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thewrosper · 4 years

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The world came together for a virtual vaccine summit. The U.S. was conspicuously absent.

By William Booth, Carolyn Y. Johnson and Carol Morello LONDON — World leaders came together in a virtual summit Monday to pledge billions of dollars to quickly develop vaccines and drugs to fight the coronavirus. Missing from the roster was the Trump administration, which declined to participate but highlighted from Washington what one official called its “whole-of-America” efforts in the United States and its generosity to global health efforts. The online conference, led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and a half-dozen countries, was set to raise $8.2 billion from governments, philanthropies and the private sector to fund research and mass-produce drugs, vaccines and testing kits to combat the virus, which has killed more than 250,000 people worldwide. With the money came soaring rhetoric about international solidarity and a good bit of boasting about each country’s efforts and achievements, live and prerecorded, by Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Boris Johnson, Japan’s Shinzo Abe — alongside Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. With virus under control, Australia and New Zealand may form a travel ‘bubble’ “The more we pull together and share our expertise, the faster our scientists will succeed,” said Johnson, who was so stricken by the virus that he thought he might never leave the intensive care unit alive last month. “The race to discover the vaccine to defeat this virus is not a competition between countries but the most urgent shared endeavor of our lifetimes.” A senior Trump administration official said Monday the United States “welcomes” the efforts of the conference participants. He did not explain why the United States did not join them. “Many of the organizations and programs this pledging conference seeks to support already receive very significant funding and support from the U.S. government and private sector,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under White House rules for briefing reporters. Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access. Public health officials and researchers expressed surprise. “It’s the first time that I can think of where you have had a major international pledging conference for a global crisis of this kind of importance, and the U.S. is just absent,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who worked on the Ebola response in the Obama administration. Italy loosens Europe’s longest coronavirus lockdown Given that no one knows which vaccines will succeed, he said, it’s crucial to back multiple efforts working in parallel. “Against that kind of uncertainty we should be trying to position ourselves to be supporting — and potentially benefiting from — all of them,” said Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. “And instead we seem to be just focused on trying to win the race, in the hopes we happen to get one of the successful ones.” Conference participants expressed a need for unity. “We can’t just have the wealthiest countries have a vaccine and not share it with the world,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. “Let us in the international community unite to overcome this crisis,” Abe said. Russia and India also did not participate. Chinese premier Li Keqiang was replaced at the last minute by Zhang Ming, Beijing’s ambassador to the European Union. The U.S. official said the United States “is the single largest health and humanitarian donor in world. And the American people have continued that legacy of generosity in the global fight against covid-19.” “And we would welcome additional high-quality, transparent contributions from others,” he said. Asked three more times to explain why the United States did not attend, the official said he already had given an answer. No touching, sharing or borrowing pencils: Israeli students go back to school The U.S. government has provided $775 million in emergency health, humanitarian, economic and development aid for governments, international organizations and charities fighting the pandemic. The official said the United States is in the process of giving about twice that amount in additional funding. There was one major American player at the virtual summit: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which promised to spend $125 million in the fight. “This virus doesn’t care what nationality you are,” Melinda Gates told the gathering. As long as the virus is somewhere, she said, it’s everywhere. The novel coronavirus is a master of disguise: Here's how it works The novel coronavirus uses a number of tools to infect our cells and replicate. What we've learned from SARS and MERS can help fight covid-19. (Video: Brian Monroe/Photo: Brian Monroe/The Washington Post) Scientists are working around-the-clock to find a cure or treatment for the coronavirus. The World Health Organization says eight vaccines have entered human trials and another 94 are in development. But finding an effective vaccine is only part of the challenge. When it’s discovered, infectious disease experts are predicting a scramble for limited doses, because there won’t be enough to vaccinate everyone on Day One. And deploying it could be difficult, particularly in countries that lack robust medical infrastructure. Those that have begun human trials include a research project at Oxford University in England, which hopes to have its vaccine ready in the fall. The university started human trials on April 23. “In normal times,” British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said, “reaching this stage would take years.” Russia has a huge fund for times of crisis. But Putin is hesitating on a sweeping rescue plan. Other scientists are sprinting to create antiviral drugs or repurposing existing drugs such as remdesivir, which U.S. infectious diseases chief Anthony S. Fauci said he expected would be the new “standard of care.” Other approaches now in trial include treatments such as convalescent plasma, which involves taking blood plasma from people who have recovered from covid-19 to patients who are fighting the virus, in the hope that the antibody-rich fluid will give the infected a helping hand. Conference participants expressed hope that by working together, the world will find solutions more quickly — and they can then be dispersed to all countries, not only the wealthy, or those that developed vaccines first. Trump halts funding to WHO for a 'review' of its coronavirus response President Trump accused the World Health Organization on April 14 of "covering up the spread of the coronavirus." Many of the leaders stressed their support for the WHO. President Trump announced last month he was cutting off U.S. funding for the WHO because he said it had sided too closely with China, where the coronavirus arose. Trump says Chinese leaders underplayed the threat and hid crucial facts. Public health analysts have shared some of those criticisms but have also criticized Trump for cutting off funding. Sketches from a crisis: How a handful of small businesses are managing to survive Peter Jay Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said the United States has always been the primary funder of new products for global health. The country invested $1.8 billion in neglected diseases in 2018, according to Policy Cures Research, more than two-thirds of the worldwide total. Hotez said the United States shoulders the burden of investing in global health technologies, while countries such as China do not step up. “More than one mechanism for supporting global health technologies — that may not be such as a bad thing,” he said. “If it was all under one umbrella, you risk that some strong-willed opinions would carry the day and you might not fund the best technology.” Hotez is working on a coronavirus vaccine that uses an existing, low-cost technology, previously used for the hepatitis B vaccine, precisely because he is worried about equitable distribution of the vaccine. “I’m not very confident that some of the cutting-edge technologies going into clinical trials, which have never led to a licensed vaccine before, are going to filter down to low- and middle-income countries anytime soon,” Hotez said. “I’m really worried.” Read the full article

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glittergummicandypeach · 4 years

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Beating coronavirus requires faith leaders to bridge gap between religion and science

Some members of New York's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community defied the government's ban on gathering for Passover and other religious occasions, Brooklyn, April 16, 2020. ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

While many religious communities have embraced physical distancing measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus, some still encourage gatherings despite strong public health messages that large groups run a significant threat of disease transmission.

