According to the World Health Organisation malnutrition is associated with about 60 percent of deaths in children under five years old in the developing world. The WHO has developed guidelines to improve the quality of hospital care for malnourished children in order to reduce deaths. The guidelines suggest ten steps for routine management of severe malnourishment. These will require most hospitals to make substantial changes.
Equity in Health
Treating severe malnutrition: implementing clinical guidelines in South African hospitals
UN summit gridlocks
The 2005 World Summit, a “high-level plenary meeting of the 60th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations”, was the grand title of a dreary and lacklustre meeting held in New York on Sept 14–16, reports the 24 September issue of The Lancet. The summit has been widely derided, mainly for its watered-down outcome document, which was painfully agreed on the eve of the summit. For those most concerned about the fate of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with their aim to halve world poverty by 2015, there were one or two potentially bright spots. UN delegates committed an additional US$50 billion to the MDGs over the next 5 years, with every developing country agreeing to create a national plan by the end of 2006 for achieving the MDGs.
An overview of the 2005 MDG summit
The World Summit is expected to bring together more than 170 Heads of State and Government: the largest gathering of world leaders in history. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take bold decisions in the areas of development, security, human rights and reform of the United Nations. Proposals in the area of development call for breakthroughs in debt relief and trade liberalization, and increases in aid to revitalize infrastructure and improve health and education services, in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015 (www.un.org/millenniumgoals ).
Anti-AIDS medication still too expensive, says MSF report
As the prices of first-line anti-AIDS medication continue to fall, newer antiretrovirals (ARVs) can cost up to 12 times more in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a report by Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF). Paediatric formulations were also more expensive than adult ARV drugs: treating a child for one year could be as much as US $816, while the same triple-drug regimen for adults was only $182.
Health and the MDGs
World Health Organisation
The report, Health and the Millennium Development Goals, presents data on progress on the health goals and targets and looks beyond the numbers to analyse why improvements in health have been slow and to suggest what must be done to change this. The report points to weak and inequitable health systems as a key obstacle, including particularly a crisis in health personnel and the urgent need for sustainable health financing.
Meeting of WHO regional committee adopts six resolutions
The fifty-fifth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa ended August 26 in Maputo, Mozambique, with the adoption of six resolutions, including one declaring tuberculosis (TB) a “regional emergency” and the other, proclaiming 2006 as the “Year for Acceleration of HIV Prevention.” The resolution declaring TB a regional emergency called on Member States to undertake “urgent, extraordinary and intensified actions” to bring the epidemic under control.
Mozambique/South Africa sign health deal
Mozambique and South Africa are to sign a health cooperation agreement, allowing the exchange of knowledge on diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Mozambican Health Minister Ivo Garrido and his South African counterpart, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, met in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, to finalise details of the agreement.
New Bangkok charter for health promotion adopted
A new Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion has been adopted by participants at the 6th Global Conference on Health Promotion, co-hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand. It identifies major challenges, actions and commitments needed to address the determinants of health in a globalized world by engaging the many actors and stakeholders critical to achieving health for all. The Charter highlights the changing context of global health and the challenges faced in achieving its aims, including the growing double burden of communicable and chronic diseases which include heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.
SADC Plans Integrated Strategy Against Malaria
The member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are to adopt an integrated strategy to fight against malaria. For this the organization counts on the financial support of 30 million US dollars, granted by the African Development Bank (ADB), which will also be used in cross-border interventions for other communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.
AIDS: Africa's doctors
International Herald Tribune
"Here in my country, ten people die of AIDS every hour. About one million people are infected with HIV out of a population of some 12 million. Our government is working hard to try to slow down this epidemic: We have an extensive voluntary counseling and testing program and hope to treat as many as 80,000 people with antiretroviral drugs by the end of the year. Unfortunately, there is only so much we can do. One of our biggest obstacles, which many nations on our continent share, is a shortage of health care workers. Simply put, Africa cannot fight poverty and disease without more doctors and nurses."