The World Health Organization (WHO) says the global campaign to eliminate measles is in trouble as progress toward that goal has stalled. WHO reports about 145,700 children died from measles in 2013, an increase of 23,700 from the previous year.

WHO says a decline in routine measles vaccine coverage has resulted in large outbreaks of this highly contagious disease in recent years. It also has stalled global efforts to eradicate measles by 2015.

The U.N. agency says measles immunization efforts are hampered by lack of money, weak health systems and not enough awareness of the importance of vaccinating children against this killer disease. It notes it only costs about one dollar to vaccinate a child.

WHO estimates 15.6 million deaths have been prevented through vaccination between 2000 and 2013.

Dr. Robert Perry of the WHO Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, says these huge reductions in mortality are tapering off because of poor vaccine coverage.

"So, now we are in a crossroads," he said. "We need adequate funding. We need to find ways to increase the first dose coverage and to increase the uptake of a second dose in routine as well as conducting high quality campaigns or we are likely to see more outbreaks like we have seen in the last few years."

The World Health Organization reports in 2013 large outbreaks occurred in China, Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria. It reports more than 70 percent of global measles deaths occurred last year in just six countries - India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Perry says conflict-ridden Iraq and Syria and neighboring countries are having serious problems with measles outbreaks.

"These are countries, especially like Syria and Jordan that had very good coverage, had essentially eliminated measles and blocked any measles transmission," he said. "Because of the conflict in Syria, there has been huge population movement, so now there is - the population that used to be all vaccinated now is not vaccinated in Syria and they have moved to other countries. So, now these countries have big populations of kids that are not being reached. And, the conflict in Iraq and Syria is having a bad effect on the ability of teams to reach children. So, there is a lot of measles in those countries."

Perry notes conflict in Africa is having a similar effect on efforts to reduce death from measles.

He says the conflict between the government and Boko Haram militants in northeast Nigeria is creating great instability and making large vaccination campaigns virtually impossible.

Although Central African Republic also is hard hit by conflict, he says it was possible to mount a successful measles vaccination campaign there last year. But he adds a number of areas were off limits because of fighting, so many children have been missed.

source: http://www.voanews.com

A major new Series on health and ageing, published in "The Lancet", warns that unless health systems find effective strategies to address the problems faced by an ageing world population, the growing burden of chronic disease will greatly affect the quality of life of older people. As people across the world live longer, soaring levels of chronic illness and diminished wellbeing are poised to become a major global public health challenge.

Effective health interventions increasing life expectancy

Worldwide, life expectancy of older people continues to rise. By 2020, for the first time in history, the number of people aged 60 years and older will outnumber children younger than 5 years. By 2050, the world's population aged 60 years and older is expected to total 2 billion, up from 841 million today. Eighty per cent of these older people will be living in low-income and middle-income countries.

The increase in longevity, especially in high-income countries (HICs), has been largely due to the decline in deaths from cardiovascular disease (stroke and ischaemic heart disease), mainly because of simple, cost-effective strategies to reduce tobacco use and high blood pressure, and improved coverage and effectiveness of health interventions.

Challenge of ageing healthily

However, although people are living longer, they are not necessarily healthier than before – nearly a quarter (23%) of the overall global burden of death and illness is in people aged over 60, and much of this burden is attributable to long-term illness caused by diseases such as cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, heart disease, musculoskeletal diseases (such as arthritis and osteoporosis), and mental and neurological disorders.

This long-term burden of illness and diminished wellbeing affects patients, their families, health systems, and economies, and is forecast to accelerate. For example, latest estimates indicate that the number of people with dementia is expected to rise from 44 million now, to 135 million by 2050.

"Deep and fundamental reforms of health and social care systems will be required," says Dr John Beard, Director of the Department of Ageing and Life Course at the WHO, and co-leader of the Series with Dr Ties Boerma and Dr Somnath Chatterji, also from WHO. "But we must be careful that these reforms do not reinforce the inequities that drive much of the poor health and functional limitation we see in older age."

