Confronting Oral Health in Haiti

With just over 10 million people, the Republic of Haiti has about 300 dentists serving the country’s entire population. The demand for high-quality dental care in Haiti is very great. Diseases and lack of preventative care are prevalent among Haitians because of the island’s shortage of dental healthcare providers. The topic of oral health in Haiti, like most developing countries, is given little to no attention because other health issues like cholera, TB, HIV and malnutrition are deemed more important.

Although Haiti is facing some tough times combating these major public health concerns, it is a must that dental care be provided, as it interlinks with one’s overall wellness. Infections like gum disease can heighten the chances of HIV transmission, tooth decay can contribute to poor nutrition and oral diseases can lead to bloodborne infections and ultimately cause heart attacks.

Haiti has about one dental hygienist for every 10,000 Haitians, and the majority of these dentists practice in or around the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving the remaining 48 percent living in rural Haiti with restricted access to dental care. In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, the workforce for oral health in Haiti has faced countless challenges, mandating aid from international oral health organizations, including Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO).

HVO is a nonprofit organization committed to developing the resources and quality of healthcare in developing countries through education, training and professional development. HVO works with the American Dental Association Foundation (ADA) and the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons on international oral health programs.

To confront the issues that Haiti’s oral healthcare community is facing, HVO and ADA established the Adopt-a-Practice: Rebuilding Dental Offices in Haiti program. Through the program, the ADA and HVO have helped dentists in Haiti who were impacted by the earthquake to reconstruct their practices. The Adopt-a-Practice program has raised more than $129,000 in contributions from dentists and donors across the globe. Many of these doctors have been able to receive donations and new equipment in order to reestablish themselves and continue providing care.

HVO has also been collaborating with the Faculté d’Odontologie, Haiti’s only dental school that graduates about 15 to 20 students annually, for a training program that focuses on oral health in Haiti. A large percentage of Faculté d’Odontologie students leave the country once finished with school to practice elsewhere. The school’s goal is to graduate a group of dentists who can serve the Haitian community.

The more dentists that graduate from the Faculté d’Odontologie and are willing to stay in Haiti and serve their local community, the more they can contribute to improving dental health for Haitians that need it. Building a community of Haitian dentists all around Haiti is just the first step in the right direction.

– Zainab Adebayo

Photo: Flickr

Myanmar’s Healthcare System World’s Worst

In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the healthcare systems of 190 countries throughout the world. In this ranking, Myanmar’s healthcare system was listed as the worst overall. Myanmar is still a grade three level of concern to the WHO, meaning multiple major events have affected public health in Myanmar.

Health of Mothers and Children

Shortly after becoming independent from Great Britain in 1948, Myanmar — formerly Burma — became the subject of a dictatorship, which lasted until November 2015. Under this dictatorship, nearly a third of the country’s budget was allocated for the military, while just over one percent of funding was set aside for Myanmar’s healthcare system. As a result, infant and maternal mortality rates and infectious illness rates were astronomical; the maternal mortality rate was listed at 380 per 100,000 live births, nearly 60 times the rate of Japan. As of 2013, the government increased healthcare spending to almost four percent, but the people of Myanmar are still struggling with overall wellness.

The Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association (MMCWA), founded to improve the health of mothers and children in Myanmar, has collaborated with various organizations like the International Planned Parenthood Federation, United Nations Population Fund and UNICEF to redesign Myanmar’s healthcare system. By providing education on disease and STI prevention, advocacy programs and family planning services, the MMCWA aims to lower maternal and infant mortality rates and help level out birth rates in Myanmar.

Overall Healthcare in Myanmar

Another organization, Medical Action Myanmar (MAM), is working from the bottom up to improve overall healthcare in Myanmar. MAM’s focus is on communities with little to no access to healthcare. The organization is working to create a network of health services and provide medical treatment and preventative education. To decrease the incidences of HIV in the country, MAM is providing safe needle exchange, condom distribution and STD treatment. The services are free for those who cannot afford them. 

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) also provides public health interventions and health assistance to communities in Myanmar. USAID’s focus often lies in extending assistance to high-risk communities that wouldn’t usually have access to healthcare. By performing the country’s first-ever demographic survey, USAID was able to identify what health concerns were most prevalent and, over time, has provided treatment to those suffering from tuberculosis, malaria, diarrheal disease and other emergent health concerns.

