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Premature births on rise globally (US ranks with Indonesia & Bangladesh) |

Flickr, limaoscarjuliet

A new report by the World Health Organization has determined that one of every ten babies, 15 million worldwide, is born premature and the numbers are rising.

Disturbingly, if not surprisingly anymore when it comes to health indicators, the United States ranks between Indonesia and Bangladesh on premies.

As the Guardian noted, most of these premature births around the world are preventable if simple, inexpensive treatments were available to all. The rise in premie babies in the rich world was attributed to older mothers, an increased rate of C-section deliveries as well as the use of fertility drugs. In the developing world, comparatively:

In poor countries, where most of the deaths occur, the main causes of premature delivery are infections, malaria, HIV and the high number of adolescent girls getting pregnant. There is a huge difference in survival among the most premature. In rich countries, 90% of babies born before 28 weeks live. In poor countries, only 10% will do so.

Flickr, Mike Blyth

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FILED UNDER: Health, child mortality, premature birth, World Health Organization

April 27, 2012 | 10:42 AM | By Tom Paulson |

The weird adventures of VacciBoy and ImmuGirl |

The World Health Organization has a media campaign using cartoon super heroes to promote vaccination. In case you weren’t aware, this week was declared by WHO to be Vaccination Week.

So here they are, VacciBoy and ImmuGirl, gaining their superpowers by drinking liquids they discovered on the counter of a biomedical research lab.

Secondary message: “Hey kids, drink weird liquids you find in research labs and you’ll be a super hero!”

WHO

WHO says:

Welcome to the amazing world of VacciBoy and ImmuGirl. Through a series of episodes, you will learn about dangerous viruses, that are living around us and how to protect you and people you love against them. You will find entertaining and fun activities while you learn about many health threats. You will meet the viruses and how bad they are for our health and will discover how Vacciboy and Immugirl acquired their special powers to fight them.

Yes, but seriously kids: Don’t drink strange liquids in labs!

I watched a few of these videos and laughed out loud they are so bad. But sometimes being really bad can be pretty effective, by virtue of kitsch power or maybe something like reverse psychology. We’ll see.

Improving immunization rates around the world should be, and is, promoted as a top priority in global health. There may be no more effective single health intervention than a vaccine. Here are a few more straightforward reports and articles on this:

Reuters Two new vaccines introduced in Ghana

GAVI Millions of deaths averted, millions more to be saved

ONE Don’t ease up on global vaccination

But even if these WHO cartoons work (and I have my doubts), I wondered why try to sell immunization to kids? Are kids the ones deciding not to get themselves vaccinated? Are kids warning their parents against vaccines based on mistaken ideas? Are kids determining health policies? Are kids telling Congress to cut funding of foreign aid and these kind of global health measures?

As Einstein said, the first step to solving a problem is in properly defining it. Kids are not the problem here. VacciBoy and ImmuGirl mean well, but they would do better buzzing the halls of Congress and doing battle with irresponsible parents and policy makers.

FILED UNDER: Health, vaccines, World Health Organization

February 17, 2012 | 9:37 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Health experts say controversial bird flu research should be published |

Flickr, 4BlueEyes

A blue-ribbon panel at the World Health Organization has decided that two controversial bird flu studies should go forward and be published in full.

Just not yet — not until the public has been inoculated against premature anxiety and hysteria. Here’s WHO’s press release on the meeting.

“The group felt that one of the things that would be important to do is to increase public awareness first,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO director general for health and environmental security.

“There are lots of concerns about whether this (research) has created a super virus, whether it might escape from laboratories,” Fukuda said.He said the panel recommended full publication and ongoing similar studies on the bird flu virus, H5N1, but not until the public is better educated about the true risks and benefits of the science.

“So that there isn’t a new wave of anxiety created by the manuscripts coming out,” Fukuda said.

Meanwhile, the editor of the journal Science, Bruce Alberts, said today he intends to publish the bird flu study they have in hand if the scientific community can’t agree on a workable alternative that adequately balances the need for free and open exchange of information against biosecurity concerns. Alberts told the BBC:

Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver, he said: “Our position is that, in the absence of any mechanism to get the information to those scientists and health officials who need to know and need to protect their populations and to design new treatments and vaccines, our default position is that we have to publish in compete form.”

FILED UNDER: Science, bird flu, superbug, World Health Organization

February 15, 2012 | 11:32 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Bird flu cockfight: Secrecy vs Science |

Flickr, 4BlueEyes

There’s a heated scientific debate going on right now between those who fear the terrorist use of chickens versus those who fear the slippery slope of secrecy in science.

Starting on Thursday, a blue-ribbon panel of invited experts will meet behind closed doors at the World Health Organization to discuss whether or not two controversial experiments done on the avian influenza (bird flu) virus H5N1 should be published.

Chickens are right now the primary means by which bird flu gets transmitted. The concern is that terrorists will use it against humans.

“Biology has never done this before,” said Dr. Samuel Miller, head of the NIH’s Northwest Regional Center for BioDefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases in Seattle.

This could be a critical moment for the biological sciences, Miller said, which has — like most of science — operated according to the fundamental tenet of the free exchange of information, transparency of methods and open, public debate as to the findings.