Some ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in New York continue to gather for funerals, weeks after physical distancing guidelines went into effect in the city. Four Brooklyn neighborhoods with large Orthodox Jewish populations have especially high rates of coronavirus infection, according to data released in early April.

Other religious leaders are using the pulpit to spread misinformation. The evangelical pastor Kenneth Copeland, for example, claims to have cures for COVID-19. And some Hindu nationalists in India have blamed Muslims for the country’s outbreak, leading to a surge in hate crimes.

As these situations demonstrate, millions of people worldwide look more to religious authorities than health officials for guidance on how to behave and what to believe in a crisis. My research on the intersections between public health and religion suggests enlisting religious institutions worldwide will be vital in stopping the spread of coronavirus.

Pope Francis presides over Good Friday service at an empty St. Peter’s Square during the coronavirus pandemic, Vatican City, April 10, 2020. Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

Connecting theology and health

Social resistance to medical intervention often drives the transmission of infectious diseases, research shows.

Studying the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which killed over 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016, I have identified important lessons – both positive and negative – about how religious actors can help build essential bridges between faith and science to strengthen a pandemic response.

Bridging theology and science was imperative in the Ebola outbreak, when up to 60% of Ebola cases were linked to funerals. Traditional religious burials in West Africa, both Christian and Muslim, often involve touching and washing the body, yet contact with body fluids spread Ebola.

For the first months of the outbreak, in early 2014, government prescriptions to cremate or swiftly bury the dead sparked fears and suspicion in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea – the most affected countries. Many relief workers, outsiders dressed in spacesuit-like protective outfits sent in to implement these procedures in Ebola-affected communities, were blocked from entering. Others faced violent, even deadly, physical attacks.

In late 2014, public health officials and religious leaders got together with the World Health Organization to produce a protocol for culturally sensitive burials of Ebola victims. Over 2,000 Christian and Muslim leaders were trained to conduct safe, dignified funerals in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The burial protocol may have saved thousands of lives, according to a 2017 study published in the journal of Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Faith and trust

Among the assets that religious actors offer is trust – perhaps the most vital key in a crisis for addressing fear and misinformation.

A family in Liberia watches the burial of a loved one during the Ebola outbreak, Disco Hill, Liberia, Jan. 27, 2015. John Moore/Getty Images

After an initial period of doubt and confusion, when many faith leaders in West Africa understood Ebola as divine punishment for various sins or simply as fate, public health officials made a concerted effort to get religious leaders to the same tables as scientists to educate and engage them on health education.

By late 2014, faith-inspired organizations like World Vision International were organizing workshops that taught public health practices like meticulous hygiene and quarantining of people exposed to Ebola grounded in theology and scripture.

Like the burial protocol, such programs proved to be a crucial step in halting the spread of Ebola.

An equivalent intervention for COVID-19 might be a simple message focused on physical distancing, for example – framed by religious leaders in terms people can understand and accept.

Building bridges

Any COVID-19 prevention program aimed at religious communities would have to work with faith-based organizations that know local leaders and have roots in the community.

But it is difficult to build partnerships between faith and health networks not accustomed to working together.

The Ebola outbreak demonstrated that relationships between religious and health institutions in West Africa were at best patchy. Governments, international health agencies and aid groups lacked systematic knowledge about the region’s diverse religious landscape, which includes Christianity, Islam and traditional African religions. And little relevant public information was available to help them learn the ropes.

Ultimately, groups of religious leaders from various faith traditions worked through interreligious councils to help coordinate national faith responses. On the regional level, faith-inspired organizations like World Vision, Catholic Relief Services and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation leveraged their relationships with religious actors in West Africa to provide funding, supplies and training for Ebola relief workers.

A man prays for Muslim Ebola victims at a crematorium in Monrovia, Liberia, March 2015. Zoom Dosso/AFP via Getty Images)

The global scale of the coronavirus pandemic will make it even more challenging to launch faith-inspired public health programs today.

I am part of one such effort to begin this difficult, delicate process. On March 11, the World Faiths Development Dialogue and Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, where I teach, joined with the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities to document how faith communities are responding to COVID-19.

My project includes a digital repository to track changes to religious gatherings, beliefs and practices during the pandemic. So far, the database shows that religious communities are responding in very different ways.

Many Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities in the U.S. are providing financial as well as spiritual support for not only the ill but also those who’ve lost jobs because the outbreak. Global faith-based groups like Religions for Peace are teaming up to provide support for vulnerable children worldwide.

But other religious groups continue to spread false information to explain the disease.

Hope for the future

For health officials, figuring out which religious leaders worldwide to work with, who their constituents are and how to transmit health messages that will resonate with these communities will be tricky indeed.

But once on board, faith leaders can do more than convey health guidance: They can bring messages of hope to communities struggling with anxiety, sadness and despair.

On March 27 Pope Francis, speaking alone from the Vatican to a plaza usually filled with followers, urged Catholics to approach the pandemic through faith, not fear.

“Embracing the Lord in order to embrace hope,” he said. “That is the strength of faith, which frees us from fear.”

[Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Katherine Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

This content was originally published here.

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riocommosty-blog · 4 years

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The world came together for a virtual vaccine summit. The U.S. was conspicuously absent.

