Global Pulse Blog

On September 19-20 the High-Level Meeting at the UN General Assembly was held to discuss the possibility that non-communicable disorders (NCDs) could become a new global health priority. While many hoped that the conference would generate increased action to target chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, lung disease and heart disease as well as common underlying risk factors including tobacco, alcohol, poor diet, and inactivity, outcomes were mixed, influenced by strong economic and political factors. The meeting accomplished an elevation of attention for such diseases and laid forth a political declaration calling for national plans by 2013 to address such issues.

For more reflections on the event, tune into the Kaiser Family Foundation event - What Happened at the UN High-Level Meeting on Noncommunicable Diseases? Diverse Perspectives on the Meeting’s Outcomes and Next Steps tomorrow Thursday, September 29, 2011 from 12:30-2:30pm EST. You may RSVP at: http://smartglobalhealth.org/outcomesUNHLM

The Director of the Office of Global Health Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Nils Daulaire, will introduce the event with a keynote address on the major achievements and outcomes of the high-level meeting, areas of unresolved tension and disagreement, and critical follow on steps over the next two years. This will be followed by a panel of diverse commentators, including:

Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, South African Ambassador to the United States
Dr. Trevor Gunn, Senior Director of International Relations at Medtronic
Dr. Peter Lamptey, President of Public Health Programs, FHI 360

WHO Photo

Phots from the UN website

The WHO defines Non-Communicable Diseases as including:

• cardiovascular disease
• diabetes
• cancers and
• chronic lung diseases

According to the WHO, 36 million of the 57 million global deaths in 2008 were due to Non-Communicable Diseases. Of these deaths due to Non-Communicable Diseases in low- and middle income countries in 2008, 29% occurred before the age of 60. Further, 80% of premature heart disease, stroke and diabetes can be prevented.

With the upcoming UN High Level Meeting on NCDs, there is a current opportunity for a renewed focus and action against Non-Communicable Diseases. For more, check out this recent article from The Huffington Post.

This past week an excellent discussion of important global health challenges and developments, including those related to the Millennium Development Goals, took place at the TEDx Change Meeting, “The Future We Make”. TEDx is a new program enabling local communities and organizations to organize, design and host their own independent events to discuss innovative and important ideas.

Check out the webcast from the recent “The Future We Make” meeting on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website for an engaging and insightful discussion of issues related to the Millennium Development Goals such as child mortality rates, birth rates, literacy, HIV/AIDS and more on a global level.

TEDxChange Webcast

The World Bank and USAID are hosting a series of debates exploring emerging issues in global responses to HIV/AIDS and worldwide evolving approaches to development aid, .  The debates attempt to lay out the best evidence and information available to assist world governments, civil society organizations, and other development organizations in interpreting and responding to the shifting dynamics of the epidemic and our collective responses to the challenges it presents.

This global discussion series began this past May with a debate entitled “Test and Treat: Can We Treat Our Way Out of the HIV Epidemic?” which looked at testing and treating strategies with a focus on their role in Africa.

In June, a debate on “Behavior Change in HIV Prevention” took place looking at dynamics involved in behavior change approaches and their past ineffectiveness.

Check out these past debates and the ones still to come including theis week’s August 26th debate on “Discordant Couples and HIV Transmission” and continue to follow this debate series for future conversations.

A recently released working paper by Joel Cohen of Rockefeller University reviews important demographic trends expected to occur between 2010 and 2050. In this report, based on a lecture that was part of CGD’s Demographics and Development in the 21st Century initiative, the author explores the role of population in development and indicates some of their implications for economic and global development. Additionally, he suggests some possible policies to respond to these trends and their implications.

With the highest recorded global population growth rate and the most enormous demographic shift ever between the more developed and less developed regions, the century from 1950 to 2050 saw dramatic changes in global development. It is still unforeseen whether this pattern of human development will remain sustainable. This paper explores the ways in which policy could respond to unmet human needs, many of which have arisen from human choices rather than biophysical necessities.

Figure 1.

