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A diverse look at global health issues.

April 16, 2013 10:15

Panel examines cost of not investing in global child health

The Forum at the Harvard School of Public Health hosted a discussion of the consequences of failing to help the world's poorest children.
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BOSTON — A panel discussion titled “The Cost of Inaction: The Consequences of Failing the World’s Children,” was presented Tuesday by The Forum at Harvard School of Public Health in collaboration with GlobalPost. 

The panel focused on the Cost of Inaction (COI) approach to evaluating interventions, especially for children affected by poverty or HIV/AIDS. The COI approach focuses on the social and economic cost of not doing something, as opposed to evaluating the costs and benefits of doing something.

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April 15, 2013 10:38

Q&A: Africa’s high blood pressure problem

Cardiologist and Harvard professor Dr. Thomas Gaziano speaks with GlobalPost about the high prevalence of hypertension in Africa and what needs to be done to address it.
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Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, having her blood pressure taken. (Courtesy)

An estimated one billion people around the world have high blood pressure, which is a leading risk factor for non-communicable diseases such as stroke and heart disease. Nowhere is the problem more prevalent than in Africa, where 46 percent of adults have the condition, according to WHO.

Thomas Gaziano is a trained cardiologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. Thirteen years ago, Gaziano said serendipity or providence brought him and his wife, also a physician, to South Africa, where he saw first-hand the high burden of non-communicable diseases. Gaziano has focused on cardiovascular disease in resource-poor settings ever since.

Below, Gaziano talks with GlobalPost about Africa’s blood pressure problem and the major challenges to addressing it.

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April 8, 2013 13:49

Twitter gears up for Millennium Development Goal countdown

The UN marked the 1,000-day countdown until the Millennium Development Goals deadline with a "digital rally" to galvanize action.

From April 5-12, the UN is marking the 1,000-day countdown until the Millennium Development Goals deadline. Here is a sampling of reactions on Twitter.

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April 7, 2013 10:05

WHO campaign revisits high blood pressure

On this World Health Day, the World Health Organization’s campaign aims to raise awareness about the same issue it focused on 35 years ago.
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A doctor (R) examines a patient in Godewaersvelde, northern France, during a medical check-up. (Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images)

To celebrate the anniversary of its founding, every year on World Health Day, the World Health Organization (WHO) draws attention to a specific public health issue.

This year’s theme, “Control Your Blood Pressure,” reflects the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like heart disease and stroke and follows up on a 2011 UN commitment to tackle them.

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April 2, 2013 17:13

Five interesting ways people are fighting HIV around the world

HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns are using new techniques to reach wider audiences.
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An activist waves a rainbow flag in support of HIV/AIDS awareness on the 2012 World Aids Day in Manila. (Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images)

In an attempt to reach a wider audience, many HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns are using creative techniques to send a positive message about HIV prevention and treatment. Here are five interesting ways people are fighting the disease around the world:

1) In the village of Corozal in Honduras, members of the local Garifuna tribe use musical performance and theater to promote HIV awareness. According to NPR, the Garifuna have an HIV rate that is five times higher than the national rate. In order to combat the rampant spread of the disease, members of the community have formed a theater troupe that puts HIV on mock trial in community shows. Health ministry officials in the capital of Tegulcigalpa are conducting research with the CDC to determine the program's effectiveness.

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Nicole SchieggMarch 26, 2013 09:58

Opinion: USAID gets results on reducing global child mortality

Nicole Schiegg, USAID senior advisor, says USAID has made achievements in child health.
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Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator, speaks at the 2012 "Every Woman Every Child" dinner in New York. (Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

Editor’s Note: GlobalPost Special Reports presents this guest post as part of a major global reporting initiative on children's health launching this summer.

WASHINGTON, DC — As reported in GlobalPost last week, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) released its first progress report examining how reforms enacted three years ago have strengthened the agency's relentless focus on results. One of the strongest examples of leveraging innovation and partnership is USAID's contribution to ending preventable child deaths.

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March 21, 2013 15:14

USAID report gives few details on progress reducing child mortality

More than 170 countries have signed a pledge to reduce child mortality, but specifics are lacking.
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Head of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Rajiv Shah speaks with children on the Turkish-Syrian border on November 27, 2012. (Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images)

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) yesterday released its first progress report for USAID Forward, the major reform effort it initiated in 2010 “to change the way the Agency does business.” 

“Development is a discipline,” said USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, in a keynote speech to mark the report’s publication. With USAID Forward, the agency has put forth a new model for development very much defined by the language of business. Shah, a Wharton School of Business graduate, spoke about metrics, results, cost-benefit analysis, new partnerships and innovation.

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March 18, 2013 17:08

TB is a leading, but underdiagnosed, cause of child mortality

At least 500,000 children die from the treatable disease each year
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A volunteer pours children's tuberculosis medicine for patients in Payatas, Philippines. (David Greedy/Getty Images)

Drug-resistant tuberculosis is a growing concern for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, who issued a joint statement today calling for additional funding to combat the deadly infectious disease. “We are treading water at a time when we desperately need to scale up our response to [multi-drug resistant TB],” said Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO’s director-general, in a press release.

While health officials did not single out the devastating impact of the disease on children, just last week, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported that its doctors in Tajikistan are treating the youngest patient they have ever diagnosed with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, a 9-month old little girl.

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March 4, 2013 12:17

Twitter's reactions to toddler's #HIV cure

Here's how Twitter reacted to Sunday's news that a toddler in Mississippi, who was born with HIV, has been effectively cured.
March 1, 2013 15:07

PEPFAR report recommends countries control own HIV/AIDS programs

An independent evaluation of PEPFAR praised the program's achievements but said its work is unfinished. Among its recommendations is a shift to an advisory role.
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HIV/AIDS activists, some of them living with the virus, yell during a demonstration April 25, 2012 in Nairobi on the sidelines of a joint conference sponsored by the US embassy here and Kenya's vision 2030 about health and reducing mortality in the East African nation. The activists demanded that the US' - HIV programme, PEPFAR and the Kenya government work together to utilise some 500 million of unspent PEPFAR funds to get desperately needed HIV treatment to more Kenyans. (Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images)

An independent evaluation of the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), released last week by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), lauded the program’s achievements as proof that HIV services can be delivered successfully on a large scale. The report also recommended several changes to the program, to ensure that the HIV/AIDS response is sustainable.

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