Unparalleled global progress in HIV response but sustained investment vital

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2011/hiv_20111130/en/index.html

It is good to hear that global progress in both preventing and treating HIV emphasizes the benefits of sustaining investment in HIV/AIDS over the longer term.  According to WHO, UNICEF and UNAIDS, increased access to HIV services resulted in a 15% reduction of new infections over the past decade and a 22& decline in AIDS-related deaths in the last five years. However, it is too early to satisfy with the progress we had been achieved that there are still many things to be done. The reports from WHO shows that more than half of the people who need antiretroviral therapy in low- and middle-income countries are still unable to access to it and even bigger problem is that many of them do not even know they have HIV. Another issue is that progress for children is too slow. According to Director of the UNICEF office in Geneva, there had been gains in treatment, care and support available to adults but they notice that progress for children is slower. Among many age groups regarding the HIV issues, children are the most important group we need to pay attentions because children are the group who will live the longest with HIV for rest of their lives and that will cost money for many developing countries. It is good news that there had been an improvement in both preventing and treating HIV in last five years. However, without solving issues with people living in low-income countries where people do not even know if they have HIV and an issue regarding children HIV, we cannot really make any further progress.

With an additional US $1 billion per year immunization could save ten million more lives in a decade

 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr70/en/index.html

Global immunization experts had reported that ten million additional lives could be saved through child and maternal immunization at an average annual cost of US$ 1 billion, according to a new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF. According to Dr Lee, Director-General, Who, “Immunization is one of the best values for public health investment today: adequate resources and the right strategies lead to concrete results. We have achieved much progress already through immunization, but much more can and should be done.” By spending an average annual cost of US$ 1 billion, 70 million children who live in the world’s poorest countries will receive each year life-saving vaccines against the following diseases: tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, measles, rubella, yellow fever, and Japanese encephalitis. The study shows that we can achieve a significant reduction in deaths due to vaccine-preventable diseases with a modest increase in funds, since 2.5 million children under five years old die every year from diseases that can be prevented with currently available or new vaccines.

As we see from the above, immunization is the most effective way to prevent people from infectious diseases that kill many people in developing countries. It is fact that in international health issue, preventing diseases is more cost effective way to save people than take an action after people have diseases. Since, it is the poorest countries that needs money for the immunizations, developed countries need to help these developing countries with aids for the immunizations. Helping these developing countries will also positively affect developed countries because in an interconnected global community like today, there is an increasing vulnerability to the spread of disease. 

With an additional US $1 billion per year immunization could save ten million more lives in a decade

 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr70/en/index.html

Global immunization experts had reported that ten million additional lives could be saved through child and maternal immunization at an average annual cost of US$ 1 billion, according to a new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF. According to Dr Lee, Director-General, Who, “Immunization is one of the best values for public health investment today: adequate resources and the right strategies lead to concrete results. We have achieved much progress already through immunization, but much more can and should be done.” By spending an average annual cost of US$ 1 billion, 70 million children who live in the world’s poorest countries will receive each year life-saving vaccines against the following diseases: tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, measles, rubella, yellow fever, and Japanese encephalitis. The study shows that we can achieve a significant reduction in deaths due to vaccine-preventable diseases with a modest increase in funds, since 2.5 million children under five years old die every year from diseases that can be prevented with currently available or new vaccines.

As we see from the above, immunization is the most effective way to prevent people from infectious diseases that kill many people in developing countries. It is fact that in international health issue, preventing diseases is more cost effective way to save people than take an action after people have diseases. Since, it is the poorest countries that needs money for the immunizations, developed countries need to help these developing countries with aids for the immunizations. Helping these developing countries will also positively affect developed countries because in an interconnected global community like today, there is an increasing vulnerability to the spread of disease. 

New WHO report: deaths from noncommunicable diseases on the rise, with developing world hit hardest

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2011/ncds_20110427/en/index.html

