPS-sponsored patent law for drugs] are among the important flexibilities available in the TRIPs agreement,” wrote a UNAID 2012 report.

“Retaining the flexibility to adapt intellectual property law and policy to meet national development objected has facilitated the development of robust generic industries such as India and Brazil. Generic competition, primarily from Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers, has been one of the key factors in the dramatic decrease in prices of…medicines for HIV treatment.”

If the TPP must go through, which according to some reports will happen before the dawn of the 2016 election year, the TRIP waiver program has already given us the skeleton of a tool to combat it.

If intellectual property rights for biologic therapies and drugs in the US are to be tightened, the extension of the waivers for generic development elsewhere may be necessary.

Diversify the market–let the developing nations step in with their own budding pharmaceutical industries and mollify the situation that the TPP has the power to create.

– Emma Betuel

Sources: UNITAID, UNAIDS, About News, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), WikiLeaks, Health Affairs, Center for American Progress
Photo: Pixabay

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Rebuilding the Healthcare System in Kenya

kenyas health care system
In many developing countries around the world, preventable, life-threatening diseases still ravage communities and affect significant numbers of people.

For countries like Kenya, diseases such as HIV/AIDS take precedence when it comes to allocating annual health budgets due to the vast majority of sufferers. According to the Thomas Reuters Foundation’s calculations, around 60% of Kenya’s annual $1.25 billion health budget goes towards the treatment of HIV/AIDS alone.

Despite generous funding from donors like the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the fact that HIV prevalence among adults has almost halved to 5.3% since the mid-1990s, HIV/AIDS remains the leading cause of death in Kenya.

With little to no symptoms experienced by HIV/AIDS victims, the progression of this incurable disease remains responsible for every 3 out of 10 deaths in this east African country. The government’s 2014 data reports that 1.6 million Kenyans are infected.

Although an alarming number of Kenyans suffer from HIV/AIDS, the government has recognized a disproportionate amount of aid and energy being focused on this one disease, which unfortunately means that those ailing from other diseases are being ignored.

This unequal distribution of funding and support means the current healthcare system in Kenya is unable to reach those living in slums and arid regions.

Now, Kenyan workers believe that reproductive illnesses should have been addressed alongside HIV/AIDS. Although the past cannot be altered, fortunately, change is in motion for the healthcare system in Kenya, which plans to eventually provide universal health coverage that is high quality and affordable.

“The new U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), due to be agreed by world leaders later this month, seek to build on the Millennium Development Goals by reducing maternal mortality and ending the AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics by 2030,” states an article by the Thomas Reuters Foundation.

To reach these goals, a shift from investing in solely HIV/AIDS treatment must begin in order to benefit and strengthen the health system as a whole.

According to Peter Kimuu, head of the health ministry’s Directorate of Policy, Planning and Health Care Financing, complications such as corruption and inefficiency affect nearly half of Kenya’s health budget.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also estimates that 20% to 40% of global health budgets are wasted, which impacts the level of trust, making donors less likely to support the health sector.

These disparaging numbers reflect the need for leaders to change from a “revenue-agenda” focus to an “efficiency agenda” one.

The Thomas Reuters Foundation states that “Although maternity, under-five and emergency services are nominally free in Kenya, cash-strapped government facilities are overstretched, forcing patients to buy their own medicines.”

Consequently, the behavior of dissatisfied healthcare workers has resulted in the deaths of patients due to ongoing strikes by nurses not receiving their salary pay, which creates an environment of low morale and abuse within hospitals.

Plans to invest in Kenya’s healthcare system would require compulsory health insurance, “entitling Kenyans to a package of services from 4,000 public or 6,000 private health facilities,” Kimuu said.

This investment would benefit those seeking treatment and encourage better service because government medical centers would be paid by the number of patients treated.

At last, it is only through a shift in focus that the healthcare system can start its transformation, which will further the lives of many and ultimately enable Kenya to achieve the U.N.’s SDGs.

– Nikki Schaffer

Sources: Reuters, AIDS.gov
Photo: Rand

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The Nursery of the Future

Nursery of the Future
Premature births are a very real scare for mothers in developed countries like the U.S., but in developing countries, they can mean almost certain death. Worldwide, premature birth is the leading cause of death for children under five years of age. Despite advances in technology that have made tremendous strides in improving health outcomes for babies born earlier than 37 weeks, in developing countries, where women may be at a higher risk for giving birth prematurely, this technology is generally widely unavailable due to high prices and lack of access to adequate healthcare. Nursery of the Future is working affordable alternatives to those who need it most.

 

The Birth of Nursery of the Future

 

A bioengineering professor at Rice University in Texas, Rebecca Richards-Kortum, consistently saw this problem and wanted to do something about it. Along with colleagues and students, Richards-Kortum has begun to develop “the Nursery of the Future.” The team has developed prototypes of alternatives to high tech, and high cost medical machinery that is common across the U.S., for use in more underdeveloped areas around the world.

One such example of a low cost alternative is a belly band. One common problem in preemies is neurological underdevelopment that can cause the baby to stop breathing. In hospitals across the countries, monitors alert nurses if a baby stops breathing and the nurse then stimulates the baby somehow to remind them to breathe. In developing countries, these monitors are often too expensive to be used and often times infants die before a nurse notices. The belly band developed by Richards-Kortum and Maria Oden, a colleague, was designed with a tiny motor attached to it that detects when a baby’s air intake is low, or they stop breathing, and vibrates to remind the baby to breathe.

The belly band is just one step towards the development of a whole “Nursery of the Future” kit. Richards-Kortum and the team hope to make the Nursery available for under $10,000 and widely accessible for community hospitals. The belly band has been tested in Texas and is approaching its first international trial in Malawi in the near future. The Nursery of the Future is a huge step in the global fight against child mortality and overall accessibility and affordability of medical devices. Innovations made in the Nursery Kit for preemies hold promise for innovations in other medical technologies that could improve access to essential medical devices around the world.

– Emma Dowd

Sources: Houston Chronicle, TED Talks