In the News
"U.S. government officials say they expect to put the finishing touches this month on new rules designed to help funding agencies identify and regulate especially problematic H5N1 studies before they begin," which would allow influenza researchers "to lift a year-old, self-imposed moratorium on certain kinds of potentially dangerous experiments," Science reports. "The two developments would essentially end a long and bruising controversy over the risks and benefits of H5N1 research," the magazine notes, adding the debate was initiated by two research teams that lab-engineered H5N1 strains to be transmissible among mammals. "The issue has been especially sensitive for the U.S. government, because its National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded the two studies and is one of the world's biggest funders of H5N1 research," Science writes. The magazine discusses the moratorium's impact on research worldwide and summarizes differing views about its effects (Malakoff, 1/4).
Experts at a December 2012 WHO meeting agreed on a plan to eliminate sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis), the Lancet reports. Highlighting the difference between eradication -- "incidence is permanently reduced to zero cases worldwide and no further action is needed" -- and elimination -- "incidence is reduced to zero cases worldwide or in a defined geographical area but action might be needed to keep it that way" -- the journal writes the goal is to bring the number of cases to zero, as eradication would mean ridding the world of the tsetse fly, which is responsible for transmission.
"Achieving the zero-cases-zero-transmission target, the WHO meeting participants agreed, will not be easy," the Lancet notes and discusses a number of challenges, such as "a lack of field-friendly diagnostic tests" and the hunt for cases "in the remote jungle villages where most patients -- and most tsetse flies -- live." However, "despite these difficulties, the meeting participants expressed few doubts about their ability to reach the zero-case target, at least for the west African form of the disease," the journal notes, adding, "One reason for optimism is that the target was almost reached in the past" (Maurice, 1/5).
The New York Times profiles the Safe Abortion Hot Line in Chile, where abortion has been entirely illegal since 1989. Thirty volunteers throughout Chile operate the telephone hotline, which takes "tense calls from women seeking information about abortion every evening from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.," the newspaper writes, adding the volunteers have taken "more than 12,000 calls so far, and they continue rolling in at a steady clip." The newspaper examines the history of abortion laws in Chile and several other countries in South America; says the country's Ministry of Women began its own hotline to "answer calls from men or women looking for information or support when facing what the ministry calls an 'abortion situation' or 'post-abortion syndrome'"; describes how the drug misoprostol, which "was taken off pharmacy shelves in Chile under Michelle Bachelet, the former president," who now heads U.N. Women, is used for safe medical abortions; and discusses the establishment of abortion hotlines in Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela by the group Women on Waves (Nelsen, 1/3).
On average, 200 people are diagnosed with HIV every day in Russia, Al Jazeera reports. "Vadim Pokrovsky, the head of Russia's AIDS research center, has said that instead of recognizing a crisis -- the government is indifferent to the problem," the news service writes, adding, "'If we had 200 cases of diarrhea at a children's pioneer camp, the country's head sanitation doctor would fly out immediately to save them,' Pokrovsky said." Pokrovsky continued, "It would be frightening. Governors would run, helicopters would fly, the police would search for the source of infection, prosecutors would get to work. But here we are seeing that there is complete indifference to this situation," according to the news service.
"While the government provides free medicine, agencies like the U.N. believe fewer than half of people eligible for [HIV] treatment are getting it," Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker reports in an accompanying video, noting, "Some choose not to take medication, others lack access or support." Over 40 percent of new infections are among women, according to Forestier-Walker, who adds, "What it shows is that far from being confined to certain groups, HIV will continue to spread with this infection rate into the general population" (1/3).
Inter Press Service correspondent Julia Kallas interviews Alvilda Jablonko, coordinator of the No Peace Without Justice Programme on FGM, about the U.N. General Assembly's adoption last year of a resolution urging countries to ban female genital mutilation (FGM). According to the interview transcript, Jablonko discusses the main barriers she faced "while trying to advocate the resolution," examines what the next steps will be now that the resolution has been adopted, and talks about how much of an impact she thinks the resolution will have (1/3).
Editorials & Opinions
Several news outlets published opinion pieces regarding the recent murders of polio vaccination and other aid workers in Pakistan. The following summarizes two opinion pieces and one editorial on the issue.
