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White House holds call to discuss famine in the Horn of Africa

A post in the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog highlights a White House call "with faith-based organizations Wednesday afternoon to discuss efforts in the Horn of Africa to combat the extensive famine brought on by a severe drought in the region, the worst seen in decades."

20 Aug 2011

Hookah use among California youths is rising rapidly: Study

Hookah use among California youth ages 18 to 24 is rising rapidly according to a study conducted by researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

20 Aug 2011

'Real action' needed on NCDs

"We were deeply perturbed to learn that the negotiations for the Outcomes Document of the U.N. High Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), a mere month or so away, had stalled because member states failed to reach consensus," Nalini Saligram, CEO of Arogya World, and Sandeep Kishore, an MD/PhD candidate at the Cornell/ Rockefeller/ Sloan-Kettering Institute, write in a Huffington Post opinion piece.

19 Aug 2011

Japan to fund polio vaccination efforts in Pakistan

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is providing approximately $65 million to Pakistan's government to provide polio vaccination campaigns in the country, "one of the most difficult fronts against the disease as global health organizations risk missing their goal of stopping polio globally the end of 2012," the Wall Street Journal reports.

19 Aug 2011

Prior parasitic worm infections may complicate TB therapy

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major threat to global health, taking the lives of more than a million people worldwide each year. Its greatest impact is often in the most impoverished places on earth, where patients frequently suffer from multiple chronic illnesses at the same time. In such situations, the question of whether each individual illness might make concurrent illnesses more difficult to treat becomes a critical issue both for specific patients and for general public health.

19 Aug 2011

DNDi addresses 'alarming lack' of R&D for neglected diseases

In a Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment blog post, the third part of the center's Product Development Partnership (PDP) mini-series, "Bernard Pecoul from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) discusses their experience with partnerships to develop treatments for neglected diseases."

18 Aug 2011

Researchers isolate 17 novel antibodies against HIV

A team of researchers at and associated with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), The Scripps Research Institute, the biotechnology company Theraclone Sciences and Monogram Biosciences Inc., a LabCorp company, report in the current issue of Nature the isolation of 17 novel antibodies capable of neutralizing a broad spectrum of variants of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

18 Aug 2011

India and international aid priorities

In this Center for Global Development Global Health Policy blog post, Amanda Glassman, director of Global Health Policy and research fellow at CGD, and Denizhan Duran, a CGD research assistant, examine the question of whether European and other aid agencies should continue to give aid to India, a country that "now plans to give $11.3 billion in the next five to seven years" through its own aid agency.

17 Aug 2011

U.S. aid to Liberia important for health and development improvements

"Even now, eight years after our civil war ended, Liberia faces a huge uphill battle," Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf writes in a Washington Post opinion piece, adding that "with support from the United States, we have been able to make progress. … It is critical that this aid continues in next year's budget."

16 Aug 2011

U.N. should make reduction in salt intake a global health priority, researchers say

Researchers from the Universities of Warwick and Liverpool in a report published on Thursday in the British Medical Journal called for the U.N. to "make reducing salt intake a global health priority," stating that "a 15 percent cut in consumption could save 8.5 million lives around the world over the next decade," BBC News reports.

16 Aug 2011

Lancet launches Global Health Portal

The Lancet has launched a Global Health Portal, which "offers free and unlimited access to all global health content in one location including Series, Regional Reports, multimedia content, and from our World Report and Perspectives sections," according to the journal's homepage.

12 Aug 2011

HIV prevention must include economic empowerment of women

"Transactional sex, sexual intercourse driven by material exchanges," occurs worldwide, but "[i]n poor regions with high HIV prevalence rates like sub-Saharan Africa … transactional sex poses an even higher threat to one's wellbeing and health because the chance of HIV infection is greater," Daniella Choi, staff member at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, writes in CSIS' Commission on Smart Global Health Policy blog.

12 Aug 2011

Soligenix second quarter revenues decrease to $406,000

Soligenix, Inc., a late-stage biopharmaceutical company, announced today its financial results for the second quarter of 2011.

12 Aug 2011

BMJ News examines WHO financing and reform

BMJ News examines financing for and efforts to reform the WHO, which "are raising concerns over conflict of interest." The article looks at a reform package announced in May by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan at the World Health Assembly, as well as the first World Health Forum, set for November 2012.

11 Aug 2011

Foreign aid community faces difficulties as food prices rise and dollar declines

The Council on Foreign Relations features an interview with Laurie Garrett, a CFR senior fellow for Global Health, in which she discusses the effects of the declining dollar, the struggling global economy and the rise in food prices on food aid pledges for the drought and famine in East Africa.

11 Aug 2011

U.S. delegation in South Africa to renew bilateral relationship, create sustainable partnerships in health

This post on the Center for Strategic and International Studies's Commission on Smart Global Health Policy blog examines tuberculosis (TB) in South Africa, "which has the highest tuberculosis infection rate per population and accounts for 5 percent of the global TB burden."

10 Aug 2011

CIGNA launches new office and operations in Turkey

CIGNA, a leader in direct marketed supplemental health, life and accident insurance in the international marketplace, today announced the launch of a new office and operations in Turkey.

9 Aug 2011

Huddersfield lecturer's groundbreaking design for nursing bag wins four major awards

UNIVERSITY of Huddersfield lecturer Dr David Swann's groundbreaking design for a super-efficient and super-safe treatment bag for mobile health workers is attracting global praise and interest and put him in line for FOUR major awards.

9 Aug 2011

Foreign aid should enhance, not replace, domestic health spending in developing countries

A case in Uganda of a woman bleeding to death while giving birth "underscores an unintended consequence of global health aid," a Globe and Mail editorial writes, adding that "in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, a reverse trend is under way; for every $1 of development assistance for health, governments have reduced their spending," according to a study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

9 Aug 2011

Panel discusses global health approaches and sustainable results

The Center for Global Health Policy's "ScienceSpeaks" blog describes a panel discussion, which took place at last week's Society for International Development 2011 World Congress, that focused "on vertical and integrated approaches to global health [and] addressed the question of how best to achieve sustainable results in the field."

6 Aug 2011