"While some interventions will be universally applicable, it will be important that countries monitor the health and functioning of their ageing populations to understand health trends and design programmes that meet the specific needs identified", adds Dr Ties Boerma, Director of the Department of Health Statistics and Informatics at WHO. "Cross-national surveys such as the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE), the Gallup World Poll, and other longitudinal cohorts studies of ageing in Brazil, China, India, and South Korea, are beginning to redress the balance and provide the evidence for policy, but much more remains to be done."

Strategies must go beyond health sector

However, the responsibility for improving quality of life for the world's older people goes far beyond the health sector, say the Series authors.

Strategies are needed that better prevent and manage chronic conditions by extending affordable health care to all older adults and take into consideration the physical and social environment. Examples include changing policies to encourage older adults to remain part of the workforce for longer (e.g., removing tax disincentives to work past retirement age), emphasising low-cost disease prevention and early detection rather than treatment (eg, reducing salt intake and increasing uptake of vaccines), making better use of technology (eg, mobile clinics for rural populations), and training health-care staff in the management of multiple chronic conditions.

According to Dr Chatterji, also from the Department of Health Statistics and Information Systems at WHO, "Collectively, we need to look beyond the costs commonly associated with ageing to think about the benefits that an older, healthier, happier, and more productive older population can bring to society as a whole.

source: http://www.who.int/

Scientists involved in trials of experimental drug treatments for the Ebola epidemic in west Africa should not be compelled to withhold them from some patients, says the World Health Organisation, despite objections from the US that it is the only way to be sure they work.

The Food and Drug Administration, which licences medicines in the US, believes the Ebola drug trials should be set up in west Africa on the "gold standard" model designed to provide a conclusive answer as to whether they have an effect. The FDA says the trials should be randomised and controlled – which means giving experimental drugs to one group of patients, selected at random, but not to others, so death rates and other outcomes in the two groups can be compared.

Other scientists, including those at the University of Oxford who are currently preparing for trials in the epidemic region, say that with a death rate of 70% and fear and suspicion of hospitals running high in the three worst affected countries in west Africa, it is not possible to run the sort of trial that would be standard in the UK or US. Instead, they are designing alternatives that will reach an answer but without depriving some patients of a drug that might possibly help them survive. The virus has claimed more than 4,800 lives since the outbreak began in December.

A meeting of the WHO's ethics working group has supported that view, concluding that an alternative approach may be preferable in the very difficult circumstances of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

"In the context of the current Ebola epidemic in west Africa – where the disease has a high fatality rate, and there are tensions between local communities, governments and healthcare workers – it may not be acceptable or feasible to conduct randomised placebo-controlled trials. Some members of the working group argued that in certain situations, it may also be unethical to do so," say the formal minutes of the meeting.

A trial without a control group that fails to come up with a clear result to show whether a drug is helping or harming patients could also be considered unethical, the group acknowledged. But, it goes on, representatives at the ethics meeting from Guinea and Liberia, "expressed their view that individually randomised placebo-controlled trials would not be acceptable to local communities because such trials would deny a new experimental treatment to some participants."

Trudie Lang, professor of global health research at the University of Oxford and part of a team working to get drug trials started in west Africa with unprecedented speed using funding from the Wellcome Trust, said she did not believe the traditional gold-standard randomised controlled model was possible in the Ebola epidemic. "We have had health workers murdered. There is very fragile trust in the health systems," she said. At the meeting, a doctor in charge of treatment centres said she would not put her staff at risk by denying drugs to some of the patients but not others. It could be particularly difficult if some members of a family were randomly selected to receive the experimental treatment while others were not.

Lang and colleagues are designing trials that will still come up with the answers – for instance by comparing survival rates now at a specific treatment centre with survival rates once all patients are given a certain drug. As there are several potential Ebola drugs being rushed into production, it may also be possible to compare one against another. "It is not a lower scientific standard - it is just a different scientific approach which is used in other settings, such as cancer trials. This design works when you are looking for a large change in outcome, so in Ebola, as in cancer, we are looking for a large increase in survival. In this situation it is appropriate not to randomise," she said.

But the US regulatory body does not agree. Speaking at the American Society for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine meeting in New Orleans, Dr Edward Cox of the FDA said randomised controlled trials (RCTs) would be a "very informative" way to find out about the effect of the new drugs although there was "no question there are challenges in implementing such a design in a setting like west Africa".