LONDON — World leaders came together in a virtual summit Monday to pledge billions of dollars to quickly develop vaccines and drugs to fight the coronavirus. Missing from the roster was the Trump administration, which declined to participate but highlighted from Washington what one official called its “whole-of-America” efforts in the United States and its generosity to global health efforts. The online conference, led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and a half-dozen countries, was set to raise $8.2 billion from governments, philanthropies and the private sector to fund research and mass-produce drugs, vaccines and testing kits to combat the virus, which has killed more than 250,000 people worldwide. With the money came soaring rhetoric about international solidarity and a good bit of boasting about each country’s efforts and achievements, live and prerecorded, by Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Boris Johnson, Japan’s Shinzo Abe — alongside Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The more we pull together and share our expertise, the faster our scientists will succeed,” said Johnson, who was so stricken by the virus that he thought he might never leave the intensive care unit alive last month. “The race to discover the vaccine to defeat this virus is not a competition between countries but the most urgent shared endeavor of our lifetimes.” A senior Trump administration official said Monday the United States “welcomes” the efforts of the conference participants. He did not explain why the United States did not join them. “Many of the organizations and programs this pledging conference seeks to support already receive very significant funding and support from the U.S. government and private sector,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under White House rules for briefing reporters.

Public health officials and researchers expressed surprise. “It’s the first time that I can think of where you have had a major international pledging conference for a global crisis of this kind of importance, and the U.S. is just absent,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who worked on the Ebola response in the Obama administration.

Given that no one knows which vaccines will succeed, he said, it’s crucial to back multiple efforts working in parallel. “Against that kind of uncertainty we should be trying to position ourselves to be supporting — and potentially benefiting from — all of them,” said Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. “And instead we seem to be just focused on trying to win the race, in the hopes we happen to get one of the successful ones.” Conference participants expressed a need for unity.

“We can’t just have the wealthiest countries have a vaccine and not share it with the world,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. “Let us in the international community unite to overcome this crisis,” Abe said. Russia and India also did not participate. Chinese premier Li Keqiang was replaced at the last minute by Zhang Ming, Beijing’s ambassador to the European Union. The U.S. official said the United States “is the single largest health and humanitarian donor in world. And the American people have continued that legacy of generosity in the global fight against covid-19.” “And we would welcome additional high-quality, transparent contributions from others,” he said. Asked three more times to explain why the United States did not attend, the official said he already had given an answer.

The U.S. government has provided $775 million in emergency health, humanitarian, economic and development aid for governments, international organizations and charities fighting the pandemic. The official said the United States is in the process of giving about twice that amount in additional funding. There was one major American player at the virtual summit: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which promised to spend $125 million in the fight. “This virus doesn’t care what nationality you are,” Melinda Gates told the gathering. As long as the virus is somewhere, she said, it’s everywhere.

Scientists are working around-the-clock to find a cure or treatment for the coronavirus. The World Health Organization says eight vaccines have entered human trials and another 94 are in development. But finding an effective vaccine is only part of the challenge. When it’s discovered, infectious disease experts are predicting a scramble for limited doses, because there won’t be enough to vaccinate everyone on Day One. And deploying it could be difficult, particularly in countries that lack robust medical infrastructure. Those that have begun human trials include a research project at Oxford University in England, which hopes to have its vaccine ready in the fall. The university started human trials on April 23. “In normal times,” British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said, “reaching this stage would take years.”

Other scientists are sprinting to create antiviral drugs or repurposing existing drugs such as remdesivir, which U.S. infectious diseases chief Anthony S. Fauci said he expected would be the new “standard of care.” Other approaches now in trial include treatments such as convalescent plasma, which involves taking blood plasma from people who have recovered from covid-19 to patients who are fighting the virus, in the hope that the antibody-rich fluid will give the infected a helping hand. Conference participants expressed hope that by working together, the world will find solutions more quickly — and they can then be dispersed to all countries, not only the wealthy, or those that developed vaccines first.

Many of the leaders stressed their support for the WHO. President Trump announced last month he was cutting off U.S. funding for the WHO because he said it had sided too closely with China, where the coronavirus arose. Trump says Chinese leaders underplayed the threat and hid crucial facts. Public health analysts have shared some of those criticisms but have also criticized Trump for cutting off funding.

Peter Jay Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said the United States has always been the primary funder of new products for global health. The country invested $1.8 billion in neglected diseases in 2018, according to Policy Cures Research, more than two-thirds of the worldwide total. Hotez said the United States shoulders the burden of investing in global health technologies, while countries such as China do not step up.

“More than one mechanism for supporting global health technologies — that may not be such as a bad thing,” he said. “If it was all under one umbrella, you risk that some strong-willed opinions would carry the day and you might not fund the best technology.” Hotez is working on a coronavirus vaccine that uses an existing, low-cost technology, previously used for the hepatitis B vaccine, precisely because he is worried about equitable distribution of the vaccine. “I’m not very confident that some of the cutting-edge technologies going into clinical trials, which have never led to a licensed vaccine before, are going to filter down to low- and middle-income countries anytime soon,” Hotez said. “I’m really worried.” Johnson and Morello reported from Washington. Karla Adam in London and Adam Taylor in Washington contributed to this report.

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djgblogger-blog · 7 years

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Why aren't we curing the world's most curable diseases?

http://bit.ly/2zADi7W

A woman blinded by onchocerciasis, or river blindness, crouches in her hut in northern Ivory Coast. AP Photo/Jean-Marc Bouju

Once upon a time, the world suffered.

In 1987, 20 million people across the world were plagued by a debilitating, painful and potentially blinding disease called river blindness. This parasitic infection caused pain, discomfort, severe itching, skin irritation and, ultimately, irreversible blindness, leaving men, women and children across Africa unable to work, care for their families and lead normal lives.

But the recent discovery of a drug called ivermectin was about to change it all. Not only was ivermectin cheap and easily synthesized, but it was also a powerful cure: With only one dose a year, it was possible to completely rid patients of disease and even halt the progression toward blindness. In short, ivermectin was a miracle drug – one whose discovery would lead to Satoshi Omura and William Campbell winning the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2015.

