Global Health Progress

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) launched the ‘B-Aware campaign,’ an educational programme aimed at raising awareness on hepatitis B in the UAE. Hepatitis B is a serious global health issue, the 10th leading cause of death worldwide, with about 400 million people infected with chronic hepatitis B worldwide.
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The first editorial, by Michael Merson of the Duke Global Health Institute and colleagues, argues that HIV prevention cannot be limited to just “one or two stand-alone” measures such as male circumcision or partner reduction.
The second editorial, by Kong-Lai Zhang of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in Beijing and colleagues, details the measures they believe [...]

“Despite the state’s great vulnerability to the virus, brought on by a tottering health care system, large-scale worker migration and a long porous border with Nepal, the issue is clothed in superstition and fed on misinformation.”

“A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies.”

“Universal and annual voluntary testing followed by immediate antiretroviral therapy treatment can reduce new HIV cases by 95% within 10 years, according to new findings based on a mathematical model developed by a group of HIV specialists in WHO.”

Soaring demand for the antimalarial drug artemisinin could be satisfied with some promising new technologies unveiled by researchers last week (19 November).

The Chadian Health Ministry and the UN have launched a polio vaccination drive targeting half a million children in the west of the country, as new cases of the crippling and sometimes fatal disease continue to emerge. Despite previous vaccination campaigns, Chad has seen 27 cases of polio so far in 2008 — including polio type 1, the most dangerous of the remaining serotypes — up from 22 cases in 2007.

Lawmakers in Indonesia’s remote province of Papua have thrown their support behind a controversial bill requiring some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchips — part of extreme efforts to monitor the disease. Health workers and rights activists sharply criticized the plan Monday.

…The Swinfens run the Swinfen Charitable Trust, a telemedicine charity that uses e-mail to link sick people in poor, remote or dangerous parts of the world with hundreds of medical specialists in some of the world’s finest hospitals. Doctors in about 140 hospitals and clinics in 39 nations use the organization to seek help for patients requiring specialized care beyond their capabilities. Through the trust, they can be put in e-mail contact — often within hours — with one or more of the 400 specialists who work without pay as part of the trust’s network.

The Council is an advocacy and research group representing international health organizations in Washington, and Daulaire is stepping down early in the new year after 10 years at the helm. He has been widely mentioned as a candidate to run the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Obama administration. He says that, despite the [...]