Twenty-five years ago WHO promised 'Health for All' through the Alma Ata declaration. However, the UN body abandoned the primary health care agenda in the later years. ‘Health systems, including primary health care’, a new WHO document, endorses the primary health care agenda. It is a welcome return to the basics. Grassroots movements like the People’s Health Movement (PHM) offer a cautious welcome, but say this is not enough. The UN health body’s new ‘road map’ that is being presented during the ongoing World Health Assembly endorses the importance of primary health care - something that grass roots movements like the PHM has been demanding for years.
Equity in Health
The wealth gap in health
Despite improvements in public health in the last half-century, large disparities in health exist between and within countries. Differences among socioeconomic groups can be pronounced, but are easily masked by national data that are used for monitoring and reporting progress. A recent analysis of data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) program provides clear evidence of the gap between the rich and poor in a range of health and population indicators— fertility, infant and child mortality, nutrition, and the use of family planning and other health services.
US rejects global strategy on reproductive health
While the United States “dissociated” itself from the consensus, the World Health Organisation's first strategy on reproductive health was adopted by the 57th World Health Assembly (WHA). Reproductive and sexual ill-health accounts for 20% of the global burden of ill-health for women and 14% for men. "Once again, the Bush Administration has shown their true colours by calling for a reproductive health policy that is more about ideology than reality,” said Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA). “We have a moral responsibility to ensure the health and well-being of women and men around the world."
Accelerating response to AIDS in Swaziland
Accelerating its response to the AIDS challenge, the Swazi government has announced preferred suppliers of antiretroviral drugs, while the national AIDS funding agency says it has applied for a US $48.5 million grant from the Global Fund. "The nearly $50 million we have requested is for a five-year period, with $7 million going toward our first-year projects, and the funds will enable us to significantly step up interventions, particularly our programmes directed toward youth, which are currently under-funded," National Emergency Response Committee on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA) director Dr Derek Von Wissell told PlusNews.
Challenges remain for MSF's South Africa ART programme
Three years after its inception, the first project to provide free AIDS drugs to South Africans put the 1,000th patient on antiretroviral treatment (ART). In May 2001 the Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Western Cape Health Department project started providing people at an advanced stage of AIDS with ART at three HIV/AIDS clinics in Khayelitsha township, outside Cape Town. Today the clinics offer about 2,000 consultations every month in the sprawling township. "We estimate that 5,000 people need treatment in Khayelitsha today," MSF campaign coordinator Marta Darder told PlusNews.
Experts meet to discuss malaria drugs
Public health experts met in New York recently to discuss expanding access in developing nations to artemisinin-combination therapy (ACT), which offers one of the fastest and most effective cures for malaria, USA Today reports. Malaria parasites have become resistant to older drugs, but funding for the newer ACT remains a problem. ACT costs about $1.50 for a three-day course, compared with 10 cents for older drugs such as chloroquine and Fansidar. Many African governments can devote just $5 per person annually to public health.
Funds Hamper Those Who Need Malaria Drugs
Medicines to fight the rising malaria epidemic don't reach millions who need them because the money and the international commitment to supply the drugs are lacking, experts said at a conference. Although malaria kills more than a million people a year - most of them African children - national and international policy makers show a "lack of urgency and political will" to use new treatments in the face of drug resistance, conference organizers said in a statement.
Landmark agreement reached in Aids fight
A historic agreement to adopt a unified global response to tackling HIV/AIDS was reached by the international community last month. Despite stepped up resources and the best intentions, the AIDS epidemic continues to be one of the greatest crises of the century, with 40 million people currently infected and over 25 million deaths to date. A major step was taken at a meeting in Washington D.C., co-chaired by UNAIDS, the UK and the US, where donors and developing countries agreed to three core principles to better coordinate the scale-up of national AIDS responses.
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More aid is needed to halve world poverty, says report
Poor people in developing countries have little hope of overcoming poverty and deprivation unless urgent action is taken, according to the 2004 Global Monitoring report. The report, whose purpose is to assess progress towards internationally agreed objectives for reducing poverty, was the focus of discussions by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during a meeting in Washington, April 24-25. The report claims that most developing countries will not meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include halving the proportion of the population in extreme poverty, ensuring primary education for all children, and decreasing child and maternal deaths by 2015. (This article requires registration.)
Nutrition for Improved development outcomes
United Nations System - Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) report
The 5th Report on the World Nutrition Situation outlines how reducing malnutrition is central to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), citing evidence that links nutrition to a range of other development outcomes. It highlights how a nutrition perspective can strengthen key development mechanisms and instruments such as poverty reduction strategies, health sector reform, improving governance and human rights, and trade liberalization. The Report makes specific suggestions about how nutrition can be engaged in a practical programme and policy context. This contribution is timely, as progress towards the 2015 MDG targets has been slower than anticipated.