Living Proof
While waking up at the crack of dawn on a weekend isn’t exactly anyone’s favorite pastime, our dedicated intern team showed up in full-force Sunday morning, excited and ready to cheer on the 15,900 participants (including ONE staffers and interns) in the DC Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run.
(more…)
Images by Morgana Wingard:
Victoria and her mom Elizabeth are regular visitors to the Mbagathi District Hospital. At 18 months, Victoria is cheerful, plump and squirming in her mom’s lap. Her mom Elizabeth is HIV-positive, but thanks to treatment during her pregnancy, Victoria is not.
(more…)
Child vaccines got a double dose of comedy last night when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert interviewed Bill Gates and Dr. Paul Offit on their back-to-back shows. In the first interview, Stewart talked to Gates about the value of investments in vaccines, and focused in on the fight to eradicate polio:
A half hour later, Colbert interviewed Dr. Paul Offit, who some of you might remember from a great video from our Living Proof campaign. He’s the Philadelphia-based doctor and researcher who helped to develop a landmark new vaccine to fight rotavirus (diarrhea) — one of the top killers of kids around the developing world. He talks about why vaccinating kids in the US and around the world is so important, and reassures Steven (and viewers) that there is no link between vaccines and autism:
There’s nothing funny about millions of kids dying around the world each year from vaccine-preventable diseases, but we’re psyched to see the impact of vaccines get such mainstream coverage. Please share the links with your friends!
This is Jack Breslauer’s first post for the ONE Blog. He’s our Global Policy team’s new spring intern, so be on the lookout for more of his policy posts.
As a wave of protests and violence sweeps across the Middle East and North Africa, bringing new instability to a troubled part of the world, developed nations must dramatically reconsider how best to promote democracy, stability and peace in the region. While our foreign relations have traditionally revolved around military aid and diplomacy, it might be worth considering the role that food prices, which have reached unprecedented highs in 2011, are playing in this civil unrest.
While US and European farmers celebrate skyrocketing incomes from these record prices, the food budgets of Africans and those in other parts of the developing world have been squeezed like never before, and many of these impoverished, hungry people have taken to the streets to demand affordable ways to feed their families. Articles linking the violence in Tunisia and Egypt to these high prices remind us that food security and national security are inextricably linked.
What can the developed world do to help fill bellies and restore peace? Honoring its commitments would go a long way. The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), the multilateral component of the $22 billion commitment to developing country food security made in 2009 in L’Aquila, is designed to bring large scale, sustainable agriculture to developing countries. While the US and other rich states committed nearly $1 billion to the GAFSP fund, which finances elements of developing country food security programs that their national budgets can’t cover, they have been dragging their feet when it comes to actually delivering their funding pledges, with only $330 million paid in so far. The US has contributed a measly $67 million out of the $475 million it promised, and the rest of its commitment is under threat. As the Economist reported last week, the collapse of the GAFSP because of a lack of American support would be a great embarrassment to the US, which was the driving force behind the fund’s creation.
Without serious efforts to grow developing world agriculture, hunger and unrest of the nature we are seeing in North Africa risks becoming more widespread, and its effects will reverberate throughout the global economy.
Photo courtesy of Living Proof.
Last week, ONE’s agriculture expert Kelly Hauser visited Haiti to work with another nonprofit, From Gainesville with Love. Little did she know that she would catch cholera on her trip…
My friend Dave and I talking with a displaced family at Port-au-Prince Cathedral, a few hours before I got sick.
I caught cholera in Haiti. I lived. And, because I had immediate access to the incredibly simple treatment for cholera, it wasn’t so bad. Because of how simple the treatment is, I am astounded that nearly 4,000 people in Haiti have died from Vibrio Cholerae in less than three months.
With cholera, people die from dehydration, not the cholera itself. They lose a ton of fluid from pooping (rather, pouring out) what looks like rice water for as long as the illness lasts. Because of my access to rehydration solution and antibiotics, my experience with cholera wasn’t much different than experiences I’ve had with food poisoning or gastro-intestinal flu here in the US. However, many people in the world aren’t so lucky.
