China to give birth in hospital has cut newborn deaths by half

Researchers from Beijing and London conducted a study of 1.5 million births for the past 12 years between 1996 and 2008. They found that the neonatal mortality rate was cut by half when the babies were born in hospitals. However, babies born in rural areas were four times more likely to die even if they were born in hospitals because of the poor hospital conditions. Some people have suggested more community-based interventions to alleviate the problem of neonatal problems in the poor regions. This problem demonstrates the situation for many poor communities. The problem is necessarily constructing more hospitals in poor regions; it is making quality care available to them. Perhaps showing the mothers how to properly take care of themselves during their pregnancy can help dramatically. If the effort is in reducing these neonatal deaths, education must be the primary tool to educate these mothers and other community members to take care of the mother during her nine months and to safely deliver the baby. The Coventry University published a presentation titled "Improving Community Midwifery Practice To Reduce Infant Mortality In Coventry 2006-2008.” This study showed that midwives help in reducing infant mortality rates because it is a community effort. The midwife not only shows the mother to take care of herself, but delivers the baby and continues to support the mother a short period after to show her how to take care of her newborn. This relatively inexpensive effort can revolutionize and empower women to help themselves and each other. It begins with education and will end with it as well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14930747

China Get Ahead in the Business of Fresh Water

This article is talk about China has been spending a lot of time and government money on creating sources of clean water.  Water was a necessary demand supply for people to stay alive. In China, the Beijing Power and Desalination Plant that has recently been built desalinate sea water into 180 million gallons of drinkable water each day.  While this process does cost quite a bit of government money, the Chinese government sees it as a necessity to keep its population healthy and productive economically.  The in fact plan on building 6 more in different locations and possibly using grants and such to encourage private sector to get in on the action.  Outside of desalinating water, they also have put money into processes that allow for recycling water.  All of this is due to some severe water shortages in northern China and the government expecting the population to grow rapidly in the coming years.  The government also hopes to make these processes more efficient to allow for even more clean water production.  The problem lies in that this industry may be used as an export to other countries because of greedy businessmen and government agents.  If put to good use, this can solve many problems of water shortages in the developing world, but this is asking a lot since these projects cost a lot of money.  Most developing countries do not have the technology for projects like this and therefore would need foreign aid or an NGO to assist them.  If put to the correct use, China can use these plants to meet their populations water need even in poor areas that are currently undergoing shortages.  Without water, many of these people stand no chance in becoming healthy and leading successful lives. Again, China has the right idea with the water plants.   

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/world/asia/china-takes-loss-to-get-ahead-in-desalination-industry.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=world 

Low-cost innovations that can save thousands of lives

The article talks about the World Health Organization (WHO) have been sending safe birth kits to developing nations. These kits are equipped with a razor blade to cut the umbilical cord, a plastic sheet, a blanket, soap, gloves and a step by step pictorial pamphlet of how to deliver a baby. This kit makes it easy enough for anyone to deliver a baby safely and correctly. Since the dispersal of the kits there has been a clear impact on the rate of infant mortality rates, they have gone down. So far the kits have not been dispersed in mass quantities and thus has not had a big effect on the rate of infant mortality, once these kits are circulated to all developing nations it will be key in protecting new born babies. So far these kits have been given out in India, Yemen and some African countries; the only problem with these kits is that they are given out for free and thus funding is a problem. This program is a wonderful initiative but funding is almost always a problem when it comes to giving out items. The UN could help but not effectively since they are stretched for funds themselves. The best way to keep this program running is to find a wealthy private sector or a NGO. Besides the funding issue, the kits seem to be live saving. They have the bare essentials to deliver a baby and make sure that the baby can survive the first minutes of life. More often than not a pregnant woman is unable to go to a clinic or hospital to deliver her child and usually she does not have the resources to deliver the baby either, this result in the high mortality rate. These kits make it possible for a woman to deliver her baby in her own home in a safer fashion than before. Again, these kits seem like a great idea. With financial help, they can make a great impact on the infant mortality rate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27birth.html?_r=2

Baby deaths in China fall with improved healthcare

From the article of Baby deaths in China seen a sharp decline in recent years of infant mortality. This cause due to the fact that in recent years the Chinese government has pushed for women to give birth in hospitals as opposed to at home. Though this is an improvement in the aggregate data, the decompressed data show is showing a different story. Though the overall infant mortality rate has dropped, the mortality rate is still alarmingly high for infant girls. These steps that the Chinese government has made are indeed progress, but there are still far larger issues at hand that the Chinese government is not addressing. It is true that in China the boys’ infant mortality has seen a sharp decline in recent years. However, there is some downside of it, such as mortality rate between infant boys and girls are different. This issue might have occurred because China’s male favoritism still exist. In order to truly improve China’s infamously high mortality rate, it is necessary that the issue of male favoritism in Chinese society be addressed, because the rate at which infant girls are dying in China, despite this recent improvement is still alarming. China’s population is already extremely lacking in women, and unless the government takes some major steps to try and turn this trend around, they will have a serious issue on their hands in the next twenty years or so. Regardless, to move forward, education is very important, educating women as much as men, and educating men on the importance of women.

