KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report

In The News

In Unprecedented Domestic U.S. Travel Advisory, CDC Warns Pregnant Women, Those Planning Pregnancy To Avoid Miami Neighborhood After Zika Case Number Rises To 14

The Hill: CDC warns pregnant women to avoid Miami over Zika
“Federal health authorities are warning pregnant women not to travel to the parts of Miami where mosquitoes are believed to be spreading the Zika virus…” (Ferris, 8/1).

POLITICO: CDC issues Zika travel warning for Miami
“…The CDC is also warning women planning to become pregnant to avoid that area…” (Cook, 8/1).

Wall Street Journal: Officials Warn Pregnant Women to Avoid Miami Neighborhood Affected by Zika
“…The agency took the rare step after an investigation by Florida health officials turned up 10 new cases of Zika in the same neighborhood where they had already identified four infections. The outbreak, now involving 14 people, is the first believed to be caused by mosquitoes in the continental U.S…” (McKay/Evans, 8/1).

Washington Post: Zika fear prompts travel warning for Miami, CDC’s first in U.S.
“…Officials issued the ‘unprecedented’ warning following the identification of 10 new infections in a dense urban pocket north of downtown Miami, and after ‘aggressive’ efforts to combat Zika’s mosquito-borne spread had proved insufficient. ‘It is truly a scary situation,’ said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ‘This is a really tough mosquito to control’…” (Sun et al., 8/1).

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To Reach Global AIDS Goals, Experts Encourage Improved Access To HIV Testing

Devex: Experts call for urgent HIV testing scale-up to reach global goals
“As experts gathered at the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, last month, there was the overwhelming consensus that a lot more work had to be done if UNAIDS’ ambitious 2020 targets were going to be met … experts acknowledge that innovations such as point-of-care testing — also known as rapid HIV testing which enables people to be tested and know their status in the same visit — and self-testing, must be scaled-up…” (Cousins, 8/1).

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New Index, Database Aim To Help Track Country-Level Progress On SDGs

Devex: New forums, opportunities push inclusion of science, data in SDGs
“Nearly a year after world leaders adopted the broad-reaching Sustainable Development Goals, leading scientists, innovators, and civil society actors are turning their attention to the first phase of how to achieve them. A key starting point is the question of how to measure the SDGs most effectively on local, national, and global levels. … A new ‘SDG Index and Database‘ launched last week by the New York-based Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the German nonprofit Bertelsmann Foundation, marks the first global effort to track the goals at the country level…” (Lieberman, 8/1).

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U.S. To Provide $407M In Health, Development Aid To Tanzania After Cancelling Similar Amount In March

Reuters: U.S. pledges $407 mln aid to Tanzania, after blocking funds in March
“The United States pledged $407 million aid to Tanzania on Monday, months after cancelling a similar payment due to an election that it said had violated the country’s commitment to democracy. … The U.S. embassy said the $407 would be disbursed this year to support the areas of health, agriculture, natural resource management, education, energy, and democratic governance…” (Ng’wanakilala, 8/1).

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Devex Examines Efforts To Improve Access To Medicines For All Diseases

Devex: From communities to global policy: Innovations to access medicines underway
“…The demand for medications to treat [non-communicable] diseases, along with ongoing infectious illnesses, will increase needs in countries that are already facing problems in everything from consistent delivery of drugs, to prices that are just too high. To address these issues, actors all along the process from creation to procurement to delivery are introducing new innovations to try to ensure medicines affordably reach the people who need them most. But can these emerging programs and partnerships deliver on this promise?…” (Green, 8/1).

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Devex Interviews 2 Current Members Of Global Fund's Technical Review Panel

Devex: How the Global Fund’s TRP is helping eliminate AIDS, TB, and malaria as public health threats
“…To decide how to best invest [its] funds, the Global Fund taps into an independent pool of leading experts called the Technical Review Panel, who review and assess funding requests submitted by countries for technical merit and strategic focus. … So what’s it like to serve on the Technical Review Panel? We sat down with two current members: Kwasi Torpey, a director at FHI 360 and an HIV prevention expert from Ghana, and Anne Austen, a British health systems strengthening consultant, to ask them about their experience…” (8/1).

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Editorials and Opinions

Leaders In Washington Should Address Zika Immediately

Foreign Policy: Dear Washington: The Time to Prepare for Zika Has Come and Gone
Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations

“Dear presidential candidates, senators, and congressional representatives: … The time you’ve had to get a preparedness plan in order but have wasted twiddling thumbs and shifting around budgets to make it look like you were taking the threat of Zika seriously is over. … Partisan bickering about the lives of American babies is unconscionable. This is no time for grandstanding. … And here’s the thing: Americans aren’t stupid and won’t be hornswoggled. According to recent polls, most people in the United States know what Zika is and were concerned about it well before the virus infected Floridian Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. … Come on, congressional representatives and senators: This is a pandemic in progress. Reconvene immediately, negotiate a deal, focus on financing, and get the job — your job — done. Failure to do so will mean that every Zika-related birth defect, miscarriage, and paralysis case will be your fault” (8/1).

