TIME magaine: Global Health

Time has a series on Global Health:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1995199,00.html

Neglected Tropical Diseases

This is a well-written article that appeared in a recent New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/opinion/17Hotez.html

The author (Peter Hotez) is president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute.

PLoS has an entire journal dedicated to the NTDs:
http://www.plosntds.org/home.action

 

Global Health Diplomacy

Recently at the GHEC conference in Mexico I heard some talks by Mexican officials who provided their perspective on the recent H1N1 outbreak.  It is well worth watching on the Kaiser site (see prior blogs).

Here is the intro to an article (PLoS Medicine) that covers a bit of what they mentioned:

One of the most controversial areas of global health diplomacy over the past five years has involved negotiations to increase equitable access to vaccines for highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) (HPAI-H5N1) and pandemic 2009 influenza A (H1N1) (2009-H1N1). The limited results produced by these negotiations have stimulated calls for a new global framework to improve equitable access to influenza vaccines. The prospects for such a framework are not, however, promising, because the national interests of most developed states vis-à-vis dangerous influenza strains favor retaining the existing imbalanced, reactive, and ad hoc approach to vaccine access. This article examines why negotiating equitable access to influenza vaccines in the context of HPAI-H5N1 and 2009-H1N1 has been, and promises to continue to be, a difficult diplomatic endeavor.

The full article can be found here.

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).