Along with many infectious diseases that cause a problem in developing countries, noncommunicable diseases are one of the leading killers today and are on the increase. In 2008, 36.1 million people died from conditions such as heart diseases, strokes, chronic lung diseases, cancer and diabetes. Unlike people’s belief that noncommunicable diseases are developed countries disease, nearly 80% of these deaths occurred in low-and middle income countries. Even bigger problem is that unlike in developing countries, about 30% of people dying from noncommunicable diseases in low income countries are aged less than 60 years and are in their most productive period of life. However, millions of deaths can be prevented by stronger implementation of measures that exist today. These include policies that promote government – wide action against noncommunicable diseases: strong anti-tobacco control and promotion healthier diets, physical activity, and reducing harmful use of alcohol; along with improving people’s access to essential health care. As we see from the above, all these actions are possible without aids that even developing countries with not enough money can do it. For example, the country with high smoker rates, they can try to decrease these rates with raising tax on tobacco, banning tobacco advertising and legislation to curb smoking in public places. They can also try to prevent the noncommunicable diseases with reducing level of salt in foods, stopping the inappropriate marketing of unhealthy food and non-alcoholic beverages to children, and controls on harmful alcohol use. People had been care for the infectious diseases in developing countries too much that ignored the fact that noncommunicable is as big problem as infectious diseases. It is important for these developing countries to put effort to reduce the problem with noncommunicable diseases along with infectious diseases.

Opportunities for Africa's newborns

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr70/en/index.html

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most dangerous region in the world for a baby to be born. 1.16 million babies die each year in the first 28 days of life. Even more surprising news is that half a million African babies die on the day they are born. Half of Africa’s 1.16 million newborn deaths occur in just five countries – Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda. Among many countries in Africa, Liberia has the world’s highest newborn mortality rate at 66 deaths per 1,000 births compared to less than 2 deaths per 1,000 in Japan. From this data we can conclude that newborn deaths occur in developing countries. However, according to Dr Francisco Songnore, director of the partnership, we can decrease the newborn mortality rate even in developing countries with the existing programs. For example two-thirds of women in Africa attend antenatal care yet only 10% receive preventive treatment for malaria and a mere 1% of mothers with HIV receive the recommended treatment to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV/ AIDS. The report found that two-thirds of newborn deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa – up to 800,000 babies a year – could be saved if 90% of women and babies received feasible, low-cost health intervention.

It is important to count newborn deaths and make them count, instead of accepting these deaths as inevitable. As Dr Songnore pointed out, we can save many infants without spending lots of money but with just preventive treatment for malaria and women with HIV receiving the recommended treatment to prevent transmission of HIV. This is one of the reason why education is important in every international health issues that people cannot use what they can use without knowing what they are needed. We also need to care more about women who are pregnant and try to make better environment for those women, which will also decrease the infant mortality rates.

Aggressive TB control can yield big economic gains, says new study

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr64/en/index.html

A new World Bank research reported 22 countries with the world’s highest numbers of TB cases could earn significantly more than they spend on TB diagnosis and treatment if they signed onto a global plan to sharply reduce the number of TB-related deaths. The study says that the economic cost of TB-related deaths (including HIV co-infection) in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2006 to 2015 is US$ 519 billion when there is no effective TB treatment as prescribed by WHO's Stop TB Strategy. However, if these same countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were to offer such treatment to TB patients, in keeping with a global plan to halve the prevalence and death rates by 2015 relative to 1990 figures, countries could see their economic benefits exceed their costs by about nine times over. The Global Plan to Stop TB, devised by the Stop TB Partnership, would cost US$ 2 billion a year for TB diagnosis and treatment until 2015 in Africa, and US$ 5-6 billion worldwide. We have to spend on TB diagnosis even it does not benefit us economically, but if it can even help us economically; there are no reason to hesitate on spending money on TB diagnosis. All international health issues not only affect the one who has the disease but also affect families, communities, and countries. By solving a problem with disease that affects many people in developing countries, it is helping everyone in the communities. However, it is fact that these developing countries do not have enough funds to spend on TB diagnosis and treatment; therefore it is important many international health organizations and developed country to help these developing countries economically.  

2.5 billion live with poor sanitation facilities

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr23/en/index.html

Sanitation is one of the most important factor to people’s health internationally. Without access to good sanitation, people will suffer from many diseases even we have a good medical treatment and an aids to developing countries. Over 2.5 billion people are suffering from a lack of access to improved sanitation and nearly 1.2 billion practice open defecation. It is good news that the number of people who do not have an access to an improved drinking water source has fallen below one billion for the first time since data were first complied in 1990. It shows that 87% of the world population has access to improved drinking water sources. However, it means that there are still 13% of the world populations who do not get access to improved drinking water sources. Poor sanitation affects people’s health in many ways, but among many factors, poor sanitation is a biggest threat to children’s survival. One of the biggest killers of infants under the age of five is a diarrheal disease, which is caused by a contaminated environment around children. To save children under five years old, we have to improve the environment of children living. Without improving the sanitation, we cannot change the situation even we provide these people aids and medical care. In order to solve the problem with most effective way, we have to know what causes the problem. As mentioned in every international health problems, it is much better to prevent the problem than solving the problem after problem became a problem.  

