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A diverse look at global health issues.

March 20, 2012 12:15

Good news about TB? New trial holds promise

Rare “reason for optimism” in global fight against tuberculosis.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks at an event in Washington at the Kaiser Family Foundation on Monday, Mar. 19. (John-Michael Maas/Courtesy)

WASHINGTON — The news around tuberculosis in the world generally is awful. There are an estimated 1.4 million deaths and 9 million cases a year, and the number of people with multi-drug resistant TB is going up, estimated at 650,000.

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March 16, 2012 16:45

Making sure the national HIV/AIDS strategy works

A renewed focus on monitoring and reporting.
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Demonstrators cheer at a rally outside the United Nations' High Level Meeting on HIV & AIDS at U.N. headquarters June 8, 2011 in New York City. Activists from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and other organizations rallied to call for full funding for worldwide treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. (Mario Tama/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — When the White House released the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) in 2010, it set out to reduce the number of people who become infected with HIV, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities.

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March 13, 2012 10:28

'It is their passing that keeps me going'

Community Education Group founder focuses on HIV/AIDS education and prevention in particularly hard-hit wards of Washington, D.C.
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A. Toni Young, executive director of Community Education Group with the newest CHAMPS class. (Juliana Schatz/GlobalPost)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A. Toni Young watched five of her closest friends die of AIDS in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Each of them was profound in its own way, but it was her best friend Steven’s question in the last days of his life that would change hers.

“He asked me, ‘What if this was you?’” remembered Young.

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February 28, 2012 17:38

US senator on global health: ‘Achievable stuff’

High-level answers to the question, 'Why should the US fund global health research?'
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Kevin De Cock, a senior CDC official, at a congressional briefing Tuesday on Capitol Hill. (John Donnelly/GlobalPost)

WASHINGTON — For those in the global health world — and there are many in the nation’s capital — one common question is why in tight budgetary times should Congress support spending on research and development to fight diseases around the world.

At a congressional briefing today put on by the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), a group that represents 40 global health research and advocacy organizations, several experts gave a variety of answers to that question.

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February 13, 2012 15:44

Health, nutrition become priorities at Davos

At Davos, world leaders came together to discuss our shared economic burden. But it might be surprising to learn how the tiniest nutrition source, the multivitamin, has a global impact on the economy and development.
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A Filipino nurse gives a boy vitamins after receiving a measles vaccine injection in a slum area in Tondo, Manila, on February 23, 2010. (Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images)

Dr. Klaus Kraemer is Director of Sight and Life, a not-for-profit nutrition think tank of DSM, which cares about the world’s most vulnerable populations, and exists to help improve their nutritional status. Dr. Kraemer has over 25 years of experience in research and advocacy in the field of health and safety of vitamins, minerals and carotenoids.

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Elisha Dunn-GeorgiouFebruary 9, 2012 12:04

Global Fund turns 10, but where’s the party?

Last week, amidst all the furor over pink ribbons and the Komen Foundation, another, quieter story unfolded. Without much fanfare, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria turned 10.
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A mother and her child sit on a bed covered with a mosquito net in Tanzanian where a pioneering vaccine against malaria is in being tested at the government-run Ifakara Health Institute. (Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images)

Last week, amidst all the furor over pink ribbons and the Komen Foundation, another, quieter story unfolded. Without much fanfare, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria turned 10.

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January 25, 2012 13:27

A determined TB nurse, and the impact on a young mother

Psychology can have as much to do with surviving drug-resistant tuberculosis as medicine does.
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Melissa Vargas, 23, a mother of two, came down with multi-drug resistant TB last year. Soon after beginning treatment, she lost her will to live. But thanks to continuing treatment and the actions of a nurse, Ruth Espinoza, she has regained her health and now is thinking of going back to school. (Riccardo Venturi/Courtesy)

LIMA, Peru – The young mother wanted to die.

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January 19, 2012 10:44

The growing threat of drug-resistant tuberculosis

Poor TB treatment creates a vicious cycle in a variety of countries — creating much more dangerous cases of the disease including "totally drug-resistant TB."
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In Lima, Steven Castro Espinoza, 19, talks about taking his TB medicine as his mother, Eva Davita Espinoza Gomez, listens. Steven has multi-drug-resistant TB, as does one of his brothers. But Steven is taking medicine while his brother refuses, causing much fear in the house of the disease passing to others. (Riccardo Venturi/Courtesy)

LIMA, Peru — Stories about a dozen patients with “totally drug-resistant” tuberculosis in India have been reported around the world during the past week, setting off haggling among TB experts about whether these reports were true.

But most of the stories missed a more frightening reality, buried in a World Health Organization statement in response to the India reports: Overall, the world is treating drug-resistant TB extraordinarily poorly, and that creates more and more cases of resistant TB that aren’t being cured.

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January 17, 2012 11:18

India's polio progress and the global eradication effort

With no new cases in a year, India is a model of transformation.
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USAID official Ellyn Ogden gives an oral polio vaccine to a child in Kolkata, India in January 2012. (USAID/Courtesy)

India marked a historic moment last week: It has been a year without a confirmed polio case. For a country that had for several years the highest number of cases in the world, the achievement was remarkable. The global effort to eradicate polio, launched in 1988, has brought the disease down to the last hundreds of cases every year. The effort has cost $9 billion so far, including $2 billion from the US government.

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January 13, 2012 13:36

A call for young people to ‘get angry’ about global warming

Former Irish President Mary Robinson challenges youth to fight for the future.
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Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, speaks at a panel organized by Aspen Global Health and Development on global warming and family planning on Jan. 13, 2012. (Elise Mann/Courtesy)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The elder called on the younger generation to speak up.

At a session on climate change and family planning Thursday, Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland, said that she keeps hoping that more young people will demand action on global warming.

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