While he accepted that there was "a range of opinions" about the appropriateness of RCTs, he said that giving patients who did not get drugs the best possible standard of care, with fluids and blood transfusions, "can have a very positive impact on outcomes in patients with Ebola virus disease".

"This will be challenging but it is very important to be able to understand what these products are doing," he said. "If we can quickly figure out which products are helping patients, it will be possible then to move forward to scaling those products up and making them available to more patients."

There are several drugs in the pipeline that scientists hope to trial in west Africa, all of them in early stages of development and some of which have not yet been tested in humans. Some are in pill form, while others would have to be given as injections or infusions and they work in a variety of ways. Most were designed to act against other viruses than Ebola. No announcement has yet been made as to which drug will be trialled first, but the hope is to get more than one going before the end of the year.

source: http://www.theguardian.com

The provision of numerous cards, including the Healthy Indonesia Card and Smart Indonesia Card, to disadvantaged people across the country is the first step towards improving their welfare, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said.

"This is just the first step towards improving their welfare," President Jokowi stated while launching the Healthy Indonesia Card and Smart Indonesia Card at the Central Post Office here on Monday.

On the occasion, the president was accompanied by Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Puan Maharani, Social Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa, and Minister of Basic and Intermediate Education and Culture Anies Baswedan, among others.

Here, Jokowi pointed out that improving public health services at hospitals and public health clinics were among other measures to be taken in this regard.

He further added that the distribution of these cards was expected to reach 19 districts/municipalities and nine provinces by the end of 2014.

Moreover, the head of state also explained that funding for non-cash assistance programs in the future will be increased and is expected to reach all provinces in the country. In keeping with this goal, he urged the public to make proper use of these cards.

According to the president, the government will gradually launch the programs of Prosperous Family Saving, Smart Indonesia, and Healthy Indonesia for the benefit of the 15.5 million disadvantaged people.

Meanwhile, Secretary of the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), Bambang Widianto, noted that the government had distributed Prosperous Family Cards (KKS), SIM Cards, Smart Indonesia Cards (KIP) and Healthy Indonesia Cards (KIS) to 1 million disadvantaged families in the preliminary stages of the programs.

"All these programs are part of a new era in the improvement of the welfare of disadvantaged people through savings accounts, furtherance of education and provision of health services," Widianto remarked.

He affirmed that the government had distributed KIPs to 157,943 of 1 million school-age children and KISs to 4,451,508 individuals in the preliminary stages of the programs.

source: http://www.antaranews.com

The rapid propagation in recent years of infectious diseases such as Malaria, Chikungunya and even Ebola is one more example of how climate change threatens global health security.

"Climatic changes also affect temperatures and regional climates, the conditions on which, for instance, in the continent of Africa, mosquitoes may spread from one region to another," Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) , told Efe news agency on Friday in a telephone interview from Nairobi.

The UNEP chief spoke ahead of Sunday's release in Copenhagen of the Fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"Diseases will move as the world warms and we may in many parts of the world indeed see either the return or the arrival of diseases that in recent times have simply not occurred in those regions," he said.

That development, he said, will add "extra stress to the health infrastructure, the health system and ultimately the health and well-being of these populations in those countries".

Awareness of the link between climate and health has prompted environmental scientists to forge closer links with international bodies focused on health, Steiner said.

"That is why my colleague, Margaret Chan, who heads the World Health Organisation, convened a meeting in Geneva on climate change and health," he said.

"And her conclusion was that a climate agreement in Paris is not just only a climate change agreement, it is also a global health agreement, because clearly the connection between environmental change arise from global warming and greater health risk factors is very direct in many different respects," Steiner said.

World leaders are due to meet in Paris next year with the aim of producing a new pact on controlling emissions of greenhouse gases to take the place of the Kyoto Protocol.

Besides the effect on climate, carbon emissions also cause direct damage to human health, according to the UNEP director.

Emissions of carbon and other pollutants are "responsible for approximately seven million premature deaths every year worldwide", Steiner said. "That is more by far more than the combined premature deaths arising from HIV/AIDS and malaria combined."

"We need to, first of all, get a clearer scientific understanding on how these linkages (between climate change and health) are occurring, secondly to anticipate its impact and thirdly, to put in place the right policy and response measures," Steiner said.