Preventable injuries kill 2000 children every day

Article from:http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr46/en/index.html

WHO and UNICEF had said that more than 2000 children die every day as a result of unintentional or accidental injuries. Every year tens of millions more worldwide are taken to hospitals with injuries that often leave them with lifelong disabilities. However, it is important to know that these unintentional or accidental injuries are preventable. The World report on child injury prevention provides the first comprehensive global assessment of unintentional childhood injuries and prescribes measures to prevent them. If we adopt these proven prevention measures everywhere, we can at least save 1000 children’s lives. Child injuries are also an important public health and development issues because millions of children suffer non-fatal injuries that often require long-term hospitalization and rehabilitation and costs of treatment is very expensive that it can make an entire family into poverty. One other important fact is that children in poorer families and communities are at higher risk of injury because they are less likely to benefit from prevention programs and high quality health services. When we can save 2000 children’s lives every day with just proven prevention measures, we must make it work. Measures of some proven prevention are laws on child-appropriate seatbelts and helmets, hot tap water temperature regulations, redesigning nursery furniture, toys and playground equipment, and many others. Things that were mentioned here are nothing that really costs money to make things happen but we can just make it happen by caring more about the issue and educating people about importance of wearing seatbelts and helmets. 

Malaria progress shows development aid for health works

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/malaria_global_report_20091215/en/index.html#

Over the last few years, significant progress has been made in delivering life-saving malaria nets and treatment. The World malaria report 2009 found that the international funding increased 730 million in 2006 to 1.7 billion in 2009. These efforts had allowed a dramatic scale up of malaria control interventions in several countries, along with measurable reductions in malaria burden. More than one-third of the 108 malarious countries documented reductions in malaria cases of more than 50% in 2008 compared to 2000. These had effected not only the decrease in malaria rate, but it also brings other positive effects like declines in all-cause deaths among children less than 5 years of age, suggesting that intensive efforts at malaria control could help many African countries to reach, by 2015. However, the amounts available still fall short of the US$ 5 billion required annually to ensure high coverage and maximal impact worldwide.

This data shows that if we put more efforts and funding for health issues, result shows the development. However, to achieve the goal of MDGs in 2015, we have to focus more on large countries with high malaria burden. The help so far had been done to smaller countries with lower disease burdens. More attention needs to be given to ensuring success in large countries that account for most malaria cases and deaths. This is a one of examples that in order to achieve the best result, we have to put our efforts to the right person and right place, and another thing is that prevention is much cheaper and effective than taking care of the disease after it had occurred. Even though the situation had improved enormously for last few years, there are still things to do in order to meet the MDGs in 2015. Since we know what we have to do to meet the goal in 2015, we have to put more attentions to issues with malaria. 

Tackling the global clean air challenge

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2011/air_pollution_20110926/en/index.html

According to WHO, two million people died every year from breathing in tiny particles present in indoor and outdoor air pollution. M10 particles, which are particles of 10 micrometers or less, which can penetrate into the lungs and may enter to the bloodstream, and it causes heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, and acute lower respiratory infections. Who had recommended to countries, PM10 (particles) has to be 20 per cubic metre as an annual average, but the data had shown that in many cities it reached up to 300 per cubic metre. Air pollution is a problem in both developed and developing countries that it is usually caused by motor transport, small-scale manufactures and other industries, burning of biomass and coal for cooking and heating, as well as coal-fired power plants. However, we can significantly reduce the problem with air pollution by monitoring and managing the environment properly. The problem is that in many countries, there are no air quality regulations and even where they do exist, national standards and their enforcement vary markedly. People usually try to solve the problem when the problem becomes an issue. Among many other things, it is much easier and cheaper to prevent the problem than solving the problem after it happened. People spend enormous amounts of money on health issues, but we do not really care about what causes the health issues. We have to prevent the problem when we know how to prevent the problem that preventing the problem is much more important than solving the problem after it have been happened.