- Lancet: "The effect of the killing of polio vaccine workers in Pakistan will have repercussions for its neighbor Afghanistan, which, together with Pakistan itself and Nigeria, is one of the remaining polio-endemic countries," and "[o]ther neighboring countries have also been put at risk," a Lancet editorial states. "To eradicate polio, the work that the brave polio health workers died for must be continued in 2013," the Lancet writes, concluding, "Furthermore, it is imperative not only to ensure immunization workers' security, but also to address the determinants behind the shooting of polio health workers -- i.e., to win the hearts of the public, to go beyond the 'polio only' agenda, and to enhance polio vaccination's integration into the routine health and immunization program" (1/5).
- Jeffrey Kluger, TIME: "Thanks to aggressive global vaccination programs led by Rotary International, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and, most recently, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the year just beginning could be [polio's] last," Kluger, senior editor at TIME, writes. He notes the killing of the health care and aid workers, as well as a Taliban-imposed ban on polio vaccinations in certain regions of Pakistan. "Using children as viral suicide bombers this way is a new -- and grotesque -- form of bioterrorism, and the world, for now at least, is not standing idly by," Kluger states, noting the efforts of governments and aid organizations. "The war with the poliovirus and its human defenders has been joined -- and 2013 could be the year in which the climactic battles are fought," he concludes (1/3).
- Afiya Shehrbano Zia, Guardian: Zia, a feminist researcher, activist and author, "highlight[s] the 'context' that enabled such unprecedented violence against female health workers, ostensibly committed by militants other than the [Taliban in Pakistan]," she writes, adding, "I shall argue that it is not just the 'conditions that create groups like the Taliban' that require scrutiny, but that it is equally incumbent upon us to see how the narrative of religious militancy encourages, strengthens, colludes with and affords impunity to all forms of faith-based misogyny in Pakistan." After a long analysis, she concludes that "the attacks by religious militants on women polio workers (and other women activists) must be seen in the context of the views, politics and policies of all Islamists on women's health, sexuality, homosexuality, control over their bodies, mobility and gendered roles. Only then can we be assured of a more accurate analysis of gendered violence in Pakistan" (1/3).
Recent Releases
U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby, who heads the Department of State's Office of Global Health Diplomacy, reflects on progress made in the global AIDS response over the last year in the State Department's "DipNote" blog, writing, "Through the contributions of many partners, a new day has dawned in the global AIDS response ... Today, while the fight is far from over, we are on the road to achieving an AIDS-free generation." He continues, "As we enter the tenth year of PEPFAR, we do so filled with great hope for a future where an AIDS-free generation is, as [Secretary of State Hillary Clinton] stated, not just a rallying cry -- it is a goal within our reach. And I am confident that 2013 can be another extraordinary year" (1/3).
Sarah Jane Staats, director of the Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program at the Center for Global Development (CGD), reflects on "some happy news for foreign aid in the new year" in a post in the CGD's "Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Blog." She notes "the White House appointed nine members to the President's Global Development Council, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an aid transparency bill 390-0, and the fiscal cliff deal postpone[d] across-the-board budget cuts," and she expands on each of these developments (1/2).
Noting "[t]he U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that it has approved a new treatment for multidrug-resistant [tuberculosis (TB)] that can be used as an alternative when other drugs fail," Kim Lufkin, communications officer at the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), writes in the coalition's "Breakthroughs" blog, "There is a pressing and urgent need for even more new TB drugs, which makes this new FDA approval so significant." She continues, "It is also noteworthy that the FDA approved Sirturo under its accelerated approval program, in addition to granting the drug fast track, priority review, and orphan-product status," adding, "It's critical that the FDA continues to support its priority review, fast track, and similar programs, which can help speed access to safe and effective global health drugs" (1/3).
"In many ways, 2012 was a banner year for international family planning and reproductive health," Philip Harvey, president and co-founder of DKT International, and Christopher Purdy, executive vice president of DKT International, write in a post in RH Reality Check, highlighting the London Family Planning Summit and noting contraception "even became an issue in the U.S. presidential election." Looking forward to 2013, they write that the focus will remain on commitments from the London Family Planning Summit, the role of the private sector in the delivery of products and services, new contraceptive technologies, access to medical abortion, and family planning aid to middle-income countries (1/3).