There was no time to be wasted. Recognizing that the populations most at risk of disease were those least able to afford treatment, Merck & Co. pledged to join the fight to end river blindness. Thirty years ago this October, the pharmaceutical company vowed that it would immediately begin distributing the drug free of charge, to any country that requested it, “for as long as needed.” It was the final piece of the puzzle: an effective drug for a tragic and completely preventable disease. And we all lived happily ever after.

Only… we didn’t.

Merck’s generous offer should have been the final chapter of a brief story with an upbeat ending – the eradication of a tragic and preventable disease that had plagued humankind for centuries. But such was not the case: 30 years later, in 2017, river blindness rages on across the world, afflicting as many as 37 million people, 270,000 of whom have been left permanently blind.

Neglected tropical diseases like river blindness stand in stark contrast to those like tuberculosis, which is estimated to affect a third of the world’s population due to the increasing prevalence of highly antibiotic resistant strains.

In short, tuberculosis has stuck around because medicine has run out of drugs with which to treat it – which is why, as a molecular biologist, I am researching new ways we can finally defeat this stubborn disease.

But this only increases the urgency for river blindness and other widespread diseases for which, unlike tuberculosis, science does have effective cures – and inexpensive ones at that. Even with all the necessary tools, the world has failed to cure the curable.

Turning a blind eye

One-and-a-half billion people across the world suffer from neglected tropical diseases, a group of infectious diseases that prevail in tropical and subtropical countries lacking good health care infrastructure and medical resources. These diseases typically do not kill immediately but instead blind and disable, leading to terrible suffering, creating losses of capital, worker productivity and economic growth.

Thirteen diseases are universally recognized as neglected tropical diseases. At least eight of these diseases, including river blindness, already have inexpensive, safe and effective treatments or interventions.

For less than 50 cents per person, the United States could cure a fifth of the world’s population of these severely debilitating and unnecessary diseases. In spite of this, the United States allocates nearly as little to treating and preventing neglected tropical diseases around the world as it does to drugs for erectile dysfunction.

The forgotten fevers

Consider dracunculiasis, or Guinea worm infection, which occurs when people consume water contaminated with fleas carrying parasitic worms. The worms mature and mate inside the human body, where they can grow to be two to three feet long.

Adult females eventually emerge from painful blisters at the extremities to lay eggs in stagnant water, where offspring will infect water fleas and begin the cycle anew.

No drug exists that can cure Guinea worm, but because of a cohort of mostly privately funded public health efforts, the number of Guinea worm infections worldwide has dropped from 3.5 million in the 1980s to only 25 in 2016.

Funding from the U.S. and other countries could help in the final push to eradication, and some argue that funding from the individual countries themselves could help.

Another example, albeit more grim, is the group of soil-transmitted helminths, or worms. Roundworm, hookworm and whipworm collectively affect over a billion people across the world, all in the poorest areas of the poorest countries. All these worms infect the human intestines and can cause severe iron deficiency, leading to increased mortality in pregnant women, infants and children. Furthermore, hookworm infections in children retard growth and mental development, leading to absences from school and dramatically reduced labor productivity.

However, soil-transmitted helminths can be expelled from the body with a single pill, each of which costs only one penny. What’s more, preventing infection in the first place is completely achievable through increased awareness and sanitation.

The purse strings of nationalism

Without drastic increases in funding and public awareness, the plight of people affected by the neglected tropical diseases is unlikely to budge anytime soon.

The U.S. spends over US$8,000 per person per year on health expenditures, compared to countries in Africa that spend around $10. While this opens the door to a critique on efficiency, it’s far more indicative of the disparities in health resources.

Less than 20 percent of the world’s population lives in some of the most developed and economically high-functioning countries, including the United States – and nearly 90 percent of the world’s total financial resources are devoted to the citizens of these nations. And yet, low-income countries bear the majority of the world’s infectious disease burden. In short, the rest of the world does not suffer the same diseases the United States does, and Americans are doing little to nothing about it.

At first glance, this is not so surprising. As a whole, the world suffers – but how many neglected tropical diseases currently penetrate American borders?

Some experts predict that eliminating or controlling the neglected tropical diseases in sub-Saharan Africa alone, which shoulders over 40 percent of the global burden of neglected tropical diseases, could save the world $52 billion and over 100 million years of life otherwise lost to disease.

Conversely, some global health experts estimate that for every dollar spent on neglected tropical disease control, we get back over $50 in increased economic productivity. By increasing awareness and funding of neglected tropical disease eradication, the United States will be making one of the best global investments possible. The rest of the world has waited long enough.

Katherine J. Wu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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lionsclubs · 7 years

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LCIF Tackles Trachoma with the Carter Center

What is Trachoma? Trachoma is one of the oldest known infectious diseases. A bacterial disease, trachoma is spread easily through contact with infected individuals. After years of repeated infection, the eyelid turns inward and the lashes rub on the eyeball, scarring the cornea, resulting in a slow and painful process toward complete blindness.

An Interview with Kelly Callahan Lions are very active in the fight against trachoma. Lions Clubs International Foundation’s (LCIF) SightFirst program has awarded more than US$29 million to The Carter Center, a leader in combating trachoma for 23 projects in in Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, and Sudan. Ethiopia alone has received more than US$21 million in funding since it is the most endemic country in the world for the disease.

Kelly Callahan is director of the Carter Center’s Trachoma Control Program. She also is a Lion. In this interview, Callahan explains how she got involved in humanitarian work, her thoughts on the progress of the fight against trachoma thus far, and how it has impacted her.

Lion Kelly Callahan speaks with a woman in Ethiopia about the pain caused by trachoma.

