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NewsHour features two health experts on President Obama's global health initiative

On the NewsHour Insider Forum, Ray Suarez interviews global health experts Michele Moloney-Kitts, assistant U.S. global AIDS coordinator, and Christine Lubinski, head of the Center for Global Health Policy and Advocacy about President Obama's $63 billion global health initiative.

24 Jun 2009

Namibia close to reaching some MDGs

Namibia's recently released second MDG Report 2008 finds that the country is making progress toward achieving some of the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. However, the Prime Minister says the global economic situation could reverse progress and notes that the country is behind on some health-related targets, New Era reports.

24 Jun 2009

Cryo-electron tomography shows immature HIV in 3D

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University Clinic Heidelberg, Germany, have produced a three-dimensional reconstruction of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which shows the structure of the immature form of the virus at unprecedented detail. Immature HIV is a precursor of the infectious virus, which can cause AIDS.

23 Jun 2009

Senate confirms Goosby as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator

The Senate on Friday confirmed President Obama's U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator nominee Eric Goosby, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Goosby - who "served previously in the Clinton administration as director of HIV/AIDS policy in the Department of Health and Human Services and as chief adviser to the president on HIV-related issues" - will now "head the U.S. strategy for addressing HIV around the world, and oversee the implementation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief" (PEPFAR), the newspaper writes.

22 Jun 2009

To stop spread of HIV, prevention campaigns in China targeting sex workers, MSM

CNN examines China's efforts to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS by educating sex workers about the disease and prevention strategies. "It is estimated that some 700,000 people are living with HIV in China and there are about 50,000 new infections every year, according to the Chinese government and UNAIDS. The U.N. agency believes a significant number of those new infections include sex workers," CNN writes.

22 Jun 2009

Discovery on HIV replication may lead to new therapies

Researchers from the newly-established VGTI Florida and the University of Montreal have uncovered a possible method for eradicating HIV infection in the human body.

22 Jun 2009

HIV-positive Cambodians evicted from Phnom Penh homes

To make way for a Ministry of Tourism garden, 20 families with HIV-positive members have been evicted from their homes and moved outside of the city, reports the Phnom Penh Post.

21 Jun 2009

Some call for more action at conclusion of Pacific Health Summit

Some Pacific Health Summit attendees said more action should have come from the tuberculosis-focused conference, which ended on Thursday in Seattle, Seattle Times' "Business of Giving" blog reports.

21 Jun 2009

BBC examines river blindness program in sub-Saharan Africa

BBC examines a campaign in sub-Saharan Africa that is helping to distribute drugs to prevent onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness - a disease "caused by a parasite that is spread from human to human by the black fly, which once flourished along river beds where there is fast-flowing water."

21 Jun 2009

Lancet studies examine aspects of global health funding

"Global health funding boosted by private donors has quadrupled since 1990, but the extra money has not always gone to the right countries and diseases, according to a pair of studies released Friday," in the journal Lancet, AFP/Google.com reports (Hood, AFP/Google.com, 6/18).

21 Jun 2009

U.S. recommits to improving health, education in Nigeria

The Guardian examines the recent U.S. commitment to continue support for the development of Nigeria's health and education sector by Anne Fleuret, Nigeria's acting mission director of USAID.

18 Jun 2009

House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee approves FY10 funding measure

The House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee "unanimously approved its FY10 funding measure without any amendments" on Wednesday, "deferring expected fights for the full committee markup in a week," CongressDaily reports.

18 Jun 2009

Continued international investment, decreased discrimination key to fight against HIV/AIDS, says U.N. Secretary-General

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon during a General Assembly meeting Tuesday urged governments not to cut aid for the international fight against HIV/AIDS, the AP/Washington Post reports.

18 Jun 2009

Opinion: World must work together to stop human trafficking

"To some, human trafficking may seem like a problem limited to other parts of the world," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton writes in a Washington Post opinion piece, but "it occurs in every country, including the U.S., and we have a responsibility to fight it just as others do."

18 Jun 2009

Research uncovers clues to the development of cancers in AIDS patients

In a series of recently-published articles, a research team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center has uncovered clues to the development of cancers in AIDS patients.

17 Jun 2009

Six 'major health agencies' form alliance to address chronic diseases in developing countries

A group of "major health agencies" from Australia, Canada, China, the U.K. and the U.S., which "together control 80 percent of the world's public health-research funding," have joined together to form the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) to combat chronic diseases in developing countries, Time reports (Walsh, Time, 6/16).

17 Jun 2009

VOA News examines international HIV/AIDS implementers meeting

VOA News examines the 2009 HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting in Windhoek, Namibia, which recently brought together 1,500 people from 55 countries to compare notes on HIV/AIDS programs around the world. The article features comments by Assistant U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Michele Moloney-Kitts who attended and shared some of her experiences from the meeting.

17 Jun 2009

Maternal, child health lag behind other Millennium Development Goals, study finds

Despite signs of progress in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, malaria and childhood diseases, efforts to reduce maternal and newborn health as part of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) lag behind, according to the 2009 Report of the Global Campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals released Monday, Inter Press Service reports.

17 Jun 2009

Opinion: U.S. should double global maternal, child health spending; Ban, Chan want 'global solidarity'; resources for diabetes, HIV/AIDS

Although "child survival is improving - albeit way too slowly - in most regions of the world," sub-Saharan Africa "continues to have the world's highest child-mortality rates," former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who serves as the chairman of Save the Children's Survive to 5 campaign, writes in a Washington Times opinion piece. Frist asserts, "We cannot continue to allow one of every seven African children to die when it is so readily within our reach to prevent those deaths."

17 Jun 2009

South African AIDS advocate who created radio diaries dies of drug-resistant tuberculosis

South African AIDS activist Thembi Ngubane recently died of drug-resistant tuberculosis at the age of 24, the AP/Washington Post reports (Nullis, AP/Washington Post, 6/14).

15 Jun 2009