There are, he said, "large economies such as Brazil which has taken significant steps in terms of, for instance, the main sources of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide in this case arising from deforestation".

"Brazil has made a tremendous contribution by reducing deforestation, perhaps one of the most significant steps in moving away from a business as usual scenario that we had 10 years ago," Steiner said.

He also offered praise for Nicaragua, which he described as being "on the forefront of mainstreaming renewable energy technology in its power and electricity generator sector".

"We see in the Latin American region significant investments, for instance, in low carbon and building infrastructure efficiencies happening from Colombia to Peru," Steiner added.

"So I think what we are seeing in the year 2014 is a recognition that every country has an interest in acting on the threat of climate change, doing as much as it can within the means available to it domestically and counting on the international climate agreement and also green climate financing for funds to further assist countries in moving faster and more ambitiously," he said.

The 20th session of the UN Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, known as COP20, will be held Dec 1-12 in Peru's capital.

The Lima gathering is supposed to produce a draft accord that can be signed next year in Paris.

"We have, in a sense, the choice now to make a judgment. We face an enormous risk that if we don't move into a low carbon future now that we would have lost that choice to even make it 20 to 50 years down the line," Steiner said.

source: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/

A delegation of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) conducted a field visit to Indonesia from 22 to 24 October to see how the country has implemented an integrated and decentralized response to AIDS that has accelerated the strategic use of HIV treatment, increased testing and counselling and strengthened HIV prevention services for key populations.

Indonesia demonstrates how a multisectoral approach to HIV, combined with consistent leadership at all levels, is helping the country to stabilize the epidemic, accelerate treatment and provide innovative and comprehensive HIV services. The country's AIDS response is guided by an investment strategy, developed with support from UNAIDS, which focuses resources and efforts where they are most needed.

"Indonesia's response shows that cross-sectoral engagement and leadership—including impressive and vibrant civil society involvement—is critical for turning strategies into action," said UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Jan Beagle, who was leading the visit. "As we look towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030, continued commitment at all levels will be key to effective impact—for AIDS and the broader health and development agenda."
According to national estimates, 638 000 people are living with HIV across Indonesia, and latest national data show that new infections are stabilizing, although there are increases among men who have sex with men. Indonesia's epidemic is largely concentrated among key populations, including sex workers and their clients, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and transgender people. While national HIV prevalence is low, a higher burden of HIV is found among key populations and in certain geographic areas, such as urban settings and in the Papua provinces.

The delegation, which included members from Australia, Brazil, El Salvador, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Luxembourg, Ukraine and Zimbabwe, as well as the PCB NGO delegation and UNAIDS Cosponsors, met with a range of national partners, including senior government representatives at the national, provincial and city levels, the National AIDS Commission, development partners, civil society organizations and the United Nations Country Team. The delegation also visited several sites to see examples of scaling up access to HIV testing and treatment and ways of addressing stigma and discrimination.

During a meeting with the PCB delegation, the Acting Governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, highlighted the city government's response to HIV in the capital. The Acting Governor underscored the significant investments that the local government has made to HIV programmes, including increasing access to HIV treatment, and expressed his commitment to prioritize health, education, employment and housing for people living with HIV, ensuring that no one is left behind.

Over the past years, Indonesia has increased its domestic financing to 42% of its total spending on AIDS. Throughout the visit, political commitment to further increase domestic funding was emphasized at all levels. However, government officials also stressed that international financing remains critical to scaling up the response, in particular for accelerating access to HIV treatment.

Community-friendly services key to a sustainable response

At a gathering of civil society groups, including networks of people living with and most affected by HIV, the delegation was presented with an overview of how youth organizations are mobilizing young Indonesians, as part of the ACT 2015 initiative, to ensure that HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights remain a priority for the country's new government and in the next development era.