You’ve spent most of your life working to help people and animals. When did you know you wanted to dedicate your life to humanitarian work? I grew up knowing I wanted to help – my mother taught this from a very young age; actually she lived it, and I was a witness to the joys of helping others… I didn’t know if I want to help animals or people – so I spent three summers during my undergraduate degree assisting studies on Orcas (killer whales) in British Columbia and then I went on to volunteer in the United States Peace Corps. I had helped animals, and the Peace Corps was a way to test the waters on helping people… I was assigned to Cote d’Ivoire, a French-speaking country, but I spoke only English and Spanish. After three months of training, I was still unsure of how this would work.I was assigned with one other volunteer to work on Guinea worm disease, a painful parasitic infection spread through contaminated drinking water. On my second day on that assignment, a man lifted his shirt to show me the Guinea worm growing just under his skin in his adbominal area. I could see the entire worm just beneath his skin and I was fascinated. I had understood the disease to be painful and disabling – and in that moment I was struck with the notion that that no one should have to suffer from such a horrible disease, and thus began my commitment to neglected tropical diseases. That was January of 1996.

How did you get involved in the fight against trachoma?

During my time in the Peace Corps, we created a filter frame that proved to be extremely useful; we saw a 47% reduction in cases of Guinea worm disease the first year. Then we saw virtually zero new cases. I was asked to represent the Peace Corps at two international Guinea worm conferences. In the fall of 1996, I met representatives from The Carter Center. I met them again in summer of 1997, and they asked if I wanted to work with Guinea worm disease in southern Sudan. That fall, I went to visit. I fell in love with the possibility of helping millions of people rather than tens of thousands. In 1998, I accepted the offer and began working on Guinea worm and onchocerciasis [river blindness]. In 2001, a colleague and I carried out the first surveys for trachoma in southern Sudan. I saw a young boy about 5 years of age who needed surgery in both eyes from trachoma. It was absolutely horrendous. I knew I could do something; I knew I could help. The Carter Center was willing to assist the people of South Sudan, not only in Guinea worm eradication and onchocerciasis control, but also toward controlling trachoma. So, we started interventions to control trachoma in some of Sudan in 2001.In 2004, I transitioned to The Carter Center offices in Atlanta, where I supported the Trachoma Control Program as well as the other health programs of The Carter Center for 10 years before becoming director of the trachoma program.

What do you think have been the biggest barriers to overcoming this disease?

The hardest thing to do is to change our own behavior. Imagine you grow up a certain way, with no access to water or sanitation. These concepts are later introduced to you but you don’t understand why they’re important. We need to help people overcome barriers to changed behaviors so they wash their faces, wash their children’s faces, build and use latrines.Beyond that, these are environmentally challenging areas. Piped water and sanitation are huge challenges for governments. How do these infrastructure developments take place? How are these large-scale systems funded in very challenging areas?

In your opinion, what has been the most pivotal advance in fighting trachoma?

I think partnership has made the biggest difference. In 1999, we were the single entity looking at this in a big way. Our partnership with the Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF) and local Lions Clubs in endemic countries helped us move into more countries, expanding our scope. Then the Alliance for Global Elimination of Trachoma by the year 2020 (GET 2020) and the International Trachoma Initiative brought partnership, coordination and collaboration to the forefront. The International Coalition for Trachoma Control was created, and this brought partnership into greater focus. These partnerships and their formation have been pivotal in advancing a global program. It was sporadic at first, but it is now becoming a global program with multiple sectors working toward a common goal.

LCIF and The Carter Center first teamed up in 1999. What is your fondest memory of Lions and The Carter Center working together?

I have so many! There are two that really speak to me. First, the Lions Clubs of Uganda have a very strong female presence. The neglected tropical disease coordinator for the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Edridah is a Lion. The Carter Center country representative, Peace Habomugisha, is a Lion. Being with these women and other Lions, including Lion Night Ndyarugahi, and it is unforgettable seeing them strategize on how to work together to control trachoma,. These are empowered women working toward ending blindness from trachoma in their country.Second, in 2016, I attended a mass drug administration launch ceremony of Pfizer-donated Zithromax® (azithromycin), the antibiotic used to control trachoma, in Amhara, Ethiopia. In attendance were Past International President Joe Preston, his wife Joni, and Past District Governor, Hon. Dr. Med., World Laureate Tebebe Y. Berhan and Carter Center CEO, Ambassador (ret.) Mary Ann Peters. PIP Preston’s face just lit up when saw how a single dose of medicine makes so much difference. He was seeing how our partnership saves lives. PIP Preston even sang to the joy of the crowd – I cried.

Trachoma is one of the oldest known infectious diseases. How close do you think we are to eliminating it?

The elimination of blinding trachoma is within reach. I believe we can eliminate blindness due to trachoma in the very near future in many countries… However, because of the scope of the problem in Ethiopia and some other few countries, like South Sudan, we may need a few more years, but I’m more than confident that together with the Lions we will reach our goal.

Is there anything else you would like to share with Lions?

President Carter became a Lion when he left his US Navy service. His desire to help the poorest of the poor, coupled with Lions’ desire to be Knights of the Blind and look at diseases over the long term have made a lasting impact on me and my choices. I look at what we can do through the noble efforts of Lions- Carter Center partnership and I am energized. What an effective partnership! Over 400 million treatments and over 600 thousand sight-saving surgeries. I’m honored to be part of this.

Progress SightFirst has achieved the following accomplishments in fighting trachoma in partnership with the Carter Center:

538,000+ trichiasis surgeries completed

LCIF and local Lions have helped to distribute more than 152 million doses of Zithromax© (donated by Pfizer)

3 million latrines and water wells have been built in Ethiopia, Mali, Niger and Sudan.

Declining Prevalence

Maps provided by the Carter Center

These maps show the prevalence of early-stage trachoma in children ages one through nine in Amhara, Ethiopia, in 2007 (top) compared to 2016 (bottom). The LCIF-Carter Center partnership has made tremendous strides in reducing the burden of this disease in Ethiopia and elsewhere.

Effective Treatment International efforts to treat and eliminate trachoma follow the WHO-developed “SAFE” strategy. This evidence-based strategy has four components.

