National HIV/AIDS Summit on September 22 Will Honor Dr. Tony Fauci

WASHINGTON, DC (September 20, 2011) – The nation’s war against HIV/AIDS began 30 years ago with reports that young homosexual men began to die from a new disease that was destroying their immune systems. But rather than simply observe this important milestone, the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research is using the 30^th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic to convene a major policy summit in Washington that will address the “unfinished business” of the HIV/AIDS research community – determining how to match the significant progress in drug discovery with the delivery of state-of-the-art care to every person infected or potentially infected with HIV.

Taking place on September 22, from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM on Capitol Hill (Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 106), the 2011 National HIV/AIDS Summit will bring together an estimated 150 scientists, clinicians, public health leaders and advocates who will draw the roadmap for accelerating the field of “implementation science” in HIV, an area focused on answering key questions that will improve the prevention, early diagnosis and consistent treatment of people with HIV. At this stage of the global response to HIV/AIDS, the research community is increasingly employing implementation science to understand why interventions are not accessed by those who need them and to develop more efficient and cost-effective ways to deliver HIV drugs and treatment services worldwide.

“This National Summit is intended as a call to action around the need to accelerate progress in closing the treatment gap so that all people with HIV can take advantage of the remarkable achievements over the last 30 years that now make it possible to live a near normal lifespan with this disease,” said Veronica Miller, Ph.D., Director of the Forum. “Our goal is to take up the current challenges presented by the HIV epidemic to move the science of prevention, care and treatment forward.”

Of added significance, the summit will pay tribute to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has directed the federal government’s biomedical research efforts against HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic and is now one of the world’s most widely cited scientists for his contributions to HIV disease, including recently moving NIAID funding into HIV/AIDS implementation science. To honor Dr. Fauci, former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop, now 95 years old, will travel to Washington to present the NIAID Director with the C. Everett Koop HIV/AIDS Public Health Leadership Award, an award established in 2010 to recognize distinguished service, vision and leadership in HIV/AIDS research, education and advocacy. Dr. Fauci will then give a national address to policymakers and the HIV/AIDS community reflecting his lessons learned over 30 years in combating HIV/AIDS.

Assessing the Scientific Progress to Date; Defining Immediate Priorities for Implementation
Unlike the myriad meetings looking back at the 30 years of HIV/AIDS, the 2011 National Summit will not only chart the scientific progress to date in controlling the HIV epidemic but will focus on the current challenge for the scientific community -- matching the advancements in treatment with the delivery of care to every person infected or potentially infected with the virus.

Starting with a keynote address by Martin S. Hirsh, MD, Professor of Infectious Disease and Immunology at Harvard Medical School and a seminal figure in the development of multi-drug therapy for HIV, the summit will feature a prestigious panel of experts that will address the state of the science and identify the research gaps that are impeding further progress. The panelists will feature:
· Roger Pomerantz, Senior Vice President and Head of Infectious Disease at Merck & Co., Inc.
· James Curran, MD, Dean of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University
· Lynda Dee, President of AIDS Action Baltimore
· Cornelius Baker, National Policy Advisor for the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Coalition
· Sharon Hillier, PhD, a leader in HIV/AIDS clinical research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Because an estimated 56,300 Americans become infected with HIV every year and the disease has reached epidemic levels in developing countries, a second panel will identify the major impediments to effective HIV care in the U.S. and globally, including the growing shortage of HIV medicine specialists in the U.S., the need for sustained funding for the distribution of HIV medicines both in the U.S. and globally, and effective ways to reach, diagnose and treat both persons who are infected and those who are not yet diagnosed. Moderated by John G. Bartlett, MD, Professor of Infectious Disease at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, this panel will comprise:
· Dr. Paul Stoffels, MD, Company Group Chairman, Global Research & Development, Pharmaceuticals at Johnson & Johnson
· Mark R. Dybul, MD, formerly U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator leading the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and currently Co-Director of the Global Health Law Program at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law
· Gregory Pappas, PhD, Director of Washington, DC’s HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Disease and Tuberculosis Administration
· Christine Lubinski, Vice President of Global Health for the Infectious Disease Society of America
· Art Reingold, MD, Professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health and a leading researcher and authority on HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and developing countries.

