Category: Berita

Indonesia, one of only three countries in the Asia-Pacific region that is seeing a trend of increased HIV infections, must plug a $30 million funding gap in its fight against HIV, a U.N. health official said on Wednesday.

President-elect Joko Widodo, who won a July election, should build on the policies implemented by the outgoing administration, Cho Kah Sin, Indonesia country director for the United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS, told Reuters.

Indonesia’s five-year strategic plan to combat HIV/AIDS ends this year and domestic funding of the plan is at about 40 percent, much lower than the targeted 70 percent, Cho said.

While the domestic budget for tackling HIV/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.

“Indonesia is a middle income country [and] is going to have a challenge trying to convince international donors to continue to invest in development assistance for social and health projects,” said Cho.

“Eventually it will have to provide its own funding for priorities like health,” he added. “It is very important for the national government to continue to increase the proportion of funding for HIV from domestic resources.”

The United Nations, in a report released every two years on the world HIV and AIDS epidemic, said last month new infection rates in Indonesia were a “cause for concern.”

About 0.43 percent of the adult population, or about 640,000 people, are infected with HIV in Indonesia.

Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines were the only three countries in the Asia-Pacific region with a trend of increased HIV infections, the United Nations said.

Cho said he was optimistic about the fight in Indonesia.

Since 2012, the world’s fourth most populous country has massively increased access to HIV testing and now offers early antiretroviral treatment.

“It’s important that the new administration stay on course, continue to invest in early testing and early treatment, and build on the foundation that the minister has already put in place,” Cho said, referring to Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi, who introduced a more effective response to HIV/AIDS when she was appointed in 2012.

“If this is continued, we have no doubt that this is going to be able to reverse the epidemic,” Cho continued.

Advisers to Widodo could not be reached for comment.

One reason for the rise in HIV rates in Indonesia was that infections only began to start picking up in the mid-1990s, Cho said, later than in many other countries.

Also, as testing has increased and become more accepted, more people are willing to get tested and therefore know their HIV status, he said.

“Of course we don’t expect these to turn the epidemic around overnight – it will take time to show but we’re on the right track. She has put the foundations in place,” Cho said referring to Mboi’s work.

source http://www.voanews.com

The WHO’s South-East Asia regional countries have much to learn from Bangladesh, the UN agency’s chief Margaret Chan has said.

She praised Bangladesh’s overall health achievements and described its health leadership as “inspiring” that could serve as a lesson for other countries of the region.

The Dictor-General was speaking at the inauguration of the WHO SEARO’s meeting, which began in Dhaka on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the gathering that drew ministers of eleven countries.

Chan said Bangladesh’s “stunning rise” in the overall health status and life expectancy had been internationally documented.

And it overcame many challenges the country had faced, she said.

Despite many challenges Bangladesh had faced over decades, “the solid improvements in the country’s health system and the services it provides, together with a stunning rise in overall health status and life expectancy have been internationally documented”.

“The countries of the Region have much to learn from the rich experience and inspiring health leadership of Bangladesh.”

Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste are the members of WHO’s South-East Asia Region.

Opening the meetings, Prime Minister Hasina made a personal plea to the health delegates from the countries to support Bangladesh’s efforts to mobilize global support for the cause of autism.

“It is imperative that individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities must find easy access to improved diagnosis and services,” she said as Bangladesh was pursuing “universal health coverage” for all.

source http://bdnews24.com

Ooredoo and the Leo Messi Foundation have officially launched mobile health clinics in Indonesia.
The ceremony took place in Jogja, the capital of the Yogyakarta Special Region in Java, which marked the first step in an on-going expansion of Ooredoo’s and the Leo Messi Foundation’s healthcare initiative announced in May. Plans are in place to make more clinics accessible in Indonesia, Myanmar, Algeria, and Tunisia as part of the programme.

With a focus on the importance of education and healthy living for communities, the clinics will play an informative role, in addition to providing people with a range of free services, including medical checks, dental checks, nutritional advice and vitamin distribution.
The launch ceremony was attended by Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani, Ooredoo chairman and chairman of the board of commissioners of Ooredoo’s company in Indonesia, Indosat; Dr Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Ooredoo; Alexander Rusli, president director and CEO, Indosat; and representatives of Jogja’s local government.

In addition, 150 parents and 150 children attended the event, where they received messages about the prevention and cure for common illnesses, as well as the importance of a healthy lifestyle and education for the children.

Dr Marafih said: “These mobile health clinics are an investment in the future of the communities we serve.”
He added: “I had the opportunity to see the mobile clinics in action. They travel out to remote areas, staffed by medical professionals and volunteers, and actively work with the community to address a range of healthcare issues…we are passionate about helping them to reach as many people as possible, not only here in Indonesia but across all of the markets that we operate in.”