S: Surgery, to reverse trichiasis (the late, blindness-causing stage of the disease when the eyelashes turn inwards and rub on the cornea);

A: Antibiotics (Azithromycin, Zithromax©), to treat active infection of the disease;

F: Facial cleanliness, to increase personal hygiene and thus reduce the opportunities for disease transmission; and

E: Environmental change, to improve access to water and sanitation.

The SAFE strategy has proven to be an effective and judicious intervention for millions of people. Nyuking Galwak is a living testimony to the power of this intervention strategy. At only 30 years old, Galwak’s situation was dire. She has lived with her infant son in a refugee camp in South Sudan since 2014. Poor sanitation within the camp and lack of access to clean water had led to blinding trachoma in both of her eyes.

Lions supported the outreach clinic that provided Galwak’s sight-saving surgery and taught her about the importance of washing her hands and face. The pain has subsided and Galwak is no longer in danger of losing her vision because Lions stepped in when she needed them most.

Nykong Galwak was overjoyed after her trichiasis surgery

The Role of Sanitation Antibiotics and surgeries are only part of the solution to the trachoma problem. Another key component is environmental change. Providing household latrines helps to control fly populations. Increasing access to clean water encourages personal hygiene. Separating animal and human living space and safe handling of food and drinking water also are important improvements that impede the spread of trachoma.

Galwak washes her face to prevent the spread of trachoma

The Future for Mali and Niger The SAFE strategy has been championed by Lions and the Carter Center in both Mali and Niger since 1999. As a direct result of surgeries, antibiotic administration, health education training and environmental improvements, both countries are on track to eliminate blinding trachoma by the year 2020.

#Charity #Fighting Blindness #humanitarian service #LCIF #Lions Clubs International Foundation #sight #SightFirst

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dietcoachesofamerica · 7 years

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Exclusive: the country, in Americaare rampant, the first Research of its kind in modern times Reveals

Children playing feet away from open pools of raw sewage; drinking water pumped together with cracked pipes of untreated waste; human faeces flushed back into kitchen tubs and sinks whenever the drains come; people testing positive for hookworm, an intestinal parasite that thrives on extreme poverty.

These are the findings of a new research into endemic tropical diseases, not at all places usually associated with them in the developing world of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, but in a corner of the richest nation on earth: Alabama.

Scientists in Houston, Texas, have raised the lid on one of America's darkest and deepest secrets: that concealed beneath fabulous wealth, the US tolerates poverty-related disease at rates comparable to the planet's poorest countries. Over one in three individuals tested positive for traces a parasite which was believed to have been eradicated from the US decades ago, of hookworm.

The long-awaited findings, revealed by the Guardian for the very first time, are a wake-up call to the world's sole superpower because it grapples with growing inequality. Donald Trump has promised to "Make America Great Again" and handle the nation's crumbling infrastructure, but he has said very little about enduring chronic poverty, especially in the southern countries.

The study, the first of its kind in modern times, was carried out by the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in conjunction with Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise (ACRE), a nonprofit group seeking to deal with root causes of poverty. In a poll of people living in Lowndes County, an area with a long history of racial discrimination and inequality, it found that 34% tested positive for genetic traces of Necator americanus.

Lowndes

The parasite known as hookworm, enters the body through the skin through the soles of feet, and travels around the body until it attaches. Over years or months it causes weight loss and anemia, iron deficiency, fatigue and diminished mental function, especially in children, helping to trap them.

Hookworm was uncontrolled in the south of the US in the earlier 20th century, helping to make the stereotype of the lazy and lethargic redneck and sapping the power and educational accomplishments of both black and white kids. As public health enhanced, most experts assumed it had disappeared entirely by the 1980s.

But the new study shows that hookworm not only survives lacking even basic sanitation, but does this on a scale that is breathtaking. None of the people had travelled outside the united states, yet as was inadequate waste treatment parasite vulnerability was found to be widespread.

The peer-reviewed research paper, published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, concentrates on Lowndes County, Alabama -- the home condition of the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, plus a landmark place in the background of the nation's civil rights movement. "Bloody Lowndes", the region was known as in reference to the violent response of white residents towards efforts to reverse racial segregation in the 1950s.

It was through this county which Martin Luther King led marchers from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 in search of voting rights for black citizens, More than half a century afterwards, King's dream of what he called the "dignity of equality" remains elusive for many of the 11,000 residents of Lowndes County, 74% of whom are African American.

Raw sewage is carried through a PVC pipe to be dumped only several yards away from a neighboring home. Photograph: Bob Miller for the Guardian

The average income is only $18,046 (#13,850) annually, and almost a third of the population live below the official US poverty line. The most basic waste disposal infrastructure is.

Some 73 percent of residents included in the Baylor survey reported that they were exposed to sewage washing back as a result of faulty septic tanks or waste pipes.

The Baylor research was inspired by Catherine Flowers, ACRE's founder, who invited the Houston scientists to perform the review afterwards she became concerned about the health consequences of having so many open sewers in her home county. "Hookworm is a 19th-century disease that should by now have been addressed, however we're still fighting with it in the USA in the 21st century," she explained.

"Our billionaire philanthropists like Bill Gates fund water treatment around the world, but they don't fund it here in the US because no one acknowledges that this amount of poverty is present in the richest nation on the planet."

Flowers took witness the Guardian on a tour of Lowndes County the states in. 1 stop was out Fort Deposit that illustrated the catastrophe in a group of mobile homes.

An eight-year-old child was sitting on the back of one of the trailers. Below him a pipe ran from his home, into a copse of pine and sweet gum trees, and across the yard only a couple feet away from a basketball hoop.

The color of petroleum was cracked in several places and ceased just inside the copse dripping ooze. Above the sewage pool, a pipe ran up to the home, which turned out to be the main channel.

The sewer that was open was festooned with mosquitoes, and a very long cordon of ants could be seen trailing along the waste pipe. In the close of the pool nearest the home the fluid that was treacly was glistening in the dappled sunlight -- a closer look revealed that it was really moving, its effluence heaving and churning with tens of thousands of worms.