Following the National Summit, Dr. Fauci will be honored by Congressional leaders and officials of the Obama Administration at a reception at the U.S. Capitol from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM. The reception will take place in Room HVC-201 of the Capitol Visitors Center.

About the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research
Now part of the University of California (UC), Berkeley School of Public Health and based in Washington, DC, the Forum was founded in 1997 as the outgrowth of a White House initiative. Representing government, industry, patient advocates, healthcare providers, foundations and academia, the Forum is a public/private partnership that organizes roundtables and issues reports on a range of global HIV/AIDS issues. Forum recommendations have changed the ways that clinical trials are conducted, accelerated the delivery of new classes of drugs, heightened awareness of TB/HIV co-infection, and helped to spur national momentum toward universal testing for HIV. http:// www.hivforum.org

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

Countries worldwide are saving children’s and mothers’ lives at a faster pace

International efforts to address child and maternal health challenges appear to be working, yet few countries will meet international targets for child mortality or maternal mortality.

SEATTLE – With four years left for countries to achieve international targets for saving the lives of mothers and children, more than half the countries around the world are seeing promising trends in lowering child mortality and maternal mortality, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

In countries throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America, declines in child mortality and maternal mortality have sped up over the past decade. This has reduced the number of deaths in children under the age of 5 from 11.6 million deaths in 1990 to an estimated 7.2 million in 2011and it has lowered the number of deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth from 409,100 in 1990 to 273,500 deaths in 2011.

The trends indicate that efforts to educate more women, to prevent infectious diseases and to implement other targeted health programs in developing countries are having an impact. They also show, though, that few countries are going to achieve international targets for improving child and maternal health. An estimated 31 developing countries will achieve Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4), which calls for a two-thirds reduction in the child mortality rate between 1990 and 2015, and 13 developing countries will achieve Millennium Development Goal 5, which calls for a three-fourths reduction in maternal mortality ratio over the same period. Of those countries, nine will achieve both goals: China, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Maldives, Mongolia, Peru, Syria, and Tunisia. The study, “Progress toward Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 on maternal and child mortality: an updated systematic analysis,” is published in The Lancet.

“If the world is going to achieve these goals, we need to see immediate, concerted action on the part of governments, donors and bilateral agencies to move these trends in the right direction,” said Dr. Rafal Lozano, Professor of Global Health at IHME and the paper’s lead author. “We know that accelerated progress is possible because we are seeing it already.”

A significant number of countries have seen 5% declines per year in child mortality or higher, twice the global rate, over the past decade, including Cambodia, Ecuador, Rwanda, Malaysia , and Vietnam. In maternal mortality, Kenya, Morocco, Zambia, and Zimbabwe all had declines of more than 8% annually over the past decade. Even Afghanistan, which has one of the worst maternal death rates in the world, has had a 4.9% annual decline in maternal mortality since 2000, after increasing 2.2% annually over the previous decade.

Part of the decline in maternal mortality in much of sub-Saharan Africa is due to improved prevention and treatment efforts for HIV/AIDS, the researchers note. In looking for other key drivers for the mortality declines, the researchers point to global health programs, such as the scale-up of insecticide-treated bed nets in countries with a high malaria burden, and to country-level programs, such as the government of India’s ongoing investment in rural health clinics. In 2010, IHME published a paper showing that educational attainment among women of reproductive age accounted for 51% of the decline in child mortality.

“We must not let the focus on MDGs detract from what has been real and impressive progress with child and maternal survival, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Alan Lopez, Head of the University of Queensland School of Population Health and one of the report’s co-authors. “It is critical that this progress be maintained and that lessons learned from this success be rapidly transferred to other countries where progress has been less impressive.”

One area that needs attention is neonatal deaths. Even as mortality rate in children under 5 fell by 2.2% annually, the mortality rate for infants during the first week of life only declined by 1.7% annually.

“The difference between neonatal mortality and overall mortality in children under 5 might seem small to someone outside of global health, but it’s worrisome because it can be a sign of other problems in the health system,” said Dr. Haidong Wang, Assistant Professor of Global Health at IHME and one of the paper’s co-authors. “If countries can’t make sure that children survive during that first week, they may not be effectively providing prenatal care to mothers, good obstetrical care during the birth or important follow-up care.”

