PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases: Nuclear Weapons and Neglected Diseases: The “Ten-Thousand-to-One Gap”

PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases: Nuclear Weapons and Neglected Diseases: The “Ten-Thousand-to-One Gap”

This editorial puts into numbers and perspective what the NTD community has been advocating for for many years.

One particularly interesting point: of all the Nuclear Nations only 1 (UK) does not suffer from NTDs. The article points out that there are NTDs in the US, for instance.

The editorial is worth a read, if for no other reason than to become more familiar with NTDs.

Haiti Relief Workers and Dengue

The CDC has issued a Health Alert for relief workers returning from Haiti. Several cases of Dengue Fever have been reported so far. The advisory can be found here.

More information can be found about Dengue at this site:

http://www.cdc.gov/Dengue/#

Clinicians who suspect Dengue should send a blood sample to the CDC (Dengue Branch) and complete this form:

http://www.cdc.gov/Dengue/resources/caseformhaiti.pdf

Fake Meds

"The World Health Organization estimates that, on average, 10 percent of all pharmaceuticals on the global market are counterfeit. In parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, more than 30 percent of the medicines on sale by retailers are counterfeit. In some regions, the numbers can be as high as 70 percent.

In the United States and most countries in Europe, the incidence of counterfeit medicines is less than 1 percent. However, medicines purchased over the Internet -– where the physical address of the seller is often concealed – are counterfeit in over 50 percent of cases."

Full article:

http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/the-dangers-of-buying-medicines-overseas/

PMI Releases 6-Year Malaria Strategy - Kaiser Global Health

PMI Releases 6-Year Malaria Strategy - Kaiser Global Health

A couple of interesting notes from related to the President's Malaria Initiative.

From the article:

Study Finds Single-Dose Malaria Drug As Effective As Standard Treatment

South Korean drugmaker Shin Poong Pharmaceuticals' drug Pyramax "proved as effective as Novartis' leading treatment Coartem in a clinical trial, researchers said on Friday, although an outside expert said the findings had limitations," Reuters reports (Hirschler, 4/22).

Researchers tested the new treatment, which is a combination of pyronaridine and artesunate, "at seven sites in Africa and three in Southeast Asia alongside the standard drugs, artemether and lumefantrine," Agence France-Presse writes. "A total of 1,272 malaria patients were enrolled, with 849 randomly assigned to pyronaridine-artesunate, which was taken once a day over three days, and 423 to artemether-lumefantrine, taken twice daily, also for three days."

The study results, published Friday in the journal Lancet, found that both drugs "were equally effective in clearing out malarial parasites in the blood at a 28-day mark, and had an equal number of reported side effects," AFP reports. The researchers recommend that pyronaridine-artesunate be incorporated into malaria treatment programs since it "costs less than one dollar to treat an adult and less than 50 cents for a child," the news service writes (4/22).

An accompanying Lancet comment by Francois Henri Nosten of the Mahidol-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Programme "said a limitation of the study was that it consisted of many older African children and adults who had probably acquired some malaria immunity," according to Reuters. "He also raised concerns about patients on Pyramax having raised liver enzymes, a possible signal of liver toxicity" (4/22). Writing in the Lancet, Nosten said, "My criticism is that it might satisfy developed-world regulatory requirements but it provides limited information of value to the clinician in the field" (4/24).

GHEC Mexico

I'd like to recommend a few specific talks from the GHEC (Global Health Education Consortium) Conference, being held now in Cuernavaca, Mexico. You can find the entire list on the Kaiser Global Health site.

I've particularly enjoyed
The talk on Ethics and Equity



Walter Patrick on Alliances in Global Health


Paulo Buss on Social Determinants of Health, from Fundacion Oswaldo Cruz (Brazil)


The discussion on "Global Health Diplomacy" was well-moderated by James Sepulveda of the Gates Foundation, and in part revealed H1N1 from Mexico's perspective, which was quite revealing.

Today's plenary session was by Paulo Buss and was also quite good. That should be posted on the site soon.

Plumpy-Nut and patent

This has been brewing for a couple of years:


Legal fight over Plumpy'nut, the hunger wonder-product

By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris

Should a revolutionary humanitarian food product be protected by commercial patent, when lifting restrictions might save millions of starving children?

Update on Haiti Project

The Child Health Campaign in Pestel is going great! This is the project supported by Variety International, the Children's Charity.

The health workers have already reached over 2800 kids in the first 3 weeks! Sister Fidelis has been out-and-about, taking lots of photos of the workers in action, so I'm anxious to see those. I will send some along when I get them.

The workers are finding a lot of malnutrition, and we'll be able to report exact numbers from their data. Also, the deworming (anti-parasite) medication is a big hit! The parents are thrilled to see the dead worms after the medication is given! One kid had about 60 worms!
And another kid had over 100 worms (they counted them!).

This is going to lead to BIG improvements in their growth and health. We'll measure the kids again later this year to see what kind of growth improvements occurred as a result of this. We received the donations from a very generous organization called Vitamin Angels. They have been fantastic to work with. For places like Pestel these kinds of programs accomplish a great deal for very little money, as you know. You can imagine that the villages are likely to be even more receptive to the campaign when we run it again at the end of this year because of how these seen the tangible results of the medication working. That'll allow us to build on this success and make strides in educational initiatives, for example.

We're also exploring a potential arrangement with a group that works in Haiti called Medika Mamba. They are graciously providing us with a $500 donation of "RUTF" = ready-to-use-therapeutic foods. RUTFs are the mainstay of therapy for severe malnutrition. They have a program to rehab severely malnourished children back to health. The challenge after that will be keeping them out of malnutrition, so if you have thoughts or want to help with that planning, let me know.

I'll plan to pick up the donation in Port-au-Prince on my next trip, and then Sister Fidelis will be piloting the project with one of her nurses. If we find that the program is successful, and if we can come up with a sustainable way to keep it going, we very well may embark on one of the most pressing and important campaigns for Pestel--malnutrition.

To put modern medicine in a bit of perspective, antibiotics will do very little good in a child with severe malnutrition. Antibiotics help the body fight infection. The key here is that the medications help the body. The body must still ultimately kill the remaining infection.

Post-Earthquake Video by Dr. Fredrick

These videos and photos were taken in early March 2010, and they tell a bit of the story of how the earthquake has affected the rural area of Pestel, Haiti. The PSU-COM Global Health Center has partnered with Variety International, The Children's Charity to begin to address the great and pressing health needs in Pestel.

Thanks to donations by many individuals, businesses, and the hard work of 40 medical students a new health campaign is underway in Pestel to provide Vitamin A and Albendazole (an antiparasitic medication) to all children. We anticipate reaching about 15,000 to 20,000 children with these important medications!

Video from Global Health Scholars Program

This video was produced by Sean Boley, a 2nd year Global Health Scholar at Penn State College of Medicine. Sean published a similarly-themed article in the International Journal of Healthcare and Humanities.

GHSP 2010 San Pablo, Ecuador SWOT Analysis from Sean Boley on Vimeo.