Ruby Dee Rudolph, 66, noticed her septic tank was gradually sinking unevenly into the ground. Photograph: Bob Miller for the Guardian

"Here is the definition of 'Make America Great Again'," explained Aaron Thigpen, 29, a community activist who assisted with the hookworm research. "Here is the reality of how people are being forced to live."

Thigpen's cousins live in the trailer park, and he has talked about the perils of dumping it off and piping sewage from their homes. "They're disgusted about it, they are sick and tired of living like this, but there is no public help for them here and if you're earning $700 a month there is no way you're able to afford your own private sanitation."

He added that people were scared to report the issues, given the spate of offender prosecutions which were introduced by Alabama state between 2002 and 2008 against residents who were open-piping sewage from their homes, unable to afford appropriate treatment systems. For neglecting to purchase a tank than her entire income, one grandma was detained within a weekend.

"People are fearful. They don't want to speak out as they are worried the health department will come across and cause difficulty," Thigpen said.

The challenge to places like Lowndes County is to not revive public infrastructure, because there's absolutely no infrastructure here to begin with as Trump has promised. Flowers estimates that any sewerage system uncovers 80 percent of the county, and in its absence people are anticipated -- and sometimes legally forced -- to supply their own.

Even where individuals can afford up to put in a septic tank the terrain is contrary to them. Lowndes County is situated inside the "Black Belt", the southern sweep of loamy soil that's well suited to growing cotton and as a result spawned a great number of plantations, each worked with a large enslaved inhabitants.

The same thing that made the land great for cotton -- its possessions -- also makes it a danger to the tens of thousands of African Americans who still live on it now. When the rains come, the soil becomes overwhelming waste systems saturated and offering a breeding ground for hookworm.

Ruby Rudolph lives beside the main Selma to Montgomery street where King led the demonstration walk. There's a history placard to mark the spot where Rosie Steele, her grandma, ran the tired marchers a campsite.

The campsite was cleared and after they moved on, Rudolph said, her grandma's grocery shop was set on fire in an arson attack. She was 13 at the time, and can remember the flames.

Rudolph, now 66, has her own septic tank in the back of her property, which she reveals us in the sweltering 41C (105F) heating system. But it doesn't function properly and when it rains the tank spills over, spreading waste all around the yard. "That is better than when it melts into the home, and I have had that also," she explained.

She has been told a replacement system will cost. Her finances are run through by her: she gets up to perform an early change at a Mapco convenience shop, which brings in less than $1,200 a month. When it is hot and there is the power bill that may be more than $ 300 a month from this sum she must pay $ 611 for her mortgage and the air conditioning is busy. There's not a lot left to put toward a brand new tank.

Perman Hardy, 58, stands with her grandson Carlos near the pipes that carry sewage from a relative's nearby trailer house into the woods, approximately 30ft from the back door. Photograph: Bob Miller for the Guardian

Perman Hardy, 58, lives in nearby Tyler in a selection of seven single-storey homes all inhabited by members of her extended family. Only two of them have septic tanks, the remainder creeks and only pipe waste in the woods.

Hardy is just one of the lucky ones with a remedy system of her own, but it is often overwhelmed with faeces in the drains. That the stench was so poor while it was professionally cleaned she had to vacate the house for two weeks over Christmas.

Hardy has traced her family back to slaves. The street that results in the old plantation from her residence is still called for this day by white neighbors "Nigger Foot Road", she said, though she and other African Americans call it Collerine Cutoff Road.

As a young child, Hardy worked after school and, conscious of her family's slave history and that in the cotton fields, she is determined to see a much better future for her grandchildren. "I don't want the exact same for my boys. But it's still a battle. It's the 21st century and we shouldn't be fighting like we still are today."

The hardship faced by fellow and Hardy, Rudolph inhabitants of Lowndes County is reflected in the glaring Journal of 34% testing positive for hookworm of the Baylor study. The sample size was low -- 67 people participated giving stool samples, all of whom were African American -- but the results are so crude that the Houston scientists want to conduct a survey that is larger throughout the region.

"We now must find how widespread hookworm is over the united states," explained Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, who led the research team along with Rojelio Mejia. Hotez, who has estimated that as many as 12 million Americans might be affected by neglected tropical diseases in poor areas of the south and midwest, told the Guardian the results were a wake-up call for the nation.

"This is the inconvenient fact that nobody in America wants to talk about," he explained. "These people live in the southern United States, and nobody appears to care; they are bad, and nobody appears to care; and more often than not they are people of colour, and nobody appears to care."

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty

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ongames · 7 years

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Why People With A Treatable Flesh-Eating Disease Don't Want The Cure

This article is part of HuffPost’s Project Zero campaign, a yearlong series on neglected tropical diseases and efforts to fight them.

UTUT FOREST, Kenya ― Amos Kiptui is no stranger to hardship. He was born in a cave 27 years ago and still lives in one, despite run-ins with wild buffalo, deadly snakes, leopards and lions.

So when thick, itchy welts began to appear on Kiptui’s right cheek, he took a sharp rock and scraped off layers of his skin, then packed the bleeding wound with traditional medicine made from bitter leaves.

“You put the leaves on a piece of iron and make a fire,” he said, demonstrating with a small, battered metal sheet.

“You leave it to dry and crush it to powder,” he added. “Then you rub your wound with a stone until the blood starts oozing out and apply the powder.”

In the Utut Forest in Kenya’s Nakuru County, this treatment is believed to help heal a condition that people living here call “shetani,” meaning curse or devil.

As the disease gained ground on Kiptui’s face, he kept hacking away clumps of flesh and rubbing in the balm, hoping to exorcise the demon he believed to be behind the itchy sores.

Kiptui was actually the victim of a rare flesh-eating disease called cutaneous leishmaniasis, which is spread by blood-sucking sandflies living in rocky areas and caves. Without medical treatment, the injected parasites can keep growing and gnawing their way through the skin, causing insatiable itching, disfigurement and, often the greatest pain of all, social exclusion.