For these new estimates of child and maternal mortality, researchers used the most recent data and advancements in statistical tools to provide policymakers with more precise information as the world intensifies efforts to achieve international targets for maternal and child health. The authors acknowledge that the new estimates may lead to some confusion among policymakers, who have seen a series of analyses on maternal and child deaths in recent years, including two previous sets of estimates from IHME. For example, maternal death numbers for 2005 were estimated to be 546,000 by the United Nations in a 2007 study and are now estimated to have been 347,000 in this study, a difference of 35%. Child deaths track more closely, in large part because of the larger amount of data available over a long period of time.

“People have argued that we should not be updating these numbers every year, but we think that as new data are available and as methods are being improved it is crucial to show governments, funders and the public at large how much progress is being made,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, Director of IHME and one of the paper’s co-authors. “Decisions are being made today that could literally mean the difference between thousands of lives being saved or more women and children dying. That is why improvements in data gathering and measurement are important for guiding policymakers as well as holding them accountable.”

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research center at the University of Washington that provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world's most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them. IHME makes this information freely available so that policymakers have the evidence they need to make informed decisions about how to allocate resources to best improve population health. For the report and for more information about IHME, please visit http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

BURUNDI BECOMES 10th AFRICAN COUNTRY TO PROTECT CHILDREN FROM PNEUMONIA THROUGH IMMUNISATION

Pneumococcal vaccines will help provide healthy future for young population

Geneva, 16 September 2011 – The Republic of Burundi will next week accelerate its fight against pneumonia, the world’s biggest killer of children under five, when it becomes the tenth African country to introduce new pneumococcal vaccines.

Every year, an estimated 16,000 children in Burundi die from pneumococcal disease, the main cause of pneumonia.

“Pneumonia is still killing too many of our children, but with this new vaccine we aim to reverse this tragedy and set our children on course for a healthy future,” said Dr Sabine Ntakarutimana, Burundi’s Minister of Health.

Globally, more than half a million children die every year from pneumococcal disease. An estimated 90% of these deaths occur in the developing world and the deaths are especially tragic because pneumococcal disease is preventable through vaccination.

By 2015, the GAVI Alliance (the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) plans to have supported the introduction of these vaccines in more than 40 developing countries. Burundi will be the fourteenth developing country to introduce the vaccine with GAVI support.

“The introduction of pneumococcal vaccines into Burundi is a solid long-term investment for the country’s social and economic potential,” said GAVI Alliance CEO, Dr Seth Berkley. Today is a great day for the children of Burundi. GAVI's support for pneumococcal vaccine means that children can get this powerful cost-effective vaccine wherever they live”.

As well as preventing premature death, the use of vaccines also reduces the number of clinic visits, hospitalisations and permanent disability. Parents are able to spend less money on treatment for sick children and have more time for productive work.

In recent months, the Central African Republic, Gambia, Cameroon, Benin and Rwanda have also introduced the new pneumococcal vaccine. This means that since it was first introduced in Nicaragua in December 2010, a total of 14 developing countries will have introduced the pneumococcal vaccine into their routine immunisation programmes with support from the GAVI Alliance.

The roll-out of the pneumococcal vaccines in countries such as Burundi has been made possible through an innovative finance mechanism pioneered by GAVI called the Advance Market Commitment (AMC).

With US$ 1.5 billion from Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Russian Federation, Norway, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a commitment of US$ 1.3 billion from GAVI, the AMC allowed the acceleration of production capacity by the two manufacturers who currently produce the vaccines.

Without the AMC, it might have taken up to 15 years for appropriate pneumococcal vaccines to reach the developing world.

Pneumococcal vaccines, once fully rolled out globally, are expected to save seven million lives by 2030.

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The GAVI Alliance is a public-private global health partnership committed to saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing access to immunization in poor countries. The Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry in both industrialised and developing countries, research and technical agencies, civil society organizations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private philanthropists. Since it was launched at the World Economic Forum in 2000, GAVI has prevented more than five million future deaths and helped protect 288 million children with new and underused vaccines.

For more information, please visit: http://www.gavialliance.org/support/nvs/pneumococcal/

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.