New global killers: heart, lung disease and cancer

http://news.yahoo.com/global-killers-heart-lung-disease-cancer-043849285.html;_ylt=AlT.cciNhGjozzp.vq_GMPPVJRIF;_ylu=X3oDMTNzdGRsbTRoBG1pdANKdW1ib3Ryb24gSGVhbHRoU0YEcGtnAzExNGVmMTAyLTE1NDItMzcwMC04NDRmLTBhM2UwMTRkMWQ3ZARwb3MDMgRzZWMDanVtYm90cm9uBHZlcgNkYmZ

Recent health care had put a more attention to diseases that can spread – AIDS, tuberculosis, new flu bugs. However, it is also important to notice about chronic diseases –cancer, diabetes and heart and lung disease. Chronic diseases account for nearly two-thirds of deaths worldwide, or about 36 million. Chronic diseases are caused by common risk factors, such as smoking and sedentary lifestyle. Infectious diseases are very important issue to be noticed by global health organizations but it is also important to look at diseases that kill two-thirds of deaths worldwide. Unlike disease that spread, chronic diseases are much more preventable with avoiding tobacco use, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and environmental carcinogens. Despite the fact that chronic diseases are more related with developed countries, rate of chronic diseases in developing countries are increasing as well. Chronic diseases will become a  bigger problem if they occur in developing countries because there are not enough doctors and all cancer-related medicines are either nonexistent or beyond the reach of ordinary people in developing countries. It is best to find cost-effective treatments that lead to maximum impact when we try to fix the problem. It is obvious that if people start to stop smoking, drinking, and exercise more we can decrease the rate of people dying from these chronic diseases without spending any money. If problems with chronic diseases are solved, it will also positively affect problems with infectious diseases that people can spend more money and time on infectious problem that exist in developing countries. 

Net giveaway halves Kenya's child deaths from malaria

http://spiderednews.com/HealthIssuesinDevelopingcountries_I.htm?url=@http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,,2150645,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

In Africa, malaria kills 1 million people a year, more than any other disease. Which led WHO (World Health Organization) to recommend for the first time that nets should be given away, rather than sold , in the developing world. WHO recommended this because free distribution of mosquito nets in Kenya halved child deaths from malaria. In Kenya, after mosquito nets had been given to people, in some areas the number of childhood deaths from malaria had fallen by 44%. Dr Willis Akhwale, head of malaria control at the health ministry, said: “We have shown that the war on malaria can be won.” However, the problem is that even though we know that mosquito nets are one of the most effective ways to prevent malaria; the distribution of nets across Africa had been low due to lack of funding and disagreement on distribution methods. Some in the scientific community had pointed out that only when people made an investment in the net could usage be guaranteed that nets given away have often been resold, used for fishing, or simply discarded when the insecticide wore off. Although, the data shows that giving nets to people in Kenya had dropped malaria rate by 44%. We cannot stop people who uses their nets for different reasons, but there are still more people who use these nets for right reason that we should give away nets to more people in developing countries who are living in high-risk areas of malaria.

HIV/AIDS: "Worrying" drop in global spending"

article here: http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=93521

International funding for HIV fell by 10 percent in 2010 from the previous year. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS, international assistance for HIV/AIDS in low-and middle-income countries fell from US$7.6 billion in 2009 to $6.9 billion in 2010. This data is shocking because this is the first time funding has dropped in more than a decade of tracking HIV/AIDS spending. Reductions in development may have happed because of currency exchange fluctuations and a slowdown in the pace of disbursements from the US government. US had cut their disbursements from 4.4 billion dollars in 2009 to 3.7 billion dollars in 2010. Despite the cutting disbursements, US is still the largest donor in the world, accounting for an estimated 55 percents of disbursements. This data shows us that international funding for HIV is highly relying upon US; cutting US’s disbursements will affect a lot. It is understandable that US is experiencing economic difficulties in recent years that they had to cut their disbursements; however, we can solve this problem with PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). PEPFAR is an emergency plan, and not intended to last forever. Some people think this is not a time to use an emergency plan, but if we do not take care of the problem right now, it can ended up in a bigger problem in the future that we have to spend much more money than we have to spend right now.

Newborn Deaths

I read an article from the WHO about the issues of newborn deaths. (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2011/newborn_deaths_20110830/en/index.html)
Newborn deaths decreased from 4.6 million in 1990 to 3.3 million in 2009 due to more investment into health care for women and children. However, the progess is too slow and developing countries are being left further behind. 99% of newborn deaths occurs from the developing countries, and it tells us that where babies are born influences their chances of survival. I personally think, even though there are gaps between develping countries and developed countries, where babies are born should not influence their chance of survival because it is important to give them at least a same chance to survive when they are born. From the data above, the number of newborn death decreased dramatically from 1990 to 2009 and it tells us that there are proven, cost-effective interventions to preven the leading causes of newborn death.