Dear Colleagues,
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This week’s global health headlines definitely include the recent global fund board’s decisions. Among them the decision to include proposals that would incorporate Mother Neonatal and Child Health (MNCH) interventions provided they fall within the window of the three main diseases. Another important decision to us is the possibility to submit funding requests on “Health System Strengthening” alone.
EU India talks on trade agreement did not end up successfully. I wonder if this time also Louis Michel will say that Indians like Africans do not understand the benefits of free trade rules that the EU wants to impose in order to help them develop faster. Or do they? We find it rather positive that such negotiations are harder to conclude than the EU would have expected. Does this illustrate some kind of empowerment of Global South politicians and diplomats? The unsuccessful trade agreement meeting between EU and India at least came to one important decision: Genuine generic drugs en route to developing countries will not be confiscated anymore in European harbours.
And finally we would like to highlight the debate in the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
Enjoy your reading.
Global Fund
1. Lusaka Times – Zambia : Global Fund gives US$1.1 million to ZNAN
Dimboni Mafweto;http://www.lusakatimes.com/2010/12/12/global-funds-us11-million-znan/
It seems that despite the disruption of the support to programmes due to alleged corruption, the GFATM tries to remain accountable towards the patients it serves by nevertheless providing funding to ensure the provision of live saving drugs. In the same time the GF appealed to international donors to join them in an effort to fight medicine theft.
2. AIDSPAN – Main Decisions Made at the Board Meeting
David Garmaise; http://www.aidspan.org/index.php?issue=136&article=1
The board of the Global Fund is just over and AIDSPAN is providing the international health community with a summarized report of the decisions and discussions that took place in
3. AIDSPAN – Report from Sofia – Good News, Bad News
Bernard Rivers; http://www.aidspan.org/index.php?issue=136&article=3
See comment supra.
Global Health
4. KFF – EU, India Talks End With Resolution On Drug Seizures, Little Progress On Free Trade Agreement
http://globalhealth.kff.org/Daily-Reports/2010/December/13/GH-121310-EU-India-Trade.aspx
The talks between EU and
5. Guardian – World Bank announces increase in donor funding
Larry Elliott; http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/dec/16/world-bank-donor-ida-money
While GFATM and especially GAVI did not realize their wishes in terms of replenishment, it seems that the IDA World Bank has been more successful last week. Donor countries voting with their dollars? Note the entrance of middle income countries at the table of donor countries. Something the GFATM did not really succeed at yet.
6. MMI network- December Newsletter
http://www.medicusmundi.org/en/mmi-network/documents/newsletter/201012
In its December newsletter, Medicus Mundi International is discussing non communicable diseases and the genuine growing interest to increase the attention to these often neglected diseases in low and middle income countries’ health systems. They highlight some upcoming events and resource on that topic.
Health Financing
7. KFF – GAVI Alliance Launches Pneumonia Vaccine Project In Nicaragua
http://globalhealth.kff.org/Daily-Reports/2010/December/13/GH-121310-GAVI-Nicaragua.aspx
The first implementation of the pneumococcal vaccination programme funded under the GAVI run Advanced Market Commitment has now been launched in
Malaria
8. KFF – WHO Report Shows Significant Progress In Global Malaria Fight, Highlights Need for Continued Funding
http://globalhealth.kff.org/Daily-Reports/2010/December/15/GH-121410-Malaria-Report.aspx
The annual Malaria report is out. No surprise, the need for continued funding is put forward. A leitmotiv in global health reports nowadays.
9. Lancet – Artemisinin resistance—the clock is ticking
Nicholas J White; http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961963-0/fulltext
White, who is the co-chair of the WHO GMP malaria prevention and treatment technical expert group, calls for a more aggressive response to the emergence of artemisinine resistance at the Thai Cambodian border.
Health Systems
10. Lancet (letter) – A plea for investment in district hospitals
Caris Grimes, Christopher Lavy; http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2962293-3/fulltext
Replying to the report by The Lancet Commission on The Millennium Development Goals, Grimes and Lavy make a plea for investing in district hospitals as a good way to reach MDGs 4, 5 and 6 in an integrated manner. The essay by Ellen M Einterz adds another dimension by describing the life in a remote rural district hospital in Northern Cameroon before concluding that health systems should build on the integrated health district model and that health aid programmes should be designed bottom up, instead of being guided from
On the other extremity of the health systems strengthening’s possible approaches UNFPA is building a partnership with the Millenium village to add the life savings reproductive health services to the package of quick wins provided to 500 000 Africans living in millennium villages in order to get them to the MDG for “only” 110 USD per person a year.
Ellen Einterz ’s essay is one of the three essay’s selected for the Wakley prize. The winning essay depicts the loneliness of elder people in UK while another one reports from a night in a Teheran hospital emergency ward. Those three essays are a very powerful description of the reality faced by hospital practitioners in each of their settings. Looked at from some distance, they provide an interesting contrast between diverging but dare realities faced in London, Teheran or Northern Cameroun hospitals.
11. CGD – Who lives? Who decides? Examining the “How” of Health Care Rationing
Amanda Glassman; http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2010/12/who-lives-who-decides-examining-the-“how”-of-health-care-rationing.php
Amanda Glassman puts the PRI’s “The World” report on rationing that will be aired in the
Emerging Voices
12. SCIDEVnet – African academics ‘slow to use online journals’
Mercy Adhiambo; http://scidev.net/en/news/african-academics-slow-to-use-online-journals-.html
Adhiambo reports on a survey in East and