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10 Cheapest Ways to Save Livesl
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic


When it comes to public health, lives are often saved, or dramatically improved, by things that cost the least. Simple undertakings—such as washing hands, using a seatbelt or donning a bike helmet—carry little cost to the individual. But collectively such interventions can make a huge difference in global health. We've consulted experts from around the Bloomberg School to come up with 10 of the least expensive ways to save millions of lives around the world. Take a look.

1. Quit smoking.
$0 It costs nothing to quit cold turkey; interventions like the patch cost about the same as cigarettes

CigarettesTobacco is the second major cause of death in the world—killing one in 10 adults worldwide, or about 5 million people each year. The 2004 U.S. Surgeon General's Report concluded that cigarette smoking causes diseases in nearly every organ of the body. "If you think about smoking cessation, there are few interventions that can save so many lives and so cheaply," says Jonathan Samet, senior scientific editor of the 2004 report. The good news is that it's never too late to stop. Within hours after a smoker inhales that last cigarette, health begins to improve.

2. Increase vitamin A supplementation.
$0.04 per dose

Vitamin AIn 1985, ophthalmologist and epidemiologist Alfred Sommer discovered that a capsule of high-potency vitamin A given to children in Indonesia twice a year reduced the number of child deaths by 34 percent. (The micronutrient made them less vulnerable to measles, malaria, diarrhea and dysentery.) Today, the WHO, UNICEF and their partners provide more than 400 million supplements a year for children in developing countries. That translates to hundreds of thousands of kids saved every year. But it's estimated that only one-quarter to one-third of children who need vitamin A supplements receive them.

3. Expand oral rehydration therapy.
$0.10 per one-liter packet

Oral Rehydration TherapyOriginally developed to treat cholera, oral rehydration therapy (ORT) is effective in treating dehydration due to diarrhea from any cause. ORT is also remarkably simple: Mix one packet of a powder containing glucose and electrolytes in water, and give it to people with diarrhea until they get better. Since 1980 when WHO and UNICEF introduced ORT in the developing world, the number of deaths due to diarrhea in children has dropped from 5 million to 2 million per year. The challenge today: to see that ORT is more widely used in developing countries to reduce mortality further, and in developed countries that favor IV treatments to reduce health care costs, says R. Bradley Sack.

4. Build pit latrines in developing countries.
$50 per latrine, depending on materials

LatrineIn areas that don't have flush toilets, ventilated pit latrines can tremendously reduce the environmental contamination by parasites such as roundworms and tapeworms and by a whole range of bacteria and viruses, says tropical disease expert Clive Shiff. Though people don't often talk about them, pit latrines hold the potential for preventing most intestinal diseases, which frequently can be deadly in the developing world.

5. Use bed nets treated with insecticide.
$4.80 per bed net

Baby inside a bed netMalaria is transmitted to humans by the female Anopheles mosquito, which bites almost exclusively at night. Bed nets have been shown to control the spread of the disease in endemic regions. And yet they are underused. Says Clive Shiff: "At least 70 percent of people in the village need to use the net; then you see a major reduction in the transmission of malaria." The nets need to be treated with insecticide to effectively kill mosquitoes and serve as a barrier. Treated or untreated, at just several dollars each, they're a bargain.

6.Treat premature newborns with antiseptic baby wipes or sunflower oil.
$0.30 per treated baby wipe; Sunflower oil: $0.20 per treatment

Premature newbornPreterm babies with a low birthweight are often born with skin that isn't well formed, making them subject to potentially fatal infections, a major cause of neonatal mortality in developing countries. Special kinds of emollients can enhance the function of the skin barrier and reduce the incidence of life-threatening infections. Sunflower oil applied to babies' skin a couple of times a day for a few weeks resulted in a 40 to 55 percent reduction in sepsis, according to research in Egypt and Bangladesh, says neonatal health specialist Gary Darmstadt. And epidemiologist James Tielsch has found that using baby wipes (treated with a quarter percent of diluted antiseptic solution) a few hours after delivery reduced neonatal mortality 28 percent for low-birthweight babies.

