Malaria Community Reacts to Bombshell Study
The World Health Organization has been operating under the assumption that Malaria killed 655,00 people in 2011. A Lancet study published last week put the number at nearly twice that and now experts on both sides are defending their estimates. From the New York Times:
The challenge was issued by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to analyze global trends.
Almost immediately, the new head of the malaria program at the W.H.O. circulated a memo saying he stood by his agency’s estimate and noting what he considered flaws in the new study: It played down long-held beliefs that children and adults who have survived several bouts of malaria rarely then die of it, and it relied partly on “verbal autopsies,” usually guesses by family members as to what someone died of.
Some experts were dismayed. The dispute “is a little like Gingrich and Romney going at each other — it’s only going to hurt the whole field,” said Jay A. Winsten, an adviser to Raymond G. Chambers, the United Nations special envoy for malaria.
Mr. Chambers’s reaction was that it didn’t matter much which estimate was right. Both sides agree that mosquito nets and new malaria drugs are driving deaths down, he noted. The world still must get whole families, not just babies and pregnant women, sleeping under nets and then provide new nets every three years.
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Global Health and Development Beat
Maternal Health - The National Primary Health Care Development Agency of Nigeria is providing “mama kits’ for pregnant women to encourage ante-natal attendance.
HIV/AIDS – Voice of America examines the improbable run for parliament by the Burmese AIDS activists Phyu Phyu Thin.
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The Players
DfID – The UK has not decided to eliminate aid programs to India, despite a media controversy involving an Indian minister who dismissed British aid.
Global Fund – The World Press Review examines the future of the Global Fund under its new leadership.
One – Launched a new site examining progress on the MDGs.
USAID — Assistant Administrator Nancy Lindborg says that now that the famine in Somalia has officially been declared over, the aid community should focus on famine prevention efforts.
Global Fund – Swaziland still qualifies for Global Fund grants, reports the Swazi Observer.
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Spotlight on PSI
Management Sciences for Health reports on a Haiti event last week in which PSI partnered.
On Monday, January 30, Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and partners held an event to observe the second anniversary of the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti—one of the most devastating to ever hit the island. Hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the event included speakers from MSH, Global Health Council, Population Services International (PSI), and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) joined together at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to focus on a critical but often neglected issue – the needs and well-being of Haiti’s women and children.
Dr. Diana Silimperi, MSH Vice-President, moderated a dynamic panel comprised of Dr. Guirlaine Raymond, Director, Health for Family, Haitian Ministry of Health; Kelly Saldana, Acting Deputy Director, Office of Health Infectious Diseases and Nutrition, the United States Agency for International Development; Annick Supplice Dupuy, Deputy Director for Haiti, PSI; and Siti Batoul Oussein, UNFPA’s Deputy Representative for Haiti. Each speaker balanced the realities of the political, social, and economic infrastructures in Haiti after the earthquake with the current progress being made toward health for women and children, and how they are working together to build a healthier future for them.
Common themes included: support of the Haitian government so they can meet the needs of the people, strengthening community programs for training frontline health workers, and building of the local capacity of NGOs to carry out health services.
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Buzzing in the Blogs
Maternova spotlights the link between traditional, indoor cook stoves and pulmonary disease.
Do you know the leading cause of death in children worldwide? It kills an estimated 1.4 million children under 5 each year—more than malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS combined. Many will be surprised to learn that the answer is pneumonia, an acute lung infection that can be treated with antibiotics and prevented with immunization, adequate nutrition and simple environmental interventions.
Although preventable and easily treatable, only 30% of children afflicted with pneumonia receive the antibiotics they need. For this reason, health advocates are working to prevent the onset of pneumonia by reducing indoor air pollution. That’s because nearly 50% of child pneumonia deaths are caused by inhaling smoke from indoor cook stoves. Figures on the percent of child deaths that are infants are not readily accessible. However a study in Ecuador showed that infants had double the mortality rates if their families used biomass fuels. and other studies cited by the TRACTION project have shown a connection between indoor air pollution and poor pregnancy outcomes and low birth weight.
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is leading this effort. Worldwide, approximately 3 billion people cook and heat their homes using open fires or leaky stoves that burn solid fuels, which release health-damaging gases and particles during combustion. The Alliance focuses on redesigning stoves, identifying cleaner fuels, improving ventilation in homes, and changing simple behaviors, such as keeping children away from smoky areas.
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Capital Events
Tuesday
9:30 AM The Global Internet and the Free Flow of Information MAP Forum.
6:00 PM Building Community with the African Diaspora Busboys and Poets
Wednesday
12:30 Unnatural Selection: Probing the Consequences of a Global Gender Imbalance SAIS
6 00 PM Foreign Policy Progressives Networking Reception
Thursday
2 PM The Intersection of Energy, Environment and Population Bridging Nations
3:30 PM Mobile Disconnect: Can Mobile Solutions Really Combat Global Poverty? New America Foundation
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By Mark Leon Goldberg and Tom Murphy
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