But for Kiptui and some 300 other people living in caves ― for lack of a better alternative ― in the heart of Kenya’s Rift Valley, even basic health care is hard to find.

Nestled in between huge swathes of private land reserved for wildlife and farming, these cave dwellers carve out a meager living by burning trees to make charcoal. It’s an hour’s trek to the nearest village ― through land teeming with dangerous predators. It’s hours more over rocky mountain passes to the nearest hospital in the small town of Gilgil.

“We live in terrible conditions here,” said Kiptui, standing outside an almost bare cave that he can only sit or lie in. “We don’t have water, and food is hard to come by.”

A localized outbreak of cutaneous leishmaniasis has spread here in recent years, though the disease is not commonly found in Kenya. Around the world, about a million new cases are reported annually, especially among people living in poor conditions whose immunity has been worn down by hunger and hardship.

For most people with cutaneous leishmaniasis, the only available treatment involves weeks of excruciating injections straight into the affected area, often on the face and always into the dermal layer where nerve endings cluster. The treatment is said to be 90 percent effective, but many patients do not stay the course.

“Some patients have been absconding especially due to the pain, whereas others abscond due to distance,” said David Kamau, the local disease surveillance coordinator for the Kenyan government.

Kiptui was thrilled to find out that his condition was medically curable, and that the treatment was free, after volunteer health worker Joseph Kariuki spotted him and his lesions on one of his regular treks through the bushland to visit this cave community.

“My major work is to create awareness of leishmaniasis,” said Kariuki, who works with the local government health ministry. “I stop people thinking it’s a form of HIV/AIDS, or some kind of demon.”

But the pain Kiptui endured at the clinic was more than he could bear.

“I was injected the very first time and it was so painful, I literally ran away. I abandoned the treatment,” he said.

Kiptui went back to slicing away at his face with a sharp rock and filling the wound with hot ash.

Other people with the disease have used knives or machetes heated in a fire to sear off the lesions, and packed the wound with traditional cures that are ineffective and sometimes harmful.

“Some of the herbs they are using are highly poisonous,” said Kamau.

“They are seriously toxic and have even been causing complications” that make the disease harder to cure, he added.

Kamau’s team has recorded over 400 cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis in this rural corner of Kenya, but only half have sought the notoriously painful treatment.

Children shy away from the injections, but “men especially have been absconding after a few injections because of the pain,” said Kamau.

The kids are less able to hide because a team of health workers holds weekly mobile clinics, including one at a school near the caves.

It’s traumatic enough watching children receiving injections straight into the nose or eye socket, as tears roll down their cheeks while health workers hold them still.

Headteacher Job Nganga, whose office sits opposite the room used for treatment, finds the piercing screams and sobbing haunting.

“If I’m a grownup and I’m not able to hold myself when an injection is being put into my own body, how about that small kid? I feel so bad,” he said.

Nganga sees children afflicted with the disease becoming so preoccupied with the belief that they are cursed that they fall behind in class.

“Mostly, we Africans, when we find that there’s something that’s disturbing us that has no solution, we rush into saying that it’s witchcraft,” he said.

In poor countries, health systems are overburdened and under-resourced. To help government health workers like Kamau and Kariuki fight cutaneous leishmaniasis, which persists in the most deprived pockets of Kenya and other developing countries, international charities like the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, or DNDi, are working to improving testing and treatment.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is so neglected that the medicines administered were formulated for a disease called visceral leishmaniasis, or kala azar, which is also transmitted by sandflies but is very different and much deadlier.

“We have tried to reduce the pain by adding lidocaine, and by applying ice to the area before the things,” Kamau said. “But there is much more still to be done so that patients stick with the treatment.”

Florence Wambui, 15, endured 57 injections to her face over two months, because she wanted to get rid of the facial sores she found so ugly.

What started as a pimple got worse, despite the application of traditional herbs, until “the wounds were full of worms,” she said.

“I thank God that the wounds are healed,” Wambui said. I thought they would never go.”

The teenager now drags her terrified 8-year-old cousin out of class for treatment, and watches anxiously as he screams in pain.

Although the mobile clinics have solved some of the access issues for this disease, they are not bringing all of its sufferers out of the shadows.

“There are still people hiding in their homes because of the injections,” said Nganga, describing parents at the school whose lips have “peeled off” due to cutaneous leishmaniasis.

“It not something you want to see,” he said. “One of their ears was almost destroyed.”

The county government has sprayed insecticide in some homes in affected areas to kill the sandflies. But the people living in caves or herding their livestock and farming around them have no respite from the swarms of sandflies.

The real hope for stopping the disease lies in finding a better cure ― ideally in the form of a topical cream or an affordable oral pill ― that sufferers in remote areas could take away and stick to. In the meantime, further reducing the number of injections needed, and the pain associated with them, would stop people like Kiptui from abandoning treatment.

“I still haven’t managed to heal the wound,” he said, toying with the sharp rocks he uses to gouge at his face.

“If I get another option, I’ll be happy,” he added, looking up, then swiftly turning his face away to hide his scarred cheek.

DNDi is a recipient of grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which also funds HuffPost’s Project Zero series. All content in this series is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundation.

If you’d like to contribute a post to the series, send an email to [email protected]. And follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #ProjectZero.

More stories like this:

He Treated The Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched The World Forget.

Rabies Kills 189 People Every Day. Here’s Why You Never Hear About It.

When Bullets Fly, These Medics Grab Their Packs And Treat Patients On The Run

This Man Went Abroad And Brought Back A Disease Doctors Had Never Seen

A Parasite Attacked This Dad’s Brain And Destroyed His Family

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Why People With A Treatable Flesh-Eating Disease Don't Want The Cure published first on http://ift.tt/2lnpciY

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yes-dal456 · 7 years

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Why People With A Treatable Flesh-Eating Disease Don't Want The Cure

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