Growth efforts in Myanmar are off to a slow start after being under a dictatorship for so long, but the government is determined to make a change. The Ministry of Health’s “Vision 2030” goal of improving nine major sectors of Myanmar’s healthcare system, although lofty, is an incredible beginning to the transformation of the country with the world’s worst healthcare.

– Anna Sheps

Photo: Pixabay

The 30th Anniversary of the Effort to Eradicate Polio

2018 marks the 30-year anniversary of the first international effort to eradicate polio. Polio has been one of the most-feared illnesses throughout history and has recurred in epidemics since the beginning of recorded medicinal history. Over time, the effort to eradicate polio has become exponentially more effective, with a total of only 14 confirmed cases in 2017. But that effort did not begin until 1988, and the vaccine for the virus was created only 30 years earlier in 1954.

Polio epidemics became extremely visible when President Franklin Roosevelt contracted the virus in 1921, while he was still working as the vice president of a bonding company. He created the Warm Springs Foundation, a polio rehabilitation center, in 1927 and spurred further efforts for rehabilitation.

Now iconic and obsolete, the iron lung was the next major rehabilitation tool created in 1929. Because polio causes muscle paralysis, many sufferers of the virus became unable to breathe due to respiratory paralysis. The iron lung provided breathing assistance to those whose illness had progressed far enough to need it.

However, it was not until after Roosevelt died in 1945 that a polio research project was founded. Dr. Jonas Salk was the head of the research project in 1947, which yielded the very first successful polio vaccine six years later in 1953.

After two years of field trials, the vaccine was declared a success. Between 1955 and 1957 alone, the incidence rate of polio dropped by 85 percent. It continued to drop further once Salk’s vaccine was replaced by a more cost-effective and easily-distributed vaccine.

In 1985, the Rotary Fund initiated the PolioPlus program, a movement to immunize all children worldwide against polio. Three years later, in 1988, the WHO, CDC, UNICEF and Pan American Health Organization banded together with the Rotary Fund to launch an international immunization campaign and the official effort to eradicate polio.

When the immunization campaign was launched in 1988, there was an estimated total of 350,000 cases of polio. By 1994, the Americas were declared polio-free, and by the year 2000 the incidence rate of polio was down 99 percent, and the western Pacific was also declared polio-free.

As of 2017, only three countries in the world continue to experience endemic polio infections: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. Children under the age of five have the highest risk of contracting the illness because many are too young to receive the full course of vaccinations. According to the WHO, “as long as a single child remains infected with poliovirus, children in all countries are at risk of contracting the disease.” Because these three countries have lower rates of immunization throughout their populations, they are at higher risk of spreading the disease and letting it cross their borders

The Rotary Foundation’s effort to eradicate polio has become 99 percent effective, but the remaining 1 percent poses a risk to the entire world. Through education, mobilization and donation, the effort to eradicate polio becomes stronger every day.

– Anna Sheps

Photo: Flickr

Soteni International Builds Health and Hope in Kenya

In Kenya, around 1.6 million citizens are currently living with HIV, with around 910,000 of these being women aged 15 and over. Soteni International, a nonprofit organization based out of Cincinnati, Ohio, works within rural Kenya to fight HIV/AIDS. Executive Director Randie Marsh describes the goals of the organization as “to reduce the incidences of HIV/AIDS in rural Kenya and improve the lives of those affected by HIV/AIDS.”

Soteni International was founded in 2002 by a group of both American and African volunteers led by Dr. Victoria Wells Wulsin, a physician and epidemiologist. Marsh describes the early mission of the organization as being to “empower orphans of AIDS to lead the fight against AIDS and to prevent another generation from succumbing.”

Villages of Hope

The organization has now developed and works through the “model of Villages of Hope.” This includes doing everything in its power to build up specific communities so that they are sustainable for future HIV/AIDS free generations. These villages are focused in three main regions in rural Kenya: Mbakalo, Ugunja and Mitunto.

Marsh told The Borgen Project that the organization chose to stay in rural areas because it “felt like there are many organizations working in Nairobi that address the HIV crisis there. These [three regions] are also areas where the communities have given us land to use to further our mission and/or support us in other ways.” Soteni has supported a number of projects in these communities that all work toward the overall betterment of the region.

