Global Health Progress

May 25

Giving an inexpensive deworming drug to millions of girls in rural Africa could substantially reduce transmission of the virus that causes AIDS, researchers say.

The drug praziquantel, which costs only 32 cents per child, would prevent schistosomiasis, a worm disease that starts as a urinary tract infection but, untreated, can lead to female genital sores that make it easier for H.I.V. to enter. Once lesions appear, the drug can kill the worms but not cure the sores, so girls must be protected before they reach sexual maturity.

People and communities around the world find it difficult to access good, affordable health care and knowledge they can use to improve their health. How can the global health community use technologies successfully to address the needs that matter most, such as getting the right health workers with the right skills and the right tools to the right communities, improving health, and saving lives?

Health experts have called on nine African governments to take urgent actions to expand and strengthen existing prevention of mother-to-child transmission services for pregnant women, and increase the treatment for infected mothers and children.

Nancy Goodman Brinker, founder of the breast cancer foundation Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is to be appointed the World Health Organization’s goodwill ambassador for cancer control by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, according to a statement scheduled for release Tuesday.

The World Health Organization has added 439 new cases of swine flu to its global tally, raising its total of confirmed cases to 12,954.

The agency also raised the overall death toll by one to 92.

The World Health Organization and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are working to contain a dangerous strain of malaria that, if allowed to spread past Cambodia, could threaten millions of people, Bloomberg.com reports.

Countries should be ready for more serious H1N1 flu infections and more deaths from the newly discovered virus, World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan said on Friday.
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The incidence of new cholera cases in Zimbabwe has fallen to a very low level with only 28 new cases and one death reported in a World Health Organization update as of Wednesday.
Read the full story on the VOA News site >

Japanese authorities began to ease measures aimed at controlling the spread of swine flu Friday, saying the virus was not as lethal as feared. Mexico City, meanwhile, lifted all of its flu restrictions and lowered its alert level, after authorities said no new cases had been confirmed there for a week, news services reported.
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The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Committee on the U.S. Commitment to Global Health released its final report on May 20 which concludes that the U.S. government and U.S.-based foundations, universities, nongovernmental organizations, and commercial entities have an opportunity to improve global health and provides specific recommendations for how these groups should proceed. To follow-up on this release, the Kaiser Family Foundation will hold a live, interactive webcast on Thursday, May 21 at 12 p.m. ET from its Washington, D.C., studio, to discuss what the report results will likely mean for the U.S. government’s response to global health.