Most Popular Global Health Posts
Kristof: We Can Stop Women Dying In Childbirth, We Just Need More Money
Published October 13, 2009 @ 02:16PM PT
Sometimes it takes less than 140 characters to get the message across. In a tweet earlier today, Nicholas Kristof wrote: "Maternal mortality: 540,000 women die annually in childbirth, equivalent of 5 jumbo jets crashing a day." 89 characters that can provide a real shock.
The tweet was in reference to “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” a book co-written by Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, a former New York Times correspondent who works in finance and philanthropy. It was excerpted at length in the New York Times. In that piece they make an obvious point: we know how to avoid maternal mortality (it's 1 in 47,600 in Ireland, but 1 in 7 in Niger), it's just that "poor, uneducated women in Africa and Asia have never been a priority either in their own countries or to donor nations." Kristof is demanding action and aid to help save lives, advocating tried and tested methods that just need funding in order to make a real difference.
Damage Mugabe Did To Zimbabwe's Health Becomes Clear
Published October 12, 2009 @ 05:53PM PT
Zimbabwe's health system used to be something for the nation to be proud of, one of the best in Africa. But as President Mugabe loosens his grip and Prime Minister Tsvangirai works to rebuild, the damage that authoritarian rule has done to the country is becoming frighteningly clear. As the health system collapsed, life expectancy fell to 43 years, and maternal mortality quadrupled between 1990 and 2007. Fewer children were receiving vaccines, and gross national income fell as food prices rose.
The Lancet further reports that Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak was much worse than the World Health Organization's worst-case scenario, effecting 100,000 and causing 4,200 fatalities. Quite simply: "A susceptible population paired with the ubiquitous failure of the Mugabe government to provide clean water made Zimbabwe a modern-day cholera frenzy." The Lancet explain that the most immediate need now is for obstetrics (child birth), and persuading expatriate doctors to return. But of course, a reconciliation process to ensure political violence never happens again is also important — and happening — to ensure someone like Mugabe can never again leave the nation in such a critical condition.
Students Build Huge Network To Fight For Global Health Equity
Published October 11, 2009 @ 02:41PM PT
Globemed has built a big network of university students (and alumni) who partner with grassroots health organizations around the world to improve the health of the impoverished. They work with students at 19 university chapters to make a direct impact on the health of various communities, and help students to pursue wider global health aims. Whether it's designing and constructing a health center in Ghana, or helping the people of Detriot "address issues such as nutrition, diabetes, asthma, hypertension, and obesity... [and] how to prevent the illnesses which usually require primary care."
Now GlobeMed have launched imagine2030 to expand their exciting movement to 60 universities, hoping within 20 years to build a network of 30,0000 alumni and students working around the world to fight for health equity, social justice and human rights. They need your help to expand the movement.
Easiest to Treat, Kills the Most: Help Pnock Out Pneumonia with Dodgeball
Published October 09, 2009 @ 10:01AM PT
Why is the world neglecting pneumonia when it's the 'most solvable problem in Global Health'? With the illness claiming the lives of more than two million children a year, some explain that pneumonia just isn't feared in America as much any more, which is perhaps why the devastation it causes across the globe goes unnoticed.
Dr Orin Levin, Executive Director of PneumoADIP at the Johns Hopkins University wants the West to stand up against pneumonia as it has for malaria in recent years. He cities UNICEF who call it "The forgotten killer of children." He has various suggestions for ways you can take action that include mention of World Pneumonia Day, wearing blue jeans and playing dodgeball (!) all to help raise attention and much needed funds to kill off and finally "pnock out pneumonia." That's a pun I will definitely stand by on World Pneumonia Day, November 2.
GDP is a Terrible Way To Measure Quality of Life, "NNP" Is the Future
Published October 08, 2009 @ 08:38AM PT
How do we measure well being and happiness? Bhutan is well known for having a happiness index that the government takes into consideration just as much as GDP to define quality of life — it's called "Gross National Happiness." Could such a system work for the developing world? Or is measuring happiness a useless Western invention that has no application in countries dealings with epidemics, illiteracy, and hunger?
GDP obviously isn't perfect for the developing world, as it doesn't take into account wealth distribution or sustainable growth, and Gross National Happiness is criticized for being too subjective — not something economists are keen on. But there is a middle ground.
President Sarkozy has admitted that the current ways of measuring growth are poor, so he tasked Josepth Stiglitz and fellow economists to work on a model that takes into account education and sustainability. NNP, Net National Profit doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Gross National Happiness. But it aims to better reflect the reality of everyday life that current economic statistics fail to reveal in one number, emphasizing environmental considerations and long-term sustainability and stability of growth — so we can imagine Gulf States that fail to invest in education program and social reform would slip down from their current GDP position inflated by oil-revenues.
It's far from being an international benchmark, but 20 experts have done the research, and made their recommendations. Now it's up to economic statistics organization to harmonize the one single measurement — that ought to make the economists, politicians, and people of the world a little happier. And hopefully we'll all be in a better position to assess who's lives are being made easier.
Climate Change Worsens Natural Disasters, Increases Risk of HIV/AIDS
Published October 07, 2009 @ 03:34PM PT
Following floods and storms in the Philippines, the UN is seeking $74 million in aid. Over a dozen hospitals have been damaged and "cases of diarrhea and skin ailments had been recorded, raising fears about epidemics." The flooding has killed around 300, with around $150 million damage done to crops, a figure rising with every estimate. The breakdown in aid to help the four million effected people is especially interesting, with Canada offering forty times the amount offered by China.
Climate change is likely to make the strongest storms, hurricanes, and typhoons even fiercer. Reuters have examined how floods and droughts are already doing terrible damage in Africa that'll be made worse by climate change. Subsequent economic and humanitarian impact is forcing some women into prostitution, put them at greater risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.
Photo credit: LarryZou@
Aids Treatment Overfunded in Uganda, and Basic Care Neglected
Published October 06, 2009 @ 05:03PM PT
Significant progress is being made to fight Aids, with 42% of those who need drugs receiving them, and over 4 million poor and middle-income people receiving help. The Economist explains, "the fight, then, is by no means over. But the good guys seem to be winning." But is there such a thing as too much goodness?
In Uganda, hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on HIV research, testing, and ARV medicines, but funds for Aids crate a huge imbalance. Daniel Halpern, an Aids researcher at Harvard, told the BBC that there was $3 billion being spent on Aids programs in Africa, whilst only $30 million is spent on safe drinking water, and emergency rooms continue to lack basic supplies. Huge deliveries of ARV medicine are overwhelming African health ministries, and the medicine is often at risk or expiring and becoming unusable.
Whilst Aids deaths accounted for 94,000 in Uganda in 2002, malaria, diarrhea, and tuberculosis accounted for 86,000 deaths. We must be thankful that there's any money at all, but correcting the balance — even a little — would surely allow the fight against Aids to continue at the same speed, whilst saving thousands of other lives.