Site visits to a number of public and private HIV service-providing institutions in Jakarta and Denpasar showcased how community-friendly and community-led services are improving uptake of services and reducing stigma and discrimination. Examples included the country's main HIV treatment referral hospital in Jakarta, which runs programmes to sensitize staff on the specific needs of key populations at higher risk, and the Yayasan Kertipraja Foundation and the Bali Medika Clinic in Denpasar, where a number of programmes are led by key populations and provide easy-to-access services after work hours and on Saturdays. As well as increasing demand among key populations, such programmes have also led to early uptake of HIV treatment. The National AIDS Commission, with support from UNAIDS, is looking at how to further replicate and scale up such models across the country.

source: http://www.unaids.org/

When Nila Djuwita Anfasa Moeloek walked out onto the State Palace lawn last Sunday afternoon as Indonesia's new health minister, it was an introduction that was five years overdue.

In an exclusive interview with the Jakarta Globe at her home immediately following the announcement, she says she was as surprised as many observers were to learn of her selection as health minister. Observers had largely ruled her name out of the running, with attention focused instead on Hasbullah Thabrany, a public health professor and one of the national health insurance scheme's (BPJS) principal architects; Ali Ghufron Mukti, a Health Ministry insider; Fahmi Idris, BPJS' current director; and Akmal Taher, a former director general of health services.

Nila previously served as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Special Envoy for the Millennium Development Goals, and she succeeds Nafsiah Mboi, who was sworn as health minister on July 14, 2012, after her predecessor, Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih, unexpectedly succumbed to cancer.

Nila says she first learned on Friday that she had been short-listed when President Joko Widodo sent her a text message asking her to come to the State Palace on Sunday. "He asked me to wear a white shirt," she says.

"The last time I spoke with [President Joko] in person [prior to last Friday's text message], was on August 17," during an Independence Day celebration, Nila says.

Although many observers had hoped Nila would be selected, she had largely been discounted for reasons of history. She was previously short-listed — and according to credible reports, selected — to head up the Health Ministry in 2009, but was unexpectedly bumped just hours prior to announcement. The reason, according to leaks from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's office: Nila had failed a psychometric test, suggesting she would have difficulty performing her duties as minister under pressure.

"That's complete nonsense," Nila says of the allegation. "I'm an ophthalmological surgeon. I use some of the smallest instruments in medicine to operate on people's eyes, healing and restoring their vision. Of course I perform well under pressure. My career provides ample evidence of that."

Many believe the last-minute substitution of Endang for Nila in 2009 was rooted in the fact that Nila's husband is Faried Anfasa Moeloek, a staunch anti-tobacco advocate who previously served as health minister between 1998 and 1999.

Learning curve

Nila is no outsider to the nation's health system — or its challenges. As special envoy for the MDGs, Nila used her position's operating budget to create Pencerah Nusantara, a now-nominally nongovernmental organization (despite its decidedly governmental origins) that deploys interdisciplinary teams of young doctors, nurses, public health practitioners and nutritionists to seven remote districts, where the teams live and work collaboratively with underserved communities.

Pencerah Nusantara's teams are charged with revitalizing Indonesia's ageing system of primary health care centers, or puskesmas. This mission, launched under Nafsiah's tenure, was greeted with suspicion verging on hostility by the then-health minister, who would remind the teams in closed-door meetings that any attempt at "revitalization" was to be conducted under the auspices of her own strategic leadership — and not as counterpoint to it.

Nila faces a steep learning curve during her first weeks in office. She will have to quickly assess unaddressed challenges at the Health Ministry, while simultaneously absorbing and adapting the president's ambitious set of policy priorities to the political reality of administering one of Indonesia's largest and oldest civilian bureaucracies.

Confidential work plan

Prior to the announcement of Nila as health minister at the State Palace on Sunday, the Jakarta Globe obtained a confidential work plan, drafted by a sub-group of Joko's transition team, outlining the administration's policy priorities for the Health Ministry.

During the interview, Nila abided by Joko's injunction for ministers in his incoming cabinet to refrain from commenting on policies and programs — a measure that would appear equally aimed to protect the president's agenda, as well as the reputation of many like Nila, who appeared to have been caught by surprise.

Given her reluctance to discuss programs, the Jakarta Globe could not determine whether Nila had read the transition team's work plan, or was familiar with the points in it. Similarly, the Jakarta Globe was unable to determine whether Nila had previously endorsed the document or offered input on its contents prior to her selection as minister.

