The latest data on the global burden of tuberculosis is out. Major revisions from Nigeria show more people than previously known have TB. The good news is new cases continue to decline. The bad news is drug resistant forms remain. From Humanosphere:
Overall, things are getting better. The TB mortality rate is down by 45 percent since 1990. While long-term progress is laudable, TB incidence fell by only 0.6 percent from 2012. Obstacles to progress remain. Multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB infected 480,000 people in 2013. Extremely resistant forms of TB that were detected in Eastern Europe remain a big fear. And, the connection between AIDS and TB remains strong and deadly.
“With a global epidemic that is bigger than we knew, and the growing threat of drug resistance where we aren’t keeping pace with treatment needs, it is clear that we need to invest significantly more in TB diagnosis, treatment and prevention,” said Joanne Carter, Executive Director, RESULTS, and Vice-Chair, Stop TB Partnership Coordinating Board, on a press call today.
“The world faces at least a $2 billion financing gap. Countries with high burdens of TB continue to cover the majority of the cost, and there is far more that donors can do and must do to support the fight.”There is also uncertainty about the estimates. The case increase in this year’s report is likely to be replicated next year, after the publication of Indonesia’s more comprehensive TB numbers. The WHO says the improved statistics are a good thing and try to downplay the large overall number by saying that the figures “fall within the upper limit of previous WHO estimates.”
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Spotlight on PSI
PSI ambassador Mandy Moore writes for CNN about her recent trip to Tanzania and the importance of health workers. An excerpt:
PSI has ensured quality care by applying proven commercial franchising strategies — think McDonalds or Subway — to health care. PSI operates a franchise network that spans 31 countries and serves 10 million people every year. In Tanzania, the franchise is calledFamilia.
Lucy, a Familia community health worker, goes out into the community every day and educates women about family planning and other health issues. Lucy then refers these women back to the neighborhood Familia clinic located right in the village she serves.
I joined Lucy for a session she organized at a modest apartment building with a few rooms separated by concrete walls and colorful fabric curtains. When I climbed the stairs to the front porch, about a dozen women with babies who were seated on straw mats greeted me. Lucy began to talk with them about their contraception options, and they had lots of questions for her. The most vocal was a gregarious woman named Sophia.
Sophia had used condoms and pills to space her births, but when Familia began offering longer-term methods like implants, she switched. The implant prevents pregnancy for up to three years, and she shared with us how it was a great weight off her shoulders. She told the group that she wanted to be able to plan her family size, so she and her husband could save for the future. Lucy reiterated that for women like Sophia, access to family planning is a key to health and economic stability.
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Global Health and Development Beat
Cuba’s contribution of hundreds of doctors and nurses to fight Ebola puts the island at the forefront of the international response and is even thawing relations with a sworn enemy the United States.
Congolese gynecological surgeon Denis Mukwege has won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, awarded for his work treating thousands of women who have been victims of rape in his country.
Jovago and UNICEF launched a partnership with the aim of ensuring official birth registration of every child born in Africa.
Johnson & Johnson will start safety testing in early January on a vaccine combination that could protect people from a strain of the deadly Ebola virus, to the tune of $200 million.
Last week, it was revealed that only $100,000 was committed against a $1 billion UN trust fund to provide rapid and flexible funding to combat the outbreak in west Africa. Quite a bit more has been pledged in the past few days, including $50 million to the trust fund and many millions to other funding mechanisms, reports Reuters.
A top Red Cross official said Wednesday that he is confident the Ebola epidemic that has killed thousands of people in West Africa can be contained within four to six months.
Tensions surrounding the Ebola epidemic raging in west Africa sparked a deadly riot in Sierra Leone as the World Health Organization prepared Wednesday to coordinate clinical trials of an experimental vaccine against the killer virus.
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Buzzing in the Blogs
Elizabeth Bradley of the Yale Global Health Initiative and Robert Hecht of Results for Development say the Ebola outbreak shows the need for a global health security office. They write in the Hartford Courant:
The challenge is that we face a two-speed problem and we must act with urgency and patience at once. We have an immediate crisis in West Africa that calls for bold, high-speed intervention by medical, public health and military people. Simultaneously, we need to come up with a different class of “slower and steady” solutions to the gnawing long-term concerns of being ill-equipped to combat the global disease threats that will surely continue to emerge. Today, Ebola. Tomorrow, any number of other lethal viruses and bacteria.
The $1 billion all-in value of the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis, coupled with additional funds from the United Nations and other rich countries, will surely begin to shape the path to recovery for the suffering people of Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
Can we develop ambidextrous leadership that addresses both the immediate needs of the West African countries and the longer-term problem of swiftly detecting and effectively responding to disease outbreaks like Ebola?
A holistic, strategic approach is needed. Applied to Ebola and the next disease outbreak, such an approach demands that we create a permanent core capability and governance structure to confront disease threats swiftly and effectively, both by a global institution such as the World Health Organization and by the key world powers including the United States.
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Capital Events
Thursday
8:00 AM – Launching A Road-map for the Base of the Pyramid Domain: Re-energizing for the Next Decade – SID
10:00 AM – World Population and Human Capital in the 21st Century – Wilson Center
Friday
12:00 PM – Beyond Great Places to Work: The Business Case for Investing in Front-Line Workers – Aspen Institute
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By Mark Leon Goldberg and Tom Murphy
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Disclaimer: Opinions presented in this email do not necessarily reflect the views of PSI.
