10:50 am

Tue October 18, 2011

The Queen of England has bestowed an exalted honor on PATH’s top gizmo guy.

Michael Free, chief of technology for PATH, has been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his team’s many inventions and innovative approaches aimed at helping solve health problems in the developing world. It’s not quite as prestigious as a Knighthood but better than a sharp poke in the helmet.

Worldwide tuberculosis cases are declining annually for the first time, according to a report just out from the World Health Organization. Deaths from the disease have also sunk to the lowest level in a decade.

Humanosphere

12:21 pm

Tue October 11, 2011

A $258 million initiative sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aimed at preventing AIDS in India appears to have paid off overall, researchers say, resulting in more than 100,000 fewer new HIV infections over five years.

Many aren’t quite ready to judge this project, Avahan, a success, however.

Global Health

2:30 pm

Tue September 27, 2011

It kills anywhere from a quarter-million to half-a-million kids every year and is one of the world’s leading causes of child mortality.

But it wasn’t too long ago hardly anybody had even heard of it: Rotavirus. It is the killer bug that set off Bill Gates and gave direction to his philanthropy. Now his foundation is launching a major new global jab against rotavirus and another big killer of young children, pneumococcal disease.

Humanosphere

9:32 am

Wed September 21, 2011

Bill Clinton embraces Paul Farmer, top left, in 2009 as they watch women perform a traditional Haitian dance in Port-au-Prince. In New York on Tuesday, Farmer joined in the clarion call to expand the global health agenda to include all the big killers.

Humanosphere

9:52 am

Tue September 20, 2011

Chronic or non-communicable diseases (aka NCDs) are the world’s big killers, representing about 60 percent of all causes of death. Cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung disease (mostly from tobacco), diabetes and the like kill many more people — most of them in the developing world — than do infectious diseases like AIDS, TB or malaria.

However, developing health goals to combat NCSs often run up against powerful commercial interests in the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries.

Humanosphere

8:57 am

Tue September 20, 2011

People attend a 'Health Workers Count' event sponsored by Save the Children in New York's Times Square to raise awareness of the importance of midwives and local healthcare providers in developing countries ahead of the Unite Nations General Assembly.

As heads of state, officials and other bigwigs descend on New York City for the United Nations General Assembly meeting, key city streets are closed, the traffic replaced by police officers, patrol cars and vans, and New Yorkers are irritated.

It’s UN Week and most of the buzz is about the Palestinian push for UN recognition as an independent state. President Obama is already in town, scheduled to speak at the UN on Wednesday.

But I’m not here for all that. I just came to see the UN deal with a proposal to re-set the global health agenda — something that, arguably, could do a lot more to increase global stability, our national security and worldwide economic growth than all this other blather. Arguably.

Global Health

6:00 pm

Sun September 18, 2011

Some of the leading disease experts from Seattle are visiting the United Nations this week. They’re at a "High-Level" meeting to discuss whether poor countries should start worrying about cancer and diabetes – as much as malaria or AIDS.

That's a controversial idea, says KPLU’s Humanosphere blogger Tom Paulson. He's in New York to cover the meeting. Before he left he explained the controversy to KPLU’s Keith Seinfeld.

Global Health

11:28 am

Fri September 16, 2011

The number of young women with breast cancer has more than doubled worldwide since 1980, say researchers at Seattle’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Most of this, say the University of Washington global health number crunchers, is in the developing world where women lack access to screening, prevention and treatment programs that have reduced the overall risk of breast cancer for women in the rich world.

Global Health

12:05 pm

Wed September 14, 2011

The Washington Global Health Alliance and the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development has published a new report describing our region’s growing global health industry (even though they shy away from calling it that, preferring words like “sector” and such).

It’s a fascinating and informative report, showing the growth and increasing economic presence of organizations working on global health in the region.