UN protects millions of children in DR Congo with anti-measles vaccination

Some 3.1 million children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been vaccinated against measles in a United Nations-coordinated campaign to combat the disease outbreak which has claimed the lives of 1,145 children since the start of this year.

The measles epidemic affected a total of 115,600 children between January and June, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a press release issued yesterday, adding that the vaccination campaign was funded with $1.9 million.

The campaign, which kicked off on 10 May, was coordinated by the UN World Health Organization (WHO) in the provinces of Katanga, Kasai Occidental, Bas-Congo, Equateur and Orientale.  “The funding – equivalent to 61 cents per child – helped protect the health of millions of children,” said Fidèle Sarassoro, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for DRC.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease, which mostly affects children. It is transmitted through droplets from the nose, mouth or throat of infected persons. Initial symptoms, which usually appear between eight to 12 days after infection, include high fever, a running nose, bloodshot eyes, and tiny white spots on the inside of the mouth. A rash then develops, starting on the face and upper neck and gradually spreading to the rest of the body.

In malnourished children and people with reduced immunity, the disease can cause serious complications, including blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhoea, ear infection, pneumonia and even death.

Source – UN Daily News

WIPO to support innovation in Nigeria

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has announced plans to strengthen Nigeria’s technology innovation centres with particular reference to the Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Offices (IPTTOs) established by the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) in tertiary institutions and research centres across the country.

WIPO will help strengthen existing national capacities through the creation of Technology Innovation Support Centres (TISC) – digital libraries comprising 70,000 specialized patents on-line.

These centres will be established in the universities not only to promote innovations but also to ensure that learning was linked to practical life.

According to Dr. Ituku Elangi Botoy, Project coordinator of the Innovation and Technology Support Section of WIPO, no country has developed without prioritizing science and technology and that Nigeria would not be an exception.

 

Polio vaccination campaign aims to reach 14m children

With a polio outbreak spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), UN Daily News reports that the Executive Director of UNICEF will visit the country to help support a mass campaign to vaccinate over 14 million children.

The DRC has witnessed a sharp resurgence of polio as conditions in the country continue to complicate vaccination efforts, potentially undermining global eradication of the crippling disease. From January 2010 to February 2011, there were 112 new cases. In 2009, only three cases were detected.

“UNICEF will do everything we can to support the DRC’s collective effort to defeat this evil virus once and for all,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director, Anthony Lake. “Eradicating polio in DRC and everywhere requires an absolute commitment by government and its partners to vaccinate every child.”

In response to the outbreak, preparations are underway to go door to door to vaccinate more than 14 million children by the end of May. The aim is to make sure that no child is left unprotected.

 

New malaria vaccine shows long-lasting protection

(From Reuters) An experimental malaria vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline provides African children with long-lasting protection, though its effectiveness declines slightly over time, according to recently published trial data.  Scientists conducting the mid-stage trial at the Kenya Medical Research Institute said results showing the shot offered 46 percent protection for 15 months meant it had “promise as a potential public health intervention against childhood malaria in malaria endemic countries.”

Malaria is an infectious disease spread by mosquitoes that threatens up to half the world’s population. Most of its victims are children under five in poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Late-stage trials of the GSK vaccine, known as RTS,S or Mosquirix, in 16,000 children in seven countries across Africa are ongoing, with immunizations due to end next month.  If data show the vaccine was effective, it could be licensed and rolled out as soon as 2015.

GSK chief executive Andrew Witty has said that if RTS,S proved effective in final-stage trials it would be sold at a price that those who need it most can afford. The company has said it was planning for a profit margin of 5 percent over the cost of making the vaccine, and that would be reinvested in new vaccines for malaria and other neglected diseases.

mPedigree awarded $200,000 in Global Security Challenge

mPedigree was recently announced as the Best Security Start-up in 2010 by the Global Security Challenge.  mPedigree from Ghana is the first system in the world which enables consumers and patients to verify the authenticity of their medicines by sending a free text message of the unique, product-embossed codes.

Across the developing world, especially in West Africa, the issue of fake and counterfeit medication has become a huge problem – the WHO estimates that in many emerging markets, up to 30% of drugs are compromised. The growing sophistication of cheap graphic software and hardware kit means that packaging, including traditional security features such as holograms, can be perfectly replicated by even smalltime counterfeit operators making the need for a highly robust but economically feasible system urgent.

While being just as robust as emerging methods such as EMID and RFID, and far more secure than holograms, the mPedigree approach is widely accessible through basic text messaging, requires no specialist equipment or training, is free to access for consumers, and a fraction of the price of holograms, and RFID and EMID techniques.

mPedigree has been awarded $200,000 sponsored by the Technical Support Working Group of the US Department of Defense and mentorship from Advent Venture Partners.

Polio outbreak in Congo kills nearly 100

Polio has killed nearly 100 people, mainly young adults, in the Republic of Congo and paralyzed more than twice as many in the past six weeks, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and a report from Reuters.

The crippling viral disease normally strikes children under five years of age, making the acute, fast-spreading outbreak unusual, the U.N. agency said.