The document was produced with the input of one of Nila's close associates, who is involved in Pencerah Nusantara and whose anonymity was requested for this article.

Primary care systems

The transition team's work plan calls for a massive scale-up over the coming years of a model resembling Pencerah Nusantara — which the NGO only began implementing as a pilot in 2013.

Prior to Nila's appearance at the State Palace, an official close to the incoming minister expressed confidence that Pencerah Nusantara would serve as the Health Ministry's implementing partner, rolling out a program of "integrated primary health care and community-based collaboration ... in 101 primary health care centers" across the archipelago.

The transition team plans further call for scaling a model fitting the description of Pencerah Nusantara to Indonesia's remaining 7,000 primary health care centers between 2016 and 2019. Health experts say such a plan could meet resistance from those in the ministry for reasons ranging from cost to evidence-based efficacy.

Asked directly about these plans, Nila equivocates: "We will consider something like [Pencerah Nusantara], but plans are not fixed yet."

"I need to wait and discuss any future programs with the president and his cabinet," she adds.

If a program resembling Pencerah Nusantara were to be scaled nationally, it would likely involve diverting current or future professionals enrolled in the government's PTT program, which provides scholarships for doctors and nurses on condition of their placement and practice in remote areas for three years or more following graduation.

Also unclear is the question of funding such an expensive program on a national scale.

Data monitoring

According to the transition team work plan obtained by the Jakarta Globe, the minister of health will be tasked with developing an integrated system for monitoring location-based performance data of the ministry's initiatives in the field — and reporting them to the president's situation room.

It is not immediately clear what performance metrics the president intends to monitor, or how it intends to mandate their reporting in real-time, given the well-known difficulties that the ministry's monitoring and evaluation mandate involves in the era of decentralization.

Coordination between national and provincial-level authorities within the Health Ministry will likely be a challenge, due to regional autonomy laws enacted after 1998 with the dissolution of the Suharto dictatorship.

Health card scheme

Within the next year, the ministry will pilot a Health Card scheme in seven districts and cities with the goal of enrolling one million new households, according to the transition team work plan. This scheme was initially touted on the campaign trail by Joko, who introduced an identical program while governor of Jakarta. Under the scheme, card holders will be able to access benefits under BPJS, which began its rollout in January of this year.

Critics, however, say the president's Health Card plan sets up yet another parallel system and adds barriers to accessing health care, particularly for Indonesians who are economically disadvantaged or underdocumented, such as migrants.

Asked to defend the president's Health Card plan against these specific criticisms, Nila declined to comment.

Another challenge that Nila confronts as minister will be the question of ensuring health care coverage for Indonesians overseas. The nation's health care law provides a guarantee that all Indonesians — irrespective of where they live — are entitled to access health care, but no provisions currently exist to ensure this entitlement is met.

It is also not immediately clear how the president's plans for health cards and expanded access to the national health insurance scheme will be extended, as promised on the campaign trail, to Indonesians working abroad — as the Philippine government guarantees for its citizens abroad.

HIV and AIDS funding

Indonesia, one of only three countries in the Asia-Pacific region that is seeing a trend of increased HIV infections, faces a $30 million funding gap in its fight against HIV and AIDS — due in part to the imminent and long-planned withdrawal of the Global Fund, and partly due to legislators' lack of commitment to the nation's five-year strategic plan to combat HIV and AIDS.

While the domestic budget for tackling HIV and AIDS has increased from $27 million in 2010 to $37 million this year, the current funding gap is estimated at about $30 million, and it is expected to increase to about $175 million by 2020.

Asked specifically what she plans to do, as minister, to plug the nation's HIV and AIDS funding gap, Nila says: "The Global Fund — I don't know; I think you will have to ask Nafsiah?"

While the transition team work plan obtained by the Jakarta Globe does reference increased efforts to respond to HIV and AIDS as a national priority, it contains no specifics.

Regarding efforts to broaden the resource base for the national response to HIV and AIDS, as well as other diseases, the plan only obliquely references "non-budget funding options," as well as consideration of ways to "tax drugs and medical devices [without] adding to the burden of health care costs."

Family planning

The transition team document appears to be silent regarding the administration's plans for integrating family planning into the national health insurance scheme. It is similarly mute on any plans the administration may have for the National Family Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN).