Alexander Rusli, president director and CEO, Indosat, said:
“The mobile clinic programme was created as an immediate response to some of the serious health issues facing people in Indonesia’s rural and under-served communities. To date our clinics have treated 600,000 people in Indonesia.”
The Ooredoo mobile health clinic initiative was launched in 2013 in partnership with the Leo Messi Foundation. As part of this partnership, the two organisations are providing healthcare in rural areas across Ooredoo’s footprint in South East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, aiming to reach more than 2mn young people with services by 2016. Ooredoo also works with football hero Leo Messi as its global brand ambassador.

source http://www.gulf-times.com

As medical researchers struggle to produce desperately needed drugs to fight the Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization on Friday endorsed an old-school remedy that is already abundant in Africa – the blood of people who have survived infection.

Health officials acknowledged that their support for blood transfusions was motivated by emotion as well as by science. Limited quantities of a tested vaccine will not be available until November at the earliest, and stocks of experimental drugs such as ZMapp may not be ready until next year.

“One of the things driving fear and panic in communities … is the belief that there is no treatment for Ebola virus disease,” said Marie-Paule Kieny, an assistant director-general at the United Nations’ health agency. “We have to change the sense that there is no hope.”

But to others, the move looked more like an act of desperation than a decision based on clinical evidence.
“It’s an unproven therapy,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist and professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “It ought to be evaluated critically before we start investing huge amounts of money.”

The concept behind the transfusions is simple: The blood plasma of people who have recovered from Ebola contains antibodies that were successful in fighting off the virus. If these antibodies are pumped into an infected person, they might help the recipient fight the disease as well.

Such transfusions were used to fight illnesses before the advent of antibiotics and vaccines. The German surgeon Emil von Behring first used blood serum to treat diphtheria in 1890 and was awarded a Nobel Prize for his discovery. The technique was expanded to treat many other infectious diseases, such as scarlet fever and measles, before it fell out of favor.

Its effectiveness in fighting the Ebola virus is a matter of debate.

Transfusions were used to treat a small number of patients during the 1995 Kikwit Ebola outbreak in Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Dr. Oyewale Tomori, a professor of virology at Redeemer’s University in Nigeria. A study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases after the outbreak reported that eight patients received transfusions, and only one died.

“The reason for this low fatality rate remains to be explained,” the researchers wrote. The blood transfusions may not have been responsible for their recovery, they noted: “The transfused patients did receive better care than those in the initial phase of the epidemic.”
Transfusion techniques have improved since then, Tomori said. The method has already been used in the current outbreak, which began in March and has sickened at least 3,967 people and killed at least 2,105, according to the World Health Organization.

Dr. Kent Brantly, an American aid worker who was infected with Ebola in Liberia, was given blood serum from a boy who survived an Ebola infection. He and fellow aid worker Nancy Writebol also received the drug ZMapp. The two were evacuated to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where they both made a full recovery.

Ebola is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals. Once in the bloodstream, the virus enters cells and begins to replicate itself, damaging blood vessels and organs in the process. Symptoms begin to appear two to 21 days after infection and include fever, diarrhea, vomiting, aches and bleeding. In the current outbreak, the odds of survival are slightly below 50 percent.

Kieny said the use of blood transfusions was the topic of intense discussions last week during a WHO-sponsored conference of more than 200 health and pharmaceutical experts. They were meeting in Geneva to weigh the deployment of up to 10 Ebola drugs that are now under development, including two experimental vaccines.

“There was a consensus that this has a good chance to work, but also that this is something that can be produced now from the affected countries themselves,” Kieny said.

That doesn’t mean transfusions can begin immediately, she added. The international community needs to help hard-hit West African nations including Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia build the capacity to safely draw blood, type it to make sure donors and recipients are compatible, remove the red blood cells from the antibody-containing serum, store the serum properly and then deliver it to patients using proper equipment. Blood should also be screened to make sure the transfusions would not spread other diseases, such as HIV.

“All efforts must be invested into helping affected countries,” Kieny said. “This should be done as a priority . so that this procedure can be put at play as soon as possible.”

source: http://www.fayobserver.com

The world’s leading public health voices are all in agreement that West Africa is losing precious time in the fight against its ongoing Ebola outbreak, and the window is closing on containing the virus in the region.

“The level of outbreak is beyond anything we’ve seen—or even imagined,” Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden said at a press conference this week as he returned from a visit to the affected areas– mostly the nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, though Senegal and Nigeria have both reported instances of Ebola infections. Frieden lamented that “the window is closing” on preventing the outbreak from becoming a full epidemic, and the nations on the front lines severely lack the resources to contain the virus.

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