KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report
In The News
- Delhi Government Orders 1K More Beds To Treat Dengue Fever Patients, Warns Hospitals Not To Turn Away Patients
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Agence France-Presse: Delhi orders extra hospital beds after dengue outbreak
“New Delhi’s government ordered Monday 1,000 extra beds in hospitals to treat dengue patients, as the Indian capital reels from the worst outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease in five years…” (9/14).BBC News: Delhi hospitals denying dengue treatment to be penalized
“The state government in the Indian capital, Delhi, has threatened to penalize hospitals after reports that they turned away dying children suffering from dengue fever. Two families have alleged in recent days that their children died after being denied treatment at hospitals…” (9/15).CNN: New Delhi faces worst dengue outbreak in five years
“…Even without an outbreak, New Delhi’s four major federal-funded hospitals are stretched by the thousands of patients that visit them everyday. The dozens of other state and municipal level hospitals in the city also suffer from overcrowding…” (Singh, 9/16).Financial Times: Delhi hospitals warned over dengue fever crisis
“… ‘We have become blind in the race to make more and more profit,’ Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister and a former anti-corruption activist, said after a surprise inspection of state-run hospitals on Tuesday. ‘We shouldn’t forget our humanity.’ ‘Hospitals which refuse treatment will not be spared,’ he added…” (Kazmin, 9/16).
- Nearly 1 In 3 Of World's Population Malnourished Despite Decrease In Global Hunger, Report Says
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News outlets discuss the 2014-2015 Global Food Policy Report, released annually by the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Reuters: Despite fall in hunger, obesity and diabetes worsen around the globe — report
“Despite a drop in the number of people facing starvation, nearly one in three of the world’s population are malnourished, even as obesity spreads around the globe, an international food security think tank said on Tuesday…” (Arsenault, 9/15).Xinhua News/GlobalPost: One in three of global population malnourished: report
” ‘When one in three of us is held back due to malnutrition, we as families, communities, and nations cannot move forward,’ Lawrence Haddad, lead author of the Global Nutrition Report and senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said Tuesday at a press briefing…” (9/15).
- Increased Nutrition Education Will Help Some Communities Overcome Taboos, Traditional Beliefs To Curb Child Stunting, TRF Reports
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Thomson Reuters Foundation: Better baby food: changing African mindsets on eggs, grandmas, motherhood
“…The new U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, replacing the MDGs, include ending malnutrition by 2030 and cutting stunting — children being short for their age — by 40 percent by 2025. … Solving the problem, which affects one in three people in the world, requires better diets — and changes to some deep-rooted beliefs…” (Migiro, 9/15).
- U.N. Human Rights Council Member States Must Do More To Pursue Gender Equality, U.N. Official Says
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U.N. News Centre: No country has yet achieved equality between men and women — U.N. human rights chief
“The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said [Tuesday] that no country to date has achieved full equality between the sexes and urged the 47 members of the Human Rights Council ‘to do better than our societies’ and make a real difference in achieving gender parity…” (9/15).
- Community-Wide De-Worming Programs Can Be Cost-Effective, Researchers Say
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BBC News: Call for mass de-worming exercise
“A large-scale de-worming treatment program is needed to rid some 1.5 billion people of these harmful and unpleasant parasites, say researchers. The Stanford University team says the World Health Organization needs to step up its response — but the WHO says this could breed drug-resistant infections. … By their calculations, outlined in The Lancet Global Health journal, it would cost about £109 per person per year, which they say is highly cost effective…” (Roberts, 9/16).
- Grand Challenges Awards 7 Projects Grants To Improve Child Health
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Livemint: Grand Challenges grants awarded to seven projects on children’s health
“Developing methods to identify mothers at risk of premature births, finding out which children are likely to face stunting, and nutritional and environmental interventions to prevent stunting — these are some of the projects that were awarded grants on Tuesday under the ‘All Children Thriving’ Grand Challenges program…” (Mehta, 9/16).
- E.U. Provides $24.5M To Uganda For Efforts To Reach Goals, Sustain Efforts On MDGs
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International Business Times: E.U. Gives Uganda $24.5M Reward For Millennium Development Goals Performance And To Support Further Progress
“The European Union gave $24.5 million Tuesday to Uganda to reward the East African country for staying on track with its Millennium Development Goals agenda and for its progress so far in sustaining socioeconomic development…” (Winsor, 9/15).