My treatment consisted of drinking large quantities of an electrolyte solution and taking a single 300 mg dose of an appropriate antibiotic. Antibiotics help shorten the duration of the diarrhea (mine lasted about six hours and stopped almost immediately after I took the antibiotic). However, medical experts say that rehydration is the key to saving lives. Electrolyte solutions, such as Pedialyte and others, can be found in pharmacies, but one can also make them at home by mixing water, salt and sugar. Rehydration is so important that using dirty water is better than no water. In fancy medical terms, drinking these mixtures is called Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT). It is simple and it saves lives.
Of the 194,000 people in Haiti who have reported being affected by cholera, nearly 4,000 people died because they did not have access to treatment advice and/or materials they need to rehydrate themselves. I think that, above all, this illustrates a very deep need for community health worker training, basic public health education, and clean water and sanitation in Haiti and other parts of the world.
To learn more and to act, our friends at Partners in Health ask you to Stand with Haiti one year after the earthquake. Learn more about community health workers in other parts of the world by watching this Living Proof video.
Putting an end to world hunger can seem like an impossible task, but Susannah Masur from Action Against Hunger has the numbers to prove that we’re making progress.
Last month I traveled to Kisangani, a mid-sized city that hugs the banks of the famed Congo River, to document Action Against Hunger’s partnership with the Congolese Ministry of Health to combat deadly malnutrition in the three rural health zones around the city.
Severe malnutrition is a leading killer of children worldwide. In fact, at least 3.5 million of them die every year from the condition. Yet, this public health catastrophe gets very little public attention. I think part of the reason is that hunger, especially in Africa, is often seen as an inevitable result of poverty. In other words, it’s just something that happens.
But while the causes of hunger are many, one thing is for certain: Childhood deaths from hunger are entirely preventable.
For the first time, caregivers can bring malnourished children to their local health clinics once a week to be weighed and measured and get a supply of Plumpy’nut — a specially-formulated Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food that has revolutionized care for severe malnutrition — to eat at home. Before, all treatment for severe malnutrition required prolonged hospitalization, presenting a major challenge in many underserved areas.
Photo courtesy of ACF-DR Congo, S. Vidyarthi.
This year, in collaboration with local health authorities, we treated 35,000 cases of severe malnutrition across the Democratic Republic of Congo by employing a community-based model that is bringing life-saving care close to home. I wanted to see the model at work in the areas around Kisangani, where child malnutrition is rife and the effects of the second Congolese civil war can still be seen in the bombed out buildings and crumbling infrastructure.
This video shows the programs in action:
The Peanut Revolution: Health Centers across Congo Have a New Tool to Fight Hunger from Action Against Hunger USA on Vimeo.
In outpatient centers managed by the Congolese Ministry of Health and integrated into the local health system, nurses trained and equipped by Action Against Hunger are treating and monitoring acutely malnourished children during their weekly visits. This year 3,200 doctors and nurses received comprehensive training on care for severely malnourished children through the partnership. And, the beauty of the system is that it can continue long after we leave.
On my first day in the village of Wanie Rukula I met Nico, a young boy who just a few months ago was so severely malnourished he was on the brink of death and could barely move. But last month I watched him kick around a handmade soccer ball with his friends while his beaming parents looked on. What better proof do we need that deaths from malnutrition can become a relic of the past. All we need is the will to do it.
Susannah Masur is the communications officer at Action Against Hunger. To learn more about ACF, visit http://www.actionagainsthunger.org or follow the organization on Twitter or Facebook.
For more personal stories like these, visit the Living Proof website, and be sure to celebrate the proof with friends and family, too.
Dec 22nd, 2010 4:00 PM UTC
By Field
ONE member Kim Dixon Perez recounts her experience traveling with a mobile HIV-testing clinic with the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance in Malawi.
A women’s finger is pricked for the HIV test
Five-year-old Charles was warming himself by the fire when his shirt caught the flames and most of his back was burned. His mother had to carry him -– on foot -– four miles for help.
Charles’ family lives in a remote village in Malawi. Because most Malawians lack transportation to medical care, the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) brings care to them. “Mobile clinics” offer HIV testing, prenatal care, family planning and care for acute illnesses. Separately, 250 caregivers visit homes in 60 villages.
(more…)
