Public health experts and researchers from around the world gathered on Monday for a five-day conference at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) in Al Ain, UAE, to discuss the role of the Middle East in tackling global health issues, AMEinfo.com reports.

“Flu vaccine shortages in developing nations may destabilize global security should the H1N1 [swine flu] virus become more deadly … David Heymann, a former deputy head of the World Health Organization” said Monday, Bloomberg reports.

Lancet Infectious Diseases Examines Hold-Ups In Implementation Of Sleeping Sickness Therapy Lancet Infectious Diseases Newsdesk examines how despite evidence that a new therapy to treat sleeping sickness, called nifurtimox—eflornithine (NECT) is a step forward in treating the disease, it has yet to be implemented by countries “13 months after data…

The Los Angeles Times writes: “Sierra Leone is one of those nations where decades of foreign aid have failed to appreciably lift the fortunes of the people. The country is a charity case: 60% of its public spending comes from foreign governments and nonprofit organizations. Since 2002, it has received more than $1 billion in aid,” the newspaper writes.

The Christian Science Monitor looks at one idea about why hunger is receiving a lot of attention in the international arena. Kanayo Nwanze, the Kenyan “who recently became president of the United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) says globalization has made the hunger and rural poverty that always pulled on the heartstrings an international security issue,” according to the publication.

Food Aid Won’t End African Problems While the drought and starvation in the Horn of Africa are “ghastly to be sure,” when “you see children on TV with distended bellies keening over their dying parents … do them a favour. Sit on your hands,” Sam Kiley, a former Africa bureau…

The Washington Independent examines the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, or QDDR, announced in June by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Anne-Marie Slaughter, the State Department’s director of policy planning; James Michael, a senior USAID official; and Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew are “in charge of creating the document — a process of managing five working groups chaired by top-level agency heads to produce an interim report in January and a final document by next September.”

As U.S. plans to fight world hunger take shape, the USDA is gearing up for an “important but modest role,” in which the agency will follow directions from the State Department and developing countries, Rajiv Shah, undersecretary in charge of the USDA’s research arm, said on Wednesday, Reuters reports. Shah said, “We’re really saying this starts with (developing) countries doing their own work about identifying plans and priorities,” adding that USDA will then work “under the leadership of the State Department to help fill those gaps.”

New York Times Opinion Examines HIV Vaccine Research Seth Berkley, president and chief executive of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, in a New York Times opinion piece examines how the “pessimism” over the recent controversy surrounding the results of an experimental HIV vaccine tested in Thailand “may ultimately thwart other efforts to…

While the “long wait for an appointment of” a USAID administrator continues, the agency’s future “was the main topic of interest” at a U.S. Global Leadership Coalition conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Foreign Policy’s blog, “The Cable,” reports. Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew, Director of Policy Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter and acting USAID Administrator Alonzo Fulgham participated in a panel at the conference (Rogin, 10/14).