For the first time in the 15 year-long search for an HIV prevention method that women can control, a vaginal microbicide gel called Viread has been shown to decrease the risk of HIV infection by as much as 54%.  Even though the microbicide does not prevent transmission in every woman who uses it, this is the first promising tool that women are able to use without the cooperation of the male partner.  This is an important consideration most of the new HIV infections in women living in Africa were acquired through forced sex with infected men who refuse to wear condoms. Women and girls represent 60 percent of the 22 million people infected with HIV living in Africa.

Read the rest of this entry →

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Health Institute of Carlos Slim Foundation and the government of Spain have each contributed $50 million to fund the Salud Mesoamerica 2015 Initiative.  The Inter-American Development Bank will coordinate and commission independent evaluations as well as manage the combined contributions of the donors. The project’s primary aim is to reduce health inequities by fighting dengue fever and malaria and improving nutrition and maternal health in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama. The funding amount received by each country will be based on their poverty and health inequity status.  While each government will determine what programs to finance with the Initiative,  incentives will be placed for more equitable allocation of domestic funding and for policy that improves the health of the poor.   This project is expected to generate globally-relevant knowledge of how to scale up cost-effective health interventions in poor communities.

This is not the first time that Slim and Gates have partnered up.  They have been working together at Prodigy MSN, which has just celebrated its 10^th anniversary.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Program for Ethnicity, Culture, and Health Outcomes (ECHO) 16th Annual Summer Public Health Research Institute and Videoconference on Minority Health is scheduled for Tuesday, June 8, 1:30-4:00pm EDT.  The videoconference entitled “What Will Health Care Reform Mean for Minority Health Disparities?” will feature Mayra Alvarez, M.H.A., Legislative Assistant, U.S. Senator Richard J. Durbin (Illinois); Ralph Forquera, M.P.H., Executive Director, Seattle Indian Health Board and Clinical Assistant Professor with the School of Public Health, Department of Health Sciences at the University of Washington and Tony L. Whitehead, Ph.D., M.S.Hyg., Professor of Medical Anthropology and founding Director, Cultural Systems Analysis Group (CuSAG), Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland. This interactive session will be broadcast with a live audience in the Tate-Turner-Kuralt auditorium at the UNC School of Social Work and can be viewed over the Internet (webcast). Questions will be taken from broadcast participants by email and toll-free telephone.

Check out their website to register and access related materials.

Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced in Science that they created an experimental one-cell organism, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, that has the ability to reproduce.

An article written in the Wall Street Journal discusses the process used to create the cell:

To begin, they wrote out the creature’s entire genetic code as a digital computer file, documenting more than one million base pairs of DNA in a biochemical alphabet of adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. They edited that file, adding new code, and then sent that electronic data to a DNA sequencing company called Blue Heron Bio in Bothell, Wash., where it was transformed into hundreds of small pieces of chemical DNA, they reported.

To assemble the strips of DNA, the researchers said they took advantage of the natural capacities of yeast and other bacteria to meld genes and chromosomes in order to stitch those short sequences into ever-longer fragments until they had assembled the complete genome, as the entire set of an organism’s genetic instructions is called.

They transplanted that master set of genes into an emptied cell, where it converted the cell into a different species”

It may be possible for this new field, called synthetic biology, to one day provide alternatives to standard practices in many different industries. For example, the industrial life forms can be used to produce renewable fuels as well as vaccines.

This development also raises questions about concerning the ethics, law and public safety of artificial life. So I ask you all, what are some specific issues do you see needing to be addressed concerning synthetic life?

According to the World Health Organization, non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, account for 60% of deaths worldwide, claiming more than 35 million lives per year. In all regions of the world except Africa, mortality rates among men and women age 15 to 59 are higher for non-communicable diseases than for communicable diseases. Further, The World Economic Forum recently highlighted the economic costs of non-communicable diseases, naming this health threat as one of the three most likely and severe risks to the global economy alongside fiscal crises and asset bubbles, a form of inflation. Yet despite this significant impact, non-communicable diseases tend to be overlooked and underfunded. For example, a Center for Global Development report estimates that less than 1% of public and private health funding is allocated to the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries. In response to this need for a greater focus on non-communicable diseases globally, a recent United Nations resolution has been introduced calling for a summit on non-communicable diseases “in order to develop strategic responses to these diseases and their repercussions.”

The CEOs of the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association comment on this issue in a recent (5/13) CNN opinion article.