UW
Samuel Miller, director UW Center on Biodefense

“What we are talking about here is really a fundamental change, about basically classifying a portion of biological research,” he said. Much of the physics community was forced into secrecy during World War II, Miller said, but nothing like this has ever been done for biology.

“I think it’s going to be difficult to get consensus on this,” he said.

The debate stems from two teams of researchers which, reportedly, have made the bird flu virus more easy to transmit in mammals. The virus in nature rarely infects humans but when it does can be very deadly. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Science, bird flu, influenza, science, World Health Organization

February 3, 2012 | 10:41 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Highest levels ever of drug-resistant TB found, in Europe |

Tom Paulson

tuberculosis patient, El Salvador

People are always surprised by this one basic fact about tuberculosis: One out of every three people on the planet are currently infected with this airborne bacterium.

That’s why the problem of increasing outbreaks of drug-resistant strains of TB is so worrisome to health officials. Tuberculosis spreads a lot easier than many other diseases globally and we are losing our ability to fight it.

Perhaps equally surprising to some will be the new reports that the highest rates ever recorded of multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) are not in Africa or the developing world but in Eastern Europe — Russia and Moldova. Sarah Boseley in The Guardian writes:

It shows the highest-ever recorded levels of MDR-TB. In some countries, 65% of patients who have previously been treated for TB end up back in hospital with a drug-resistant strain. The clear message is that their TB was not sufficiently well treated the first time around.

Of all the big killers out there on the global health landscape, TB has always been one of the biggest. But it seldom gets anywhere near the same attention as HIV, malaria or even less deadly threats (in terms of mortality numbers) such as, say, maternal mortality or malnutrition.

This stunning finding, that E. Europe is home to the highest rates of drug-resistant TB ever found, is getting some attention, but not much.

FILED UNDER: Health, drug resistance, Europe, tuberculosis, World Health Organization

February 2, 2012 | 3:30 PM | By Tom Paulson |

Study: Malaria death toll nearly twice the official count, kills many adults |

Flickr, ACJ1

A new global estimate of malaria deaths by researchers in Seattle has revealed the death toll is much greater than most experts had thought — and is not, as had been universally assumed, mostly a killer of children.

The study found more than 1.2 million people died from malaria in 2010, nearly twice the official estimate put out by the World Health Organization, and more than a third of the deaths were in adults.

The common wisdom has been that 99 percent of malaria deaths are in young children because adults develop immunity.

“This radically changes the picture,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, lead author of the study and director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

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FILED UNDER: Health, Science, Chris Murray, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, malaria, mortality, World Health Organization

January 12, 2012 | 10:56 AM | By Tom Paulson |

India marks one year without polio, inches toward eradication goal line |

UNICEF

Child receives polio vaccine

India will have made it one year, as of Friday, without a reported case of polio — a milestone everyone in the global health community is celebrating.

Except for maybe all those skeptics who say, or said, polio will never be eradicated.

The goal here is a world completely without polio, of course, since if this infectious disease exists anywhere it can spread everywhere — as China recently discovered.

But this accomplishment by India, which not that long ago had the world’s lion share of polio cases, does a lot to get us closer to the day when this crippling, sometimes deadly, disease is eradicated.

I’ve seen the ravages of polio in poor countries and, back in 2003 when I was a reporter for the Seattle PI, traveled to parts of India where the polio cases were exploding and reported on the country’s difficulties trying to rid itself of this infectious disease.

It may sound a simple enough goal to vaccinate all kids against polio, but it’s not. I can attest to how complex and challenging it has been — because of the nature of this disease, the lack of health care resources in the countries most in need and the various forms of political opposition that can emerge to obstruct what might seem to many an obvious good.

India’s not out of the woods yet and the disease remains entrenched in three countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. But the fact that India appears to have completely rid itself of this disease is evidence that the global campaign to eradicate polio is that much closer to reality.

Indian health officials deserve a lot of credit for reaching this milestone, but credit for getting us where we are today should go first to Rotary International — which for decades has sustained the global vaccination effort against all odds (and lots of skepticism) — and then to organizations like UNICEF, the World Health Organization and, lately, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Gates Foundation has thrown a lot of money at this effort over the last ten years or so. Both Bill Gates and his father Bill Sr. also have been outspoken public champions of polio eradication — even to the point of apparently finally winning over the world’s leading polio eradication skeptic D.A. Henderson.

Here’s Bill Gates’ celebrating India’s achievement on Huffington Post

FILED UNDER: Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, eradication, India, polio, Rotary International, UNICEF, vaccines, World Health Organization

November 21, 2011 | 3:54 PM | By Guest |

Update: Private funding of the world’s public health agency |

A robust debate continues over at the journal Foreign Affairs — over how much the World Health Organization is depending on private sources of funding these days.

Flickr, Public Domain Photos

Last week, we highlighted a critique written by journalist Sonia Shah. That prompted some thoughtful exchanges over on Humanosphere’s Facebook page.

Now, Foreign Affairs has a rebuttal called “Setting the record straight …” from the WHO’s communications director Christy Feig, who says Shah made a number of “erroneous statements”:

“To set the record straight: Eighty percent of WHO’s budget now comes from governments.”

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