Asked whether she will prioritize finding a replacement for Fasli Jalal, who serves as BKKBN's current chief, Nila declines to comment, except to say that she foresees greater "integration" of BKKBN within the Health Ministry — a verb likely to raise eyebrows at BKKBN, which for decades has existed as a standalone agency with a nominal reporting relationship to the health minister.

Nila adds, however, that "population is very important to the vision and mission of the Health Ministry."

Transparency and accountability

There may never have been a more precarious era in which to serve as Health Minister than the present. Nila bears ultimate responsibility for ensuring clear, accurate and timely monitoring of a variety of agencies — among them BKKBN and BPJS — that, by law, have some form of reporting relationship to the minister of health, but whose operations are not under her control.

Nila faces the unenviable task of ensuring, for example, that auditors from the national health insurance scheme's independent oversight board are able to access the data they need to detect fraud and identify supply and demand gaps that BPJS' operational arm must plan to address.

Ensuring transparency and accountability at BPJS may be complicated by the fact that the organization is effectively run as an independent fiefdom by Fahmi Idris, an erstwhile contender for Nila's job who could harbor sour grapes. One of the only levers of power the Health Minister has at her disposal to compel action at BPJS is something of a nuclear option: withholding funding for BPJS' operations entirely.

Nila also faces the challenge of effecting an internal cultural shift at the Health Ministry towards greater transparency and accountability.

Although Nila generally enjoys a reputation among international and domestic partners as a credible and competent actor, many will want to see some sign of good faith demonstrating commitment to transparency and accountability; hopes for the same under her predecessor's tenure were, official avowals aside, slowly deflated.

When Nafsiah Mboi left the National AIDS Commission in 2012 to assume the office of Health Minister, the reputation that followed her — "fearless" seemed to be the universally invoked description — lasted longer than may have been deserved, some observers say.

"She's fearless — except when the data tells a story she doesn't like," one observer, who spoke to the Jakarta Globe on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said.

"Naf tried to suppress the increase in Indonesia's maternal mortality ratio for about a year," another expert familiar with the matter, who also spoke to the Jakarta Globe on condition of anonymity, said.

"She kept rejecting the numbers, saying 'This isn't acceptable', and sending them back to be recalculated with different methods —and often the numbers would come back higher!"

Indonesia's official maternal mortality ratio now stands at 359 dead mothers for every 100,000 live births, far higher than the nation's self-set target of 102 by 2015 and a substantial increase from 223 in 2007.

Nila will also have to rehabilitate the Health Ministry's reputation among civil society organizations as a transparent authority for ensuring accountability. In another now-infamous story related to the Jakarta Globe by witnesses of the event, during a meeting with international partners whom Nafsiah apparently presumed did not speak Bahasa Indonesia, the then-health minister admonished members of an Indonesian NGO not to disclose, in the presence of foreigners, reports that women living with HIV were being forcibly sterilized — for reasons of national pride and standing.

The Jakarta Globe was unable to determine what, if any, action Nafsiah took on the reports of forced sterilizations that she allegedly attempted to suppress.

Discussion is already beginning to circulate among the nation's health professionals about a series of so-called "think tanks" (an apparent misconstruction of "brainstorming sessions") that the new minister plans to hold.

International and domestic partners of the Health Ministry will likely hope to see Nila include the ministry's so-called "echelon one" officials in meetings with civil society organizations, as a signal to both that she expects her ministry to be responsive to its constituents.

However, if the new minister does decide to require her top officials' participation, it may come with resentment as a political cost internally.

Discussions between top officials at the Ministry of Health and civil society have not always gone smoothly.

During the Indonesian Maternal Health Caucus, a side-event of the Women Deliver conference held in Kuala Lumpur in 2013, the ministry's chief officer for maternal health, believing herself to have been singled out as the target of "persecution ... [and] unfair attacks," attempted to literally shout down civil society participants who presumed the forum had been arranged as a rare opportunity to voice constructive input on government policy.

The Jakarta Globe put the question directly to Nila: "What steps will you take as health minister to ensure transparency and accountability in your administration?"