“Most of the cases have involved young adults aged between 15 and 29. This illustrates that populations are at risk because they have not been exposed to a full immunization,” it said.

184 cases of acute flaccid paralysis and 85 deaths have been reported from the site of the acute poliomyelitis outbreak centred in Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo.  The mortality rate is higher than normal for the disease, which attacks the nervous system.

The virus comes from a strain from India, one of four remaining endemic countries — where the virus survives and its spread has never been interrupted — along with Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.

A first wave of mass polio vaccination campaigns, targeting 3 million people of all ages, is set to begin on Friday in Congo and parts of Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been working together since 1988 to eradicate polio, which infected at least 350,000 people in 125 endemic countries each year at the time.

Polio outbreak in Angola – UN launches mass immunization campaign

A polio immunization campaign targeting 5.6 million children was launched in Angola yesterday as the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the southern African country was quickly becoming the greatest threat to continent-wide eradication efforts. (UN News)

Only three African countries have recorded cases of the highly infectious and potentially lethal disease in the past four months – Nigeria, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the latter infected from across the Angolan boarder, WHO spokesman Rod Curtis told reporters in Geneva.  Areas in Angola that have previously been polio-free have been re-infected this year from an expanding outbreak, he said.

Over the next three days and again at the end of the month, WHO, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Rotary International will be supporting tens of thousands of volunteers, health workers, parents, communities and traditional leaders as they go from house to house and village to village to ensure that every child under the age of 5 is reached with an oral polio vaccine.

WHO believes the outbreak can be rapidly stopped, even by the end of the year, if these gaps are closed.

Outside Africa, polio has been eradicated in most parts of the world, but remains endemic in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Last month WHO said great strides had been made towards eliminating polio in Nigeria, which has seen a 99 per cent drop in cases this year compared to 2009.

New study highlights the importance of partnerships in improving public health.

The Cameron Institute – a Canadian not-for-profit public policy think-tank – released a report highlighting the importance of public-private partnerships and of intellectual property protections to improving global health.  The evidence in this report (Pharmaceutical Access in Least Developed Countries: on-the-ground barriers and industry successes) strongly supports North-South, public-private partnerships as the preferred means by which to improve access to care and public health outcomes in least-developed countries.

Sustainable development is the way of the future for both North and South.  In order for there to be sustainable healthcare enterprise and optimal health outcomes in the least-developed countries, there must also be the necessary infrastructure, health human resources, political stability, and professional administrative legal structures.

– Dr. D. Wayne Taylor Ph.D., F.CIM, Executive Director of The Cameron Institute

The 200-page report shows that the research-based pharmaceutical industry has sponsored or participated in over 150 public-private partnerships that have successfully improved access to drugs – as well as health outcomes – for the 50 least developed countries.

Click here to download the full report.

Eradicating malaria: UN sets goal for 2015

African leaders and global health experts rallied at the United Nations today to boost access to life-saving bednets and medicines as part of the fight against malaria, aiming to reach the goal of near-zero deaths by 2015.

“Partnership is absolutely essential to making progress against malaria, and Africa’s heads of State are fully committed to achieving victory against malaria in the next decade,” stated Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda of Tanzania, speaking on behalf of President Jakaya Kikwete – the current chair of ALMA. “We owe our children nothing less.”

A UN Headquarters event on “Bridging the Malaria Gap” brought together members of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) – a coalition of 35 heads of State committed to working together to end malaria in Africa, where the disease claims more than 850,000 lives each year – as well as prominent figures in the fields of global health and development.

The Secretary-General has set the goal of providing life-saving malaria control interventions to the 700 million people at risk of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2010.  African leaders announced several efforts to help achieve this goal, including eliminating taxes and tariffs on bednets, medicines and other life-saving products; banning artemisinin monotherapies that increase disease resistance; and enhancing Africa’s capacity to produce safe and effective anti-malaria products.

Providing bednets to everyone living in malaria-endemic countries by the end of this year has been deemed the most effective way to reach the goal of zero or near-zero deaths by 2015 and ending a scourge that results in an estimated 1 million deaths worldwide every year.

Sub-Saharan countries are leading the way in HIV prevention

Between 2001 and 2009, 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have seen a decline of more than 25% in new HIV infections.  According to new UNAIDS data, the number of new HIV infections is steadily falling or stabilising in most parts of the world.

The data shows that countries with the largest epidemics in Africa—Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe—are leading the drop in new HIV infections.

There are now 5.2 million people on HIV treatment, which is a 12-fold increase in six years. AIDS deaths have dropped significantly since the widespread availability of treatment—there were 200,000 fewer deaths in 2008 than in 2004. Young people are leading the prevention revolution by choosing to have sex later, having fewer multiple partners and using condoms, resulting in significantly fewer new HIV infections in many countries highly affected by AIDS.

Among adults, male condom use has doubled in the past five years. Tradition is giving space to pragmatism, as communities embrace male circumcision. Research has shown that male circumcision has the potential to reduce HIV infection among men by nearly 60%. New HIV prevention research reported efficacy in a microbicide controlled and initiated by women.