7. Use home-based water purification systems.
$0.04 per sachet

Water Purification SystemsMore than 1 billion people in the world don't have access to safe water. The encouraging news: Simple household water treatment can stop the spread of deadly waterborne diseases such as cholera. Water expert Kellogg Schwab points to PUR packets from Procter and Gamble, which are very effective in purifying drinking water in developing countries. The ketchup-sized sachets contain some of the same components (chlorine and flocculent) used to treat water in the U.S. Users merely mix a packet into a bucket containing 10 liters (2.5 gallons) of water. The chlorine kills pathogens, the flocculent causes dirt and contaminants to settle out, and the decontaminated water is then filtered through a cloth before consumption.

8. Increase condom availability.
$1 or less per condom

CondomsTreatment for HIV/AIDS today is much more effective than it was 20 years ago, but it doesn't actually cure the disease, and we don't have a vaccine. That's why the best way to stop the disease remains prevention. Behavior change and condom use can check the global pandemic, says AIDS researcher Chris Beyrer. In Thailand, a free condom campaign reduced the HIV rate in military recruits from 10.4 percent in 1991 to 2 percent a decade later. Unfortunately, shortages of condoms exist in some developing countries that need them the most, and donor countries need to continue to subsidize their cost.

9. Vaccinate poor children against measles.
$0.13 per dose syringe

The measles vaccine is safe, inexpensive and almost 100 percent effective. Yet in many developing countries, only three out of four young children are immunized. (In some of the poorest countries, less than half are.) The kids who don't get immunized also tend to come from the poorest families, and it's the poorest children who are largely at risk of dying from measles, says reproductive health researcher Michael Koenig. As a result, 500,000 to 700,000 children die annually from this preventable disease, and many others suffer lifelong disabilities, including blindness, deafness and brain damage.

10. Breastfeed.
$0

Woman with InfantBreastfeeding is a vital source of nutrition for infants everywhere. In the developing world, the practice can be a matter of life or death. Feeding babies only breast milk for the first six months protects children from infection, especially diarrhea, says nutrition expert Keith West. According to UNICEF, exclusive breastfeeding until six months of age could save the lives of 1.5 million infants every year, and the health and development of millions more would be greatly improved.


SOURCES:

Chris Beyrer, MD, MPH '90, associate professor of Epidemiology, and director, Johns Hopkins Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program; Gary Darmstadt, MD, associate professor of International Health; Michael A. Koenig, PhD, MA, associate professor of Population and Family Health Sciences; R. Bradley Sack, MD, ScD, professor of International Health; Jonathan Samet, MD, MS, chair of Epidemiology, and The Jacob I and Irene B. Fabrikant Professor in Health, Risk, and Society; Kellogg Schwab, PhD, MS, assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences; Clive Shiff, PhD, associate professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology; Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS '73, professor of Epidemiology, International Health and Ophthalmology, and former dean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; James Tielsch, PhD '82, MHS '79, professor of International Health; and Keith P. West Jr., DrPH '87, MPH '79, The George G. Graham Professor in Infant and Child Nutrition.

Note: Costs are estimates and can vary by location.

March 26, 2009 | 11:20 AM Comments  1 comments

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WHO issues pessimistic global tuberculosis report
Related to country: Brazil

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

RIO DE JANEIRO - The number of people infected with both tuberculosis and HIV is twice what researchers previously thought, top health officials said Tuesday. The World Health Organization's annual report on TB, presented in Rio, indicates that there were 1.37 million cases of people with both TB and HIV in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available. About 700,000 people were infected with both in 2006, according to a report released by WHO last year.



Researchers attribute the numbers mostly to more widespread testing and reporting. They say direct information on the HIV status among TB patients is now available from 64 nations — up from just 13 nations in recent years. More reporting is also coming from Africa, where 79 percent of the dual-infection cases were reported.