Hearing this, a non-ministry aide interrupted Nila, who had begun to reply, and shut down the interview.

There appeared to be no acknowledgement of irony, given the question left hanging.

Observers may have to watch closely for an answer.

source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com

"The world has made defeating AIDS a top priority. This is a blessing. But TB [tuberculosis] remains ignored. Today we are calling on the world to recognize that we can't fight AIDS unless we do much more to fight TB as well," the late South African president Nelson Mandela once warned the world.

Dr. Lucica Ditiu from the Stop TB Partnership confirmed Mandela's statement, saying that TB was the second most deadly disease after HIV/AIDS. Many HIV/AIDS positive people have also been diagnosed with TB.

"Forty-six percent of people with TB were tested for HIV in 2010 alone," said Ditiu in a recent international media workshop here in Geneva.

The meeting was organized by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which represents 82 percent of all international donors funding for TB.

According to Ditiu, around one in three people with TB cannot be reached by the current healthcare system. Poverty and stigma are strongly related to the disease. They have little knowledge about TB and its dangers, and health facilities are often out of reach.

"Weak recording and reporting systems are also big problems in many countries," said the medical doctor.

There are also problems of multi-drug resistance (MDR)-TB, meaning many patients cannot be cured just by the standard medication. They need special drugs and two-year consecutive treatment.

"The drug resistance-TB treatment will [hopefully be able to] be cut from two years to only six months," said Ditiu.

Indonesia is home to the world's fourth-largest TB cases. An international cooperation and assistance are much-needed. Last week, delegations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, the Global Fund visited Persahabatan Hospital and two community health centers (Puskesmas) in Jakarta.

They were hosted by the Tahir Foundation, chaired by business tycoon Dato' Sri Tahir, who contributed US$65 million to the Global Fund last year. It was a part of an agreement signed with the Gates Foundation last year. Gates and Tahir set up the Indonesian Health Fund.

Doctors at the hospital explained their problems in treating TB patients. "Many patients refuse or are reluctant to seek treatment due to concerns over leaving their jobs, as TB treatment requires strict daily procedures. Some also refuse treatment due to the fear of being stigmatized by the public," said Erlina Burhan, the head of MDR-TB at Persahabatan Hospital in East Jakarta.

According to Erlina, a patient must adhere to a strict nonstop regiment lasting up to 24 months involving pills and various testing, and the reason the disease remains as prevalent as it is, is because of external factors.

Persahabatan Hospital is the largest respiratory center in the country. Over the years, the hospital has seen people from outside Java, such as Pontianak, Medan, and Papua come for treatment, further noting that out-of-town patients make up the majority of patients at the hospital.

One of the hospital's current patients is SA, a 28-year-old from Jambi. He has been receiving treatment for his MDR-TB of the lungs at Persahabatan since May 2013 and is reportedly one-month away from being cured. The father of three's daily regiment includes taking 18 to 25 pills per intake and has to spend his time outdoors in a special area designated by the hospital, as sunlight allegedly kills the TB bacteria.

"I am also a diabetic, so I have an even higher daily pill intake, as I also receive insulin injections," SA told The Jakarta Post. His tuberculosis was classified as MDR by the doctors at the hospital.

Most TB patients that have sought treatment at Persahabatan since 2009 are mostly between 25 and 34 years of age, which Erlina calls "the productive age" group, and says that the disease affects those of all economic backgrounds.

"It most likely will get worse if the same obstacles, such as stigma, affect those who are supposed to seek treatment," she said.

About 47.28 percent of MDR-TB patients at Persahabatan have been cured as of 2011 after going through their two-year regiments, while more than a quarter have defaulted on their treatment.

"We are working to support the Indonesia Health Fund in developing a drug that will help shorten the regiment for TB treatment, therefore making the treatment process more efficient," Gates Foundation senior program officer Jennifer Alcorn told the Post .

Meanwhile, Tahir believed that community health centers could help raise awareness on the importance of seeking treatment and on how to spot someone with TB, so that preventive measures to avoid infection were taken.

"This is the first time that we have ever directly worked with institutions [such as health centers]. Why is that? Because their tidy and planned-out organizational system shows discipline and commitment," Tahir said.

source: http://www.thejakartapost.com