Community Improvements

In 2009, Soteni worked with other organizations, including the Lake Victoria North Water Services Board, the Gender Sensitive Initiatives organization and the Kenyan Water Services Fund Trust, to bring safe drinking water to Mbakalo. The project included bringing the region 20 hand-pump wells and 20 springwater pipes. The local schools also received 15 three-door latrines and 12 rainwater harvesting tanks. In 2015, the organization also enacted the Improving Access to Family Planning Project in Ujunga to spread sexual health and family planning awareness and provide access to sexual reproductive health services.

Soteni opened a health center in Mbakalo in 2005 and has continued to improve it over the years. The center provides essential medical services through a seven-person staff. 200 to 300 citizens receive treatment here every month that includes antimalarials, antihistamines, antibiotics and some immunizations. The center has no electricity, but in 2008 Soteni installed a solar refrigerator for vaccines and medicines. Plans are currently underway to expand and upgrade the center.

International Cooperation

Soteni International requires leadership and cooperation in both the United States and Kenya to do its work. The organization has members and locations in both Cincinnati and Nairobi and members make trips back and forth annually. Supporters in the U.S. can donate time through volunteer work or make monetary and material donations.

According to Executive Director Marsh, “the heart of our organization are the people on the ground who work to support the mission.”  The organization and its community work are entirely grassroots, built from the ground up by people who saw a problem and wanted to be a part of the solution. Not only does its work better the lives of Kenyan citizens, but it also inspires citizens from the U.S. and around the globe.

– Megan Burtis

Photo: Flickr

How Blood Donation Rates Were Multiplied in Haiti

After the devastation of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, health challenges greatly increased. Thousands of men, women and children were seriously injured or their livelihoods were threatened following the disaster. The National Blood Transfusion Center (NBTC) located in Port-au-Prince was destroyed, which reduced monthly national blood collections by over 46 percent.

The NBTC was responsible for the majority of blood collections as well as screening all of Haiti’s blood donations for transfusion-transmissible pathogens. Many of the men, women and children in critical conditions that were waiting for blood transfusions were thus unable to get the treatment necessary to survive. Organizations such as the Haitian Red Cross relied on foreign aid in order to collect a blood supply to help as many patients as possible.

Rapid efforts were put into place to actively repair damages and increase the scale of blood donations following the earthquake. By 2014, blood donation rates had multiplied in Haiti. Before the earthquake, blood collections were 52 percent in Port-au-Prince, which is the largest city in Haiti. As part of the recovery plan, Haiti’s Ministry of Health (MSPP) created the National Blood Safety Program (NBSP) in order to increase blood collections in outer regions of Haiti, hoping to decrease focus on the Port-au-Prince area, as this was where most of the damage was received.

Expanding the blood transfusion posts, where blood donations were completed and blood stored, was also a goal of the NBSP, as this would also encourage more active participation in blood donations throughout the entirety of Haiti. Prior to the 2010 disaster, Haiti was one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. This was only exacerbated following the destruction. Building blood transfusion posts, recruiting donors and obtaining healthy blood were intense challenges faced by health and humanitarian efforts.

However, with collaborative efforts of MSPP and the Haitian Red Cross, as well as generous donations from international relief agencies, the NBSP saw their efforts paying off within years. By building a greater geographic area for all participants to access transfusion centers, blood donation rates multiplied in Haiti. By 2012, annual blood collections exceeded pre-earthquake levels and continued to increase. By 2014, collections were 36 percent higher than in 2009. Both the international community and local community within Haiti understood the necessity for blood transfusions in the country, and volunteers rose to the occasion.

Blood donation rates multiplied in Haiti due to other efforts as well, outside of building new facilities. In 2012, Haiti initiated a new plan to continue attracting volunteers for blood donations. The country aimed to increase the percentage of voluntary blood donors to 85 percent and regular donors to 40 percent. It also sent mobile blood drivers around Haiti to network with the community and discuss the importance of blood donations. Incentives were given out, like t-shirts, books and stickers, to attract locals to the idea.

Using technology to network also became an important driver. The Haitian Red Cross Society hosts a biweekly radio show to educate listeners on the subject and encourage lifesaving behaviors. Particularly on important dates such as Blood Donor Day, the National Blood Transfusion Center produces messages on the radio and through text for people to donate blood, which can help compensate for limited stocks at different moments in time.

These combined efforts have clearly exemplified the dedication that Haiti has to reaching its goal of 100 percent donation rates in upcoming years. Its work has set an example for nations worldwide that have suffered from similar problems in obtaining efficient blood collections to treat those in need.

– Caysi Simpson

Photo: Flickr