Posts Tagged ‘Africa’

Spectrum Public Affairs
Spectrum

Week-Long Immunization Campaign Reaches Millions

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

FACT: An estimated 10 million cases and 164,000 deaths from measles occur each year.

FACT: Measles is a leading cause of vaccine-preventable deaths among young children.

FACT: For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die.

When I came across these chilling statics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I was surprised by the incidence rate and the severity of a disease that we in the U.S. rarely see. In developing countries, measles is a killer, so I was interested to learn about a program underway in Zimbabwe.

Image Courtesy of WHO

Image Courtesy of WHO

Last week, Dr. Henry Madzorera, Zimbabwe’s Honorable Minister of Health and Child Welfare, launched a week-long nationwide measles immunization campaign. The “Child Health Days” campaign targeted approximately 5 million children aged 6 months to 14 years with the measles vaccination, as well as vitamin A supplementation and all the other recommended antigens for children less than five years of age. This mass immunization campaign came in response to the current measles outbreak that has affected 55 out of 62 districts in Zimbabwe, killing approximately 384 children. (more…)

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Spectrum Public Affairs
Spectrum

Spectrum Infection: Everyday Barriers to Combating Malaria

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

As organizations around the world honor World Malaria Day today, I’d like to give you something else to think about.  And no, I’m not talking about the numbers and statistics that are vaunted so often as deterministic in the fight against infectious disease in the modern world.  I’m talking about a snapshot of the day-to-day experiences and efforts that prove most valuable to malaria prevention, and just how important it is to educate individual people about the disease.

It may be hard for many of us in the developed world to imagine that many people in still-developing countries live in constant fear of mosquitoes-the primary carriers of malaria-or that other groups, in cultural contexts different from our own, may attribute causes of malarial infections to religious beliefs, or may reject preventive technologies for similar reasons.  But barriers like these are all too common. World Malaria Day’s “Rollback Malaria,” a campaign funded by the Global Malaria Action Plan, aims to address these barriers directly by reaching out to individuals, providing access to preventive care, education and holistic support.

The Global Malaria Action Plan proposes to eliminate malaria once and for all by providing individuals with supplies and services such as insecticide-treated bednets, in-home spraying for mosquito, diagnostic tests (RDT’s) and ample doses of effective treatment. (more…)

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Infectious Disease
Infectious
Disease

Spectrum Infection Thursday: Shining a Spotlight on Malaria – Part II

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

I’ve been thinking for the last few days about a blog post that Brennan Gamwell, one of our interns, wrote last week on the Full Spectrum Blog. He wrote, “An estimated 250 million people are infected with malaria each year, and nearly one million die. The toll of the disease is most notable in Sub-Saharan Africa, where between two and four percent of individuals are infected, and where the mortality rate climbs even higher due to a substantial number of co-infections with HIV/AIDS.”

I wanted to expand on that because it contains an interesting fact, and leaves us with something to ponder. And that is, if we could improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB and malaria, some estimate that we could potentially reduce the number of people dying with AIDS by about half. In 2008, two million people died with AIDS. That means that about two million people who died in 2008 and 2009 would be alive today, including many children in the developing world. 

TB and malaria are both preventable and curable conditions, and we have made enormous strides in malaria prevention and treatment. But much more needs to be done. ONE, the global grassroots advocacy organization characterizes the challenge: ”While the world has battled malaria and TB for centuries, the immense human toll of AIDS in the late 1990s injected a new urgency into the need to enhance prevention and treatment efforts. Though the resources to fight these diseases have increased exponentially in recent years, funding remains too little and too slow in coming. Moreover, weak health systems have limited success in the fight against these diseases, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.” (more…)

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