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  • African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI) Meeting in Ghana The fifth annual international conference of the African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI) will be held Nov. 9-11 in Accra, Ghana, in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. The theme of this year's conference will be improving maternal, newborn, and child health in Africa, which will be discussed by top experts from around the world. ASADI V will kick off with the release of Science in Action: Saving the Lives of Africa's Mothers, Newborns, and Children, a new report by several African science academies, assessing the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing maternal and childhood mortality -- the focus of U.N. Millennium Development Goals Four and Five -- in sub-Saharan Africa. The report will include estimates of lives that could be saved if proven scientific methods reached more parts of Africa. 11/9
  • Meeting HIV/AIDS Cost Demands: Is The Global Response Working? The November/December 2009 edition of Health Affairs focuses on key global health challenges – including the economic, political, scientific and ethical ones – facing world policymakers in their response to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. Over the next several years, the world could face a funding shortfall that would prevent millions more with HIV/AIDS from gaining access to antiretroviral drugs. Yet over the long-term, the world could also take critical steps to slash the global burden of HIV-AIDS – and the costs of battling the pandemic – by half. 11/10
  • Meeting HIV/AIDS Cost Demands: Is The Global Response Working? The November/December 2009 edition of Health Affairs focuses on key global health challenges – including the economic, political, scientific and ethical ones – facing world policymakers in their response to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. Over the next several years, the world could face a funding shortfall that would prevent millions more with HIV/AIDS from gaining access to antiretroviral drugs. Yet over the long-term, the world could also take critical steps to slash the global burden of HIV-AIDS – and the costs of battling the pandemic – by half. 11/10

CDC Scientists Develop New Basis for H5N1 Vaccine

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Friday, May 29, 2009

By using samples of the H5N1 (avian flu) virus obtained from Egypt, CDC scientists have developed a virus sample critical to the production of a bird flu vaccine, the WHO said Thursday, Reuters reports.

Though the H5N1 virus does not spread easily via human-to-human transmission as the H1N1 (swine flu) virus does, the H5N1 virus has proven more deadly, killing 261 of the 424 people infected since 2003 (MacInnis, Reuters, 5/28). The Ministry of Health of Egypt on Tuesday confirmed two new human cases of avian flu, the WHO reports (Avian Influenza – situation in Egypt – update 17, 5/28). In February, there were more than 250 confirmed outbreaks of H5N1 in birds in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal and Vietnam, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.  

"Pharmaceutical companies including Novartis are already working on vaccines against H5N1 bird flu, which has killed or forced the culling of more than 300 million birds since 2003 as it spread to 61 countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa," Reuters writes.

In a statement, the WHO encouraged countries to share H5N1 virus samples with the organization for "their inclusion in the WHO H5N1 vaccine development and selection process, in addition to other activities of public health significance" (Reuters, 5/28). A two-day intergovernmental WHO meeting held earlier this month ended without a final international virus-sharing agreement (Kaiser Global Health Policy Report, 5/18).

The Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report is published by the Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2009 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.