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Global Health Matters

March - April, 2008  |  Volume 7, Issue 2

FOGARTY IN THE NEWS

Fogarty Director Dr. Roger I. Glass Quoted in The Scientist

Fogarty Director
Dr. Roger I. Glass

Fogarty International Center's Director Dr. Roger I. Glass was recently quoted by The Scientist magazine in an article titled "Implementing Change."

The piece, written by Bob Grant, explores the growing concern within the global health community that the actual outcomes of many interventions in the developing world are not being properly evaluated, and that implementation science is being excluded from many global health initiatives. A few international organizations have even analyzed how well they evaluate program outcomes, with less than promising results.

"How will we know if we're really seeing into the impact we expect?" asks Dr. Glass. "We spend a lot of effort to develop new tools, vaccines and drugs, and then we wash out hands of them." Dr. Glass recounts the story of development agencies' attempts in the 1970's to halt cholera epidemics in Bangladesh by drilling tube wells. The initial outcomes of the project were unsuccessful because evaluation had not been built into the design of the program.

The problem of scarce funding for evaluation in global health programs with already strained budgets is also touched upon.

In addition, Grant gives several examples of implementation successes in developing nations. The article devotes considerable attention to Fogarty grantee Dr. Jean Pape, citing his work with the GHESKIO clinic in Haiti as an example of a successful link between evaluation and adaptive management." Jean Pape does that better than anyone else," said Dr. Glass.

The article is available at: http://www.the-scientist.com/2008/3/1/42/1.

New York Times Features Fogarty Grantee in Haiti

First Lady Laura Bush visits the
GHESKIO HIV/Center in Haiti.
(Photo: White House/S. Craighead)

The New York Times recently published an account of a visit by First Lady Laura Bush to a Fogarty grantee site in Haiti.

During a tour of the GHESKIO HIV/AIDS Center in Port-Au-Prince earlier this spring, Mrs. Bush met with young people who are HIV positive. "It is important for young people to know if they do get tested and are HIV positive, there are good things they can do," she said.

The center is also a participant in the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Haiti's infection rate has dropped significantly from double digits to about three percent.

NPR's Morning Edition Features Fogarty Grantee's Work in Amazon

National Public Radio's Morning Edition program recently featured Fogarty grantee Dr. Margaret Kosek and her team's study of the impact of deforestation on the spread of infectious diseases in the Peruvian Amazon.

New roads promote deforestation that not only reduces the world's carbon balance but also boosts malaria rates, according to Dr. Kosek, an infectious-disease expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

When roads are built, culverts are formed alongside that create pools of water. These are ideal places for mosquitoes to lay their eggs, according to the researchers. Roads also bring outsiders to villages that have been largely isolated. If these newcomers carry malaria, mosquitoes could bite them, pick up the parasites and infect new victims, the scientists say.

Deforestation can encourage malaria outbreaks. (Photo: WHO/TDR
Mark Edwards)

In the Peruvian Amazon, 75 percent of the forest disruption, from 1999-2005, was within 12 miles of a road. Consequently, the areas that had suffered the most deforestation also suffered more malaria.

Dr. Kosek and her team recently surveyed an area where the Peruvian government plans to put in a highway. The road will go from the frontier river village of Mazan, through the Amazon jungle, to the city of Iquitos. The team wants to see what impact this will have. If they can unravel the health effects of building roads through the jungle, they say, it could help them find ways to prevent some of the problems.

However, many people who live in the area see the road as a sign of progress. It will provide construction jobs and help farmers get their goods to market. But the research team knows the road will also increase the number of mosquitoes, including those that carry malaria.

Dr. Kosek is Principal Investigator on a Fogarty International Research Scientist Development Award.

To learn more, visit: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyld=19276850