This blog's purpose is to connect in an every widening and deepening manner with others across the globe in support of the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals.
I got two messages from the folks at ONE last week. One was from Sheila Nix, U.S. Executive Director for ONE, personally asking for our help to send a message to the White House which will soon be announcing how much they'll be committing to the Global Fund. The message to President Obama reads:
Please commit $6 billion to the Global Fund over the next 3 years.
The focus is to make sure that no child is born with HIV.
The second message was on the same basic subject, taking a different tack and proving flattery can get you somewhere.
You write some great blogs about the MDGs and the work that is needed in pursuing and supporting them. Today ONE launched the NO CHILD BORN WITH HIV BY 2015. This campaign will be an intense burst for a week channelled through www.one.org, culminating with the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit next Monday (20-22nd September) in NYC. It is a really entertaining way to show some support! Hopefully it will generate some internet buzz as babies get sent around threatening to 'Throw the bottle out of the Pram' or 'Put us on the naughty step' unless we show some support.
We would immensely appreciate your support by signing the online petition and – if you're so inspired – to blog about it or share it with your friends by email or on Twitter. This is a cause that can only be made good with the help of the public. Every name on the petition counts.
This blog has done a number of posts in the past on the need to fund Malaria intervention programs around the world. A recent post tried to paint a rosier picture than usual to make the argument that Millennium Development Goal No. 6 was achievable within the next 5 years or at least great strides could be made. I could easily be accused of whistling in the dark because for each positive stride we make the recent economic crisis seems to put us two back.
Stella Hurtley,Caroline Ash,Leslie RobertsInfectious disease remains one of the biggest killers in developingcountries. Two of them account for an enormous toll: Elevenmillion people live with tuberculosis (TB), and almost 250 millioncases of malaria—and roughly a million deaths among children—werereported in 2008; a staggering assault on human-kind. The 33million people who live with HIV/AIDS are frequently co-infectedwith TB and/or malaria, and co-infection increases the overallrisk of mortality and morbidity from all three diseases. Once,we aspired to find "magic bullet" solutions to these plaguesusing vaccines or drugs, but we have learned that there areno cure-all or simple solutions. These pathogens have complexrepertoires of genetic resources that permit them to constantlyreinvent themselves and escape the pressures applied by infection-controlmeasures. To curb these elusive targets, we, too, need a largerepertoire of tools.
In the same issue, Dr. Barry R. Bloom, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor of Public Health and former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health Editorial wrote an editorial in support for Global Health and against the $50 million reduction in funding for the Global Fund requested by the U.S. government for fiscal year 2011. Sorry, but you need to be a paid AAAS member to see the entire magazine.
Editorial Support for Global Health Barry R. Bloom
As more nations struggle with stressed economies, aid to the developing world becomes increasingly vulnerable to governments' budgetary cuts. The industrialized world is recognizing that coordinating global development assistance is the most efficient way to maximize effectiveness and minimize duplication. Earlier this year, the United States, the largest funder of global health assistance, announced that it seeks to expand multilateral efforts to address the major health problems of developing countries. One of the triumphs of multilateral cooperation has been the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a program that has saved millions of lives in developing countries. That is why the $50 million reduction in funding for the Global Fund requested by the U.S. government for fiscal year 2011, in the face of increased requests for expanded coverage by those countries, would be a major setback.
The AAAS report also featured one of the good guys in this struggle, the Malaria Consortium which according to their website works in partnership with communities, health systems, government and non-government agencies, academic institutions and local and international organisations to ensure good evidence supports delivery of effective services. Together, we work to secure access for groups most at risk, to prevention, care and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases.
The problem is that these problems are often so far from us and being always in the same countries that it is easy to think that this is just they way things are. That would be tragic. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek Heath Executive Health almost Half of Deaths in Kids Under 5 Occur in 5 Countries,
TUESDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- Infectious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and blood poisoning account for more than two-thirds of the 8.8 million annual deaths in kids under 5 years of age worldwide, a new report shows.
Adding more of a burden on the tragic irony of the situation, impoverished Women in developing countries are forced to to choose between trying to save their children from malaria and spending money for food to avoid risk losing their children to starvation. An average poor family spends 30 percent of household income fighting malaria.
The good folks at Care2 raised this issue an important truth about focusing on only one aspect of the Millennium Development Goals at a time.
Malaria is economically devastating, too. According to research by Freedom from Hunger, in West Africa very poor families, on average, spend one-third of their income dealing with malaria. It's essential that the UN Capital Development Fund educate women about microfinance opportunities so they can develop the financial resources to fight this deadly disease.
To help you imagine what it means to spend a third of your income just to prevent one disease, that is the percent of income that in the United States is viewed as being an appropriate level for affordable housing. In America, you should expect to pay 30% of your income to pay for your shelter, the greatest essential expense most people in this country have. You can help by clicking here to tell the UN Capital Development Fund to increase these opportunities for women. >>
It is widely recognized that women are the key to getting these countries out of poverty. Giving these women a boost with a micro loan helps them to take that extra step and give themselves permission to be creative and resourceful. These systems are already in place. We just need to make sure they reach these families in time.
As is so often the case, the lack of attention to one of the Millennium Development Goals impacts detrimentally another of the Millennium Development Goals. Millennium Development Goal 3 seeks to address the disenfranchisement of women economically and otherwise even though they usually have primary responsibility for family care. By not addressing their basic human needs it weakens even more their capacity to help address the scourges that Millennium Development Goal 6 seeks to address. It cannot be one of the other, it has to be both, it has to be all eight in truth. For today though, for this step, in light of billion dollar bailouts, we need to address these issues through both fronts being proposed here.
I was number 9,181 and they are trying to get to 10,000 and beyond.
Action on climate change is cheaper than inaction
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