In 2007, 1.3 million people died from TB, while another 465,000 people who had both TB and HIV died. About 1.5 million people died in 2006 from TB, according to WHO's report last year. It was not clear how many of those who died also were infected with HIV.

WHO researchers said the new data means HIV-positive people are about 20 times more likely than HIV-negative people to develop TB in countries where HIV is at epidemic levels, and between 26 and 37 times more likely to develop TB where HIV prevalence is lower.

In a message to mark World TB Day, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the epidemic is continuing to decline "but the rate of decline is far too slow, and TB still takes a life every 20 seconds."

"Millions of people are benefiting from treatment through coordinated national efforts, but millions more are still missing out," he said in the message released at U.N. headquarters in New York. "Unless we accelerate action, the numbers of those falling ill will continue to grow."

The WHO's annual report had other pessimistic points: an expected $1.6 billion gap in funding needed to fight the disease this year and an increase in the number of cases of drug-resistant TB.

"We have a situation with very little progress, particularly in Africa and Eastern and Central Europe," said Tido von Schoen-Angerer, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders, who was attending the TB conference. "There is no room anywhere in this report for congratulations."

The survey estimates that 9.27 million people around the globe had TB in 2007 — slightly up from 9.24 million in 2006.

That amounts to a per capita rate of 139 per 100,000 people globally, the report states. That pace, a drop of less than 1 percent a year, has continued for the past several years, said Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO's Stop TB program.

He said it would take millennia to wipe out the disease at that rate.

Multiple-drug-resistant cases of TB also rose in 2007 to 500,000. Such cases are more difficult to treat and have a higher rate of deaths.

Aggravating the fight against TB is the global financial crisis.

Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said funding for programs to fight TB will fall $1.6 billion short in 2009, a gap he estimates will reach at least $4 billion in 2010.

"The crisis is severely affecting developing nations," he said. "But countries should realize health costs are an investment for development and not just a strain on budgets."

Asia registered the most TB cases in 2007, with 55 percent, while Africa had 31 percent. Among nations, India had the most cases with 2 million, China had 1.3 million and Indonesia 530,000.

___

Associated Press Writer Edith Lederer contributed to this story from the United Nations in New York.

March 25, 2009 | 12:26 AM Comments  0 comments

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from Rwanda
About this event: 4th World Youth Congress - Quebec City 2008

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Hey folks,
The congress is quickly approaching and i can't wait to meeting you guys!! less than 50 days forward!!! can you imagine? 120 countries youth with a lot to share!
I just want to wish you all good luck in all you are doing today for a better tomorrow!...
"We are The Youth, The Force, The Change, The Present, The Future,..." could you make this list as long as possible? Please feel free to add any other good term about the active youth... (that could be a sort of message to deliver...)
Thank you all!

June 25, 2008 | 4:10 AM Comments  1 comments



Hey folks,
About this event: 4th World Youth Congress - Quebec City 2008

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

I am Herman, a participant from Rwanda (Medical Student) and really believe it will be a great opportunity to meet up with you all... hope we will gain a lot together through this unparalelled opportunity to explore, learn and share... I will show you guys some aspects our famous rwandan traditional dance and other cultural shows (if we get some more time)... I am very excited and can't wait to see you people in about next 100 dayzzzz.... until that time take care!

May 8, 2008 | 8:40 AM Comments  0 comments

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Hey folks,
About this event: 4th World Youth Congress - Quebec City 2008

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

I am Herman, a participant from Rwanda and really believe it will be a great opportunity to meet up with you all... hope we will gain a lot together through this unparalelled opportunity to explore, learn and share... I will show you guys some aspects our famous rwandan traditional dance and other cultural shows (if we get some more time)... I am very excited and can't wait to see you people in about next 100 dayzzzz.... until that time take care!

May 8, 2008 | 8:39 AM Comments  0 comments

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