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Reforming Health Workforce, Making Medicines Affordable Critical To Achieving Universal Health Coverage

Devex: Universal health coverage: Unique challenges, bold solutions
Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO assistant director general for Health Systems and Innovation

“…The [Universal Health Coverage (UHC)] target is the linchpin of the health-related [Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)]; the one target that, if achieved, will help to deliver all the others by providing both population and person-centered high-quality services that are free at the point of delivery and designed to meet the realities of different people’s lives. … [A]ll countries [need] to find innovative ways to reshape their health systems. One of the first requirements will be a radical transformation of the health workforce. … A second major challenge is the ever-increasing price of medicines. … All nations will have to take steps to reform their health workforce and address the affordability of medicines. No one can afford a business-as-usual approach. … [I]f the world leaders who signed up to the SDGs are to deliver on their promises, they must be prepared to take bold action to deliver on UHC” (8/1).

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Voluntary Family Planning Investments Key To Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

The Guardian: Family planning is a key development goal that needs greater investment
John Bongaarts, vice president of the Population Council

“Family planning is much more than a vital health and human rights intervention … Investments in voluntary family planning are also investments in sustainable development, and therefore should be of as much of concern to ministers of finance as to ministers of health. … Family planning is assigned a low national priority, relegated to the health budgets of donors and the portfolios of health ministers, who are often battling a range of other health issues. From a broader perspective, this low priority is a mistake, because family planning programs have a wide array of development benefits that often are under-appreciated. … Family planning must therefore be reclassified as a development intervention. If we’re truly serious about meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, we must embrace the rare investment opportunities that drive progress on many different development fronts — family planning chief among them” (8/1).

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From the Global Health Policy Community

NIAID Director Suggests Establishing Global Health Reserve Fund To Respond To Future Disease Outbreaks

Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks”: Fauci: A ‘global health reserve fund’ needed, for Zika, and outbreaks to come
Rabita Aziz, policy research coordinator for the Center for Global Health Policy, discusses remarks made by National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci at an event at the Bipartisan Policy Center, during which Fauci suggested establishing a global health reserve fund for public health emergencies. According to Aziz, Fauci said, “We cannot prevent these infections … but we can improve the way we respond” (8/1).

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CSIS Report Examines India's Polio Eradication Efforts

Center for Strategic & International Studies: Catalyzing Health Gains through Global Polio Eradication: An India Trip Report
Nellie Bristol, senior fellow, and Chris Millard, program manager and research associate, both at the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, examine India’s efforts to eliminate polio. The report specifically discusses how the Indian government has been working to transition public health assets developed for global polio eradication to government programs and other health activities (July 2016).

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PATH Malaria Learning Series Examines Population-Wide Drug-Based Strategies To Eliminate Malaria In 3 African Countries

Making Malaria History: PATH Malaria Learning Series: Population-Wide Drug-Based Strategies for Malaria Elimination
“Population-wide drug-based strategies are potentially powerful accelerators for malaria elimination. This issue of the PATH Malaria Learning Series explores their role in rapidly reducing the malaria parasite burden in targeted populations and explains the differences between various population-wide drug-based strategies. It also takes a close look at the results of PATH-supported research into population-wide drug-based strategies in three malaria-endemic countries in Africa” (July 2016).

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World Bank Blog Post Reflects On Adoption, Impact Of SDGs

World Bank’s “Voices”: One year on, the SDGs provide reason for hope
Paula Caballero, senior director of the Environment and Natural Resources Global Practice at the World Bank, reflects on the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and highlights four key characteristics of the SDGs: they are universal; “embrace complexity;” enable the international community to “see development through a much wider prism;” and “were drafted and adopted by the totality of the world’s countries” (8/1).

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Wilson Center Event Discusses Outcomes Of Women Deliver Conference

Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program’s “New Security Beat”: After Women Deliver, What’s Next for Women and Girls?
Aimee Jakeman, an intern for the Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative, writes about a July 18 event at the Wilson Center “to discuss the takeaways for the health, rights, and wellbeing of women and girls from this spring’s [Women Deliver] conference in Copenhagen, the largest yet…” (8/2).

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August 2016 Issue Of WHO Bulletin Available Online

WHO: Bulletin of the World Health Organization
The August 2016 WHO Bulletin includes editorials, news, research, and policy articles on various topics, including an editorial on antimicrobial resistance; an article on new tools to fight Aedes mosquitoes; and a perspective piece on food fortification (August 2016).

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