Asia

H7N9 Influenza and the WHO’s Pandemic Influenza Plan

June 10, 2015 / Asia, global health / , , ,
Photo courtesy of hyena reality and freedigitalphotos.net
Photo courtesy of hyena reality and freedigitalphotos.net

Like many of you, I’ve been carefully following the news about H7N9. A few of my favorite blogs or sites for this are Avian Flu Diary, Virology down under, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, and the Bird Flu Report. A couple of thoughts about what we know so far. First, it is always difficult to make a vaccine for an H7 virus. For this reason, it’s unlikely that sufficient vaccine could be ready in six months, even in the United States. It is true that some newer vaccine technologies are now proving their potential. But we aren’t in a fundamentally different position than in 2009, when most vaccine became available too late for swine flu. …

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What do you notice about this ad?

April 17, 2015 / Asia, globalization
Advertisement from an airport in Ahmedabad, India

Some people say that with globalization, all the world is becoming the same. But take a careful look at this photo that my wife took of a lawnmower ad in the Ahmedabad airport in India. What do you notice about the text? The world really isn’t flat.

Shawn Smallman, Portland State University

Drug Resistant Tuberculosis in China

April 18, 2015 / Asia, global health / ,

I’ve talked about multi-drug resistant tuberculosis on this site before, but I want to return to the topic because of some recent articles on the topic covered on NPR. Last year there was some good news about tuberculosis globally, as researchers found that the total number of cases was declining, particularly in China. A new national tuberculosis survey in China this year, however, reveals that 10% of all new cases of tuberculosis diagnosed that country are multi-drug resistant, while 8% of these cases were infected with XDR, or extensively drug resistant tuberculosis. For these people, the treatment options are limited, and may not be successful. The article in the New England Journal of Medicine described the problems within the Chinese health care system that are driving this problem. But these challenges sound very similar to difficulties in other nations, including India and South Africa …

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Three Mystery Epidemics

April 17, 2015 / Africa, Asia, global health, Latin America, mystery / , , , , , ,

The World Health Organization is an under-appreciated institution, which often takes on critical tasks. For example, in 2011 it brokered an agreement to end a controversy about viral sample sharing particularly related to avian influenza. This agreement will greatly help with the development of pre-pandemic vaccines, but such achievements attract little press coverage. The WHO receives much more press when it acts as the world’s medical sleuth. When invited, it quickly arrives on the scene wherever a new disease is emerging. At the moment there are no fewer than three new diseases that merit the WHO’s attention. Although they may not each be the next SARS, they all have worrisome aspects.

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India/Pakistan Standoff on Kashmir’s Siachen glacier

April 17, 2015 / Asia, security / , , ,
Picture of glacier thanks to puttsk at freedigitalphotos.net

This week there was a disastrous avalanche on the Siachen glacier, which buried perhaps 135 Pakistanis, 124 of whom were troops in the 6th Northern Light Infantry Battalion. It seems unlikely that many of these troops will ever be found, despite a concerted rescue effort, given that they may have been buried under 25 meters (75 feet of snow). The force of the avalanche -over a thousand meter line- was indescribable. This sad incident is but one tragedy in a the strange stand-off between India and Pakistan over a glacier, which must be one of the most inhospitable fortified regions on earth. …

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Totally Drug Resistant Tuberculosis

April 17, 2015 / Asia, global health, indigenous peoples / ,

In our book and this blog we give considerable attention to the threat posed by avian influenza, which also attracts a great deal of media coverage. But there is another, and older, threat that also deserves attention. Tuberculosis has been a growing problem. As Paul Farmer’s work has described, it flourished in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and drug resistant tuberculosis has been a growing threat from Peru to Haiti. The challenge is that if patients are not properly diagnosed, or if they fail to take a long course (a minimum of six months) of medication, the disease becomes resistant.

"Bacteria" by ddpavumba at freedigitalphotos.net

This problem has combined with the spread of HIV/AIDS, which decreases people’s resistance to TB. This led to a terrifying outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, where an epidemic of extensively drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) began spreading in 2006. From South Africa, the disease was moved into neighboring countries, such as Lesotho.

A recent news article in South Africa gives some insight into why TB was so difficult to treat. After a woman was diagnosed with XDR TB, she required intensive, inpatient care. Her family had to conduct a (successful) fund-raising campaign before she could be admitted to a hospital, where she is finally receiving the care she needs. In this case, the woman’s family rose to the challenge, and obtained care for her. But what if she had not been so fortunate? …

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Pakistan’s Military, Irregular Forces and Latin America

April 17, 2015 / Asia, Latin America / ,

This has been a difficult year for Pakistan’s military. First came the May 2, 2011 killing of Osama Bin Laden in a house in Abbottabad, less than a mile from the Pakistan Military Academy. Then came a militant attack on an air-base in Karachi on May 22, 2011, which led to ten deaths and the destruction of two American-built P-C 3 Orion surveillance planes. On May 31, 2011 came the death of Syed Saleem Shahzad, the reporter for the Asia Times. He had covered the assault on the naval base, and reported that the cause of the militant attack had been the navy’s arrest of its personnel. He stated that naval intelligence had detected militant cells within the navy, which were plotting an attack on American targets. After their arrest, the militants opened negotiations with the navy for their release. When the navy refused, the militants responded with this assault. His death was widely blamed on Inter-Service Intelligence, a creature of the Pakistani military, which led to a firestorm of protest: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syed_Saleem_Shahzad) The continuing U.S. drone attacks in Waziristan, which the Pakistani military is perceived as tolerating, also stoked widespread anger within Pakistan. Finally, on September 22, 2011, Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the insurgents who had attacked the U.S. embassy the prior week had used cell-phones to call their handlers in Pakistan before and during the attack. The U.S. believed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI was behind the attacks (www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/23/eveningnews/main20110965.shtml).  In sum, U.S. observers have suspected Pakistan’s armed forces –or elements within it- of being complicit with Osama Bin Laden (or incompetent in not detecting him), of being infiltrated by militants, and of supporting violence in Afghanistan, all while taking large amounts of U.S. military aid. …

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