- FAO Warns North Korea's Food Aid Rations At Very Low Levels
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VOA News: FAO: N. Korea Food Distribution Dangerously Low
“Food distribution in North Korea has dropped to dangerous levels, according to a United Nation’s food agency. The country is distributing an average of 250 grams of daily food rations per person, a 21 percent decline from a three-year average, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Monday…” (Kim, 9/14).
Editorials and Opinions
- U.N. Should Cut 169 SDG Targets Down To 19 For More Sustainable Development Results
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Project Syndicate: Unsustainable Development Goals
Bjørn Lomborg, adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School and founder and director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center“…It is a rather unlikely prospect, but instead of signing the Agenda for Sustainable Development as is, leaders should forego the photo opportunity and spend their time in New York cutting it down to just 19 key development targets. That is the number of targets that a panel of Nobel laureates identified in a project for my think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus Center. … Channeling the entire development budget to the 19 targets that the panel identified would do four times more good than if we spread it across the U.N.’s 169 targets, with a large share of those benefits going to the world’s worst-off people. In lofty language, the U.N. claims that the Agenda for Sustainable Development’s 169 targets are ‘integrated and indivisible.’ This is nonsense. Cutting them back is what should happen…” (9/15).
- New Global Map Of Sex Work Laws Will Help Advocates, Researchers, Policymakers Advance Sex Workers' Rights
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The Guardian: Sex workers’ rights: mapping policy around the world
Cheryl Overs, founder of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects and visiting research fellow at IDS“…As the dust settles after the debates set off by [Amnesty International’s] decision to support the decriminalization of sex work, it is clear that, for all the differences of opinion, there is a genuine appetite to solve problems associated with sex work and broad recognition that criminalization fails to do that. At national and sub-national levels, the challenge is to develop concrete, feasible ideas for effective laws and policies. This requires drilling down past big claims and moral arguments, past activists’ slogans and sensationalist headlines, and into the details of laws and policies and how they are enforced in different cultural, political, social, and economic environments. I am confident that the Sex Work Law Map will be an important tool in that process” (9/15).
From the Global Health Policy Community
- U.S. Can Solidify Commitment To International Affairs In 4 Key Ways At UNGA
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U.S. Department of State’s “DipNote”: Top Reasons To Care About #UNGA This Year
Tracey A. Jacobson, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, discusses the upcoming United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and four key areas where the U.S. could solidify its commitment to international affairs, including strengthening multilateral peace operations; countering terrorism, ISIL, and violent extremism; setting the SDG agenda; and reaching a landmark agreement on climate change (9/15).
- U.S. Government Must Invest More In Developing Multipurpose Prevention Technologies, Paper Says
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Guttmacher Institute: Multipurpose prevention technologies hold great promise, but more U.S. investment is necessary to make them a reality
This press release discusses a new analysis by Heather Boonstra, director of public policy at the Guttmacher Institute, on multipurpose prevention technologies (MPTs), which are “products that simultaneously protect against multiple risks, such as unintended pregnancy, HIV, and other STIs. … ‘Supporting and adequately funding the development of MPTs should be a higher priority for the U.S. government, especially at a time when private sector support is missing,’ says Boonstra…” (9/15).
- International Community Capable Of Achieving UHC To Help End Poverty By 2030
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World Bank’s “Voices”: Universal health coverage in a generation is achievable
Bertrand Badré, managing director and World Bank Group chief financial officer, discusses the goal of reaching universal health coverage, “a concept central to reaching our World Bank Group twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity. … We know what works and have enormous evidence that investing in health pays off. Ensuring equal opportunities for the healthy development of every man, woman and child, everywhere, should be a cornerstone of the global community’s work to end poverty within a generation” (9/15).
- Blog Post Provides Roundup Of Recent Global Health Research News
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Global Health Technologies Coalition’s “Breakthroughs”: Research Roundup: HIV/AIDS self-testing and advances in dengue fever and sleeping sickness R&D
Kat Kelley, GHTC’s senior program assistant, highlights recent news in global health research, including a study on HIV self-testing in Malawi, advances in research for a vaccine and treatment against dengue fever, and the completion of a phase I human clinical trial for a drug candidate for sleeping sickness (9/14).