Kaiser Family Foundation Looks At Views On The U.S. Role In Global Health

As a follow-up to a survey conducted in May 2009, this poll examines Americans’ attitudes toward U.S. global health investments and priorities. Some key findings include: the majority of Americans support maintaining (32%) or increasing (34%) spending on global health, despite the economic recession; Americans favor investments in programs that help developing countries develop overall health systems (58%) over disease-specific programs (36%); Americans favor giving health aid money to international organizations like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (74%), religious or faith-based groups working to improve health in developing countries (55%) and local non-profit organizations in developing countries (53%) over direct aid to developing country governments (29%). The survey, which was conducted by phone in Spanish and English, included a nationally representative random sample of 1,205 adults ages 18 and older (11/12).

Editorial Examines Rotavirus Vaccine In Developing Countries

The authors of a New England Journal of Medicine perspective piece examine the WHO’s “global recommendation that rotavirus vaccines be included in national immunization programs” and ask “how effective will rotavirus vaccines be” in developing countries? They write, “The global recommendation for rotavirus vaccination marks a major step toward reducing the contribution of rotavirus to child mortality. Further work is needed, however, to maximize the efficacy of the vaccine in developing countries that have a high burden of rotavirus disease, to minimize the barriers to vaccine implementation, and to provide a sustainable, low-cost supply of rotavirus vaccines to achieve the full potential benefit for children throughout the world (Danchin/Bines, 11/12).

Blog: Family Planning And MDGs

As the International Conference on Family Planning in Kampala, Uganda, approaches, Ward Cates, president of research at Family Health International, asks, “Why is there renewed emphasis on family planning after 15 years of relative quiet?” In a Global Health magazine guest blog post, Cates suggests, “Perhaps it is because as 2015 approaches, we’ve realized we’re not on target to achieve the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs]. Perhaps we’ve also finally understood that family planning may indeed be ‘one of the most cost-effective development investments.'” Cates outlines his own “take on why family planning is important to achievement of the MDGs” (11/12).

Blog: USAID Leader Nominee Is ‘Just The Medicine’ For The Agency

“The Obama administration made a terrific choice yesterday by deciding to appoint Raj Shah as the head of USAID,” Orin Levine, executive director of PneumoADIP at the Johns Hopkins University, writes in the Huffington Post. “Dr. Shah is just the medicine that USAID needs” (11/11).

Blog: The Prospect Of An HIV Patent Pool

PLoS Medicine’s “Speaking of Medicine” blog reports on a recent meeting that explored the possibility of creating an HIV patent pool. To create a patent pool, the WHO and UNITAID need to “figure out the highest priority essential ARVs, identify the relevant patents, and ask the patent owners to put their patent into the pool.  There will then need to be negotiations with the patent owners, and a licensing mechanism will need to be established” (Yamey, 11/10).

Blog: U.S.-E.U. Antimicrobial Resistance Task Force Has Promise

The Center for Global Development’s “Global Health Policy” blog looks at a recent agreement at the 2009 U.S.-E.U. Summit “to establish a transatlantic task force on urgent antimicrobial resistance issues.” According to the blog, “There’s no doubt that drug resistance presents an urgent threat to people’s health across the world” and the task force “has promise” to address the issue, “[b]ut many questions remain.” The new task force “must be global” and “consider the challenges of effectively preventing and treating disease in poorer communities with weak health systems infrastructure and human resource capacity” (Nugent, 11/9).

Journal Addresses HIV And Disability

The Journal of the International AIDS Society features a special thematic series on HIV and disability. Authors of a journal editorial write, “there is evidence that people with disabilities are at greater risk of contracting HIV. Although more attention is being paid to these overlapping fields, the field of HIV and disability remains largely overlooked. The Journal of the International AIDS Society is publishing, for the first time, a thematic section consisting of a number of papers on HIV and disability to provide readers with an update of developments in the field” (Heidari/Kippax, 11/9).

Blog: MCC Leadership Developments

The Center for Global Development’s “Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Blog” looks at recent leadership developments at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), including the Senate confirmation hearing for MCC CEO nominee Daniel Yohannes and the appointment of Deputy White House Counsel Cassandra Butts as his Senior Advisor (Herrling, 11/9). The blog also reports on the latest MCC scorecards (Dunning, 11/9).