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/china-newborn-baby-deaths-fall-with-improved-healthcare/

Gene Therapy May Thwart HIV

Today’s article is about HIV. Timothy Brown, the first man to be cured of HIV, has driven scientists to find an effective way to end HIV. He was cured when he was diagnosed with HIV and received a bone marrow transplant from a donor who had defective CCR5 receptors on his T-cells, the receptors that HIV uses to infiltrate cells. Soon after, the HIV in his body started to decline. Scientists have tried to apply the same concept in very small clinical trials with minor success, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Further research need to be done.While this is a small success in the battle against HIV, it also brings to attention a very large issue in healthcare: money. Even if this gene therapy were to be at a stage where it could be used outside of clinical trials, it's still technologically advanced and expensive. It is not efficiency use in developing countries. Especially countries in Africa. HIV has hit Africa the hardest, but Africa also has the poorest countries in the world. There is no way that this gene therapy could be supplied to the people who need it most. As we have discussed, the poor need this technology significantly more than the rich, yet they suffer even more without it. While the relatively well off at least have anti-retroviral medication to slow down the effects, the poor have nothing to use. When we applaud such discoveries, research, and advancements, we also have to keep in mind the people we end up helping, and those who we still are not bringing help to. We don't realize that although there is a big accomplishment here, many, many more are still suffering.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/09/gene-therapy-may-thwart-hiv.html

Vaccines against major childhood diseases to reach 37 more countries

The goal of the GAVI alliance is essentially to meet the fourth Millennium Development Goal, which is to “reduce child mortality.”  The alliance recently announced that they will be funding a large project to vaccinate forty of the world’s poorest countries from pneumococcal and rotavirus diseases, including diarrhea, pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis.  Since the two largest killers of children worldwide are pneumonia and diarrhea, this is significant progress towards fourth MDG will be met since the alliance will have vaccinated 90 million people from pneumococcal diseases and 40 million from the rotavirus by 2015.  While the fourth MDG is certainly a vital one to improving international health, should the GAVI alliance direct their money toward a goal that has more beneficial outcomes?  For example, educating people in low-income countries allows them to develop skills that helps raise individuals as well as the country itself, out of extreme poverty.  Accompanied with education is the education and therefore empowerment of women as (and economic) contributors to society.  This then satisfies not only the second MDG to “achieve universal primary education”, but the first and third MDGs to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” and “promote gender equality and empower women.”  So although vaccinating poor children is an exceptional goal, the GAVI alliance may wish to consider navigating such a large influx of donations and funds towards an implement that could accomplish several MDGs.  This implement could be perhaps the organization of schools throughout low-income African countries.  Advocating certain ideas such as women’s rights, paths to economic success, methods of preventing malnutrition and diseases such as H.I.V. address several MDGs.  Through education, we can teach poor countries how to raise themselves out of poverty and prevent hunger, disease, and high rates of mortality.

http://www.gavialliance.org/library/news/press-releases/2011/vaccines-against-major-childhood-diseases-to-reach-37-more-countries/

Pediatric HIV — A Neglected Disease?

The New England Journal of Medicine discusses children with HIV are due to their mothers passing to them during pregnancy. Most happen in low-income countries. The children themselves cannot do anything about it and are "voiceless." So children, who got HIV when they were born, mostly depend on the mother’s lifestyle.  However, the authors mention that there needs to be a batch of first-line drugs available for these children with HIV, and that will solve most of the problem. In all reality, the medication would save some lives of children yes, but it would not solve the problem in a long term period. Because this complicated situation will not be solved unless start a program to educate women. This could involve changing entire cultures depending on which country is being regarded. Women need to be educated, and told how they can prevent passing HIV to their infants. Also, it is just as important to inform the men as well because they need to understand how important this really is too. Another issue is access to these drugs and prenatal care for these mothers and infants. The family, no matter how educated, needs access to those before they can even take action to prevention. This all takes money, and that just is not possible for these places that need it the most. Many low income families have financial problem. Overall new drugs would help out the HIV infected children, but they are virtually useless if there is no access to healthcare services, money, or education of the HIV situation. This does not mean that new drugs should not be created and the effort should just stop, but before we put all of our efforts into these drugs, the real issues need to be addressed.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp1107275