2 polio workers killed as team comes under attack in Swabi - Pakistan - ReliefWeb
2 polio workers killed as team comes under attack in Swabi - Pakistan - ReliefWeb |
- 2 polio workers killed as team comes under attack in Swabi - Pakistan - ReliefWeb
- Interact Club donates $1,000 to fight polio | The Laughlin Nevada Times - Mohave Valley News
- Bill would let R.I. enter compact to reward disease cures - The Providence Journal
- What the WHO Coronavirus Declaration Means - TIME
| 2 polio workers killed as team comes under attack in Swabi - Pakistan - ReliefWeb Posted: 29 Jan 2020 08:01 PM PST  Zahid Imdad Two polio workers were killed on Wednesday when their team came under attack in Swabi's Parmoli area. According to Swabi's District Police Officer Imran Shahid, unidentified men opened fire at the polio team while they were on duty. As a result of the firing, a lady health worker was killed on the spot while another was severely injured, the DPO said. The injured lady health worker was rushed to the Kalu Khan Hospital. She was later shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, where she succumbed to her injuries during the course of treatment, according to LRH Medical Director Dr Khalid Masood. Police have collected three bullet shells from the site of the shooting, the DPO said, adding that security in the area where the incident occurred was not on high alert. Taking notice of the attack, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan directed the Inspector General of Police Sanaullah Abbasi to submit a report on the incident. He further directed police to take strict action against the perpetrators of the attack. Attacks on polio workers are common in various parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. This is one of the biggest hindrances to the eradication of polio from the country. Last year, the government formed the National Strategic Advisory Group (NSAG) to tackle polio eradication. The NSGA has representatives from leading political parties who have worked on polio eradication programmes in previous governments. The broad-based body was constituted in consultation with Prime Minister Imran Khan and is led by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza.  |
| Interact Club donates $1,000 to fight polio | The Laughlin Nevada Times - Mohave Valley News Posted: 29 Jan 2020 11:00 PM PST  LAUGHLIN — The Laughlin High School Interact Club students raised $1,000 for Crutches for Africa, a nonprofit that seeks to aid Africans hit with the polio virus. The Interact program is an offshoot of Rotary Clubs of America which has 20,372 clubs located in 159 countries with approximately 468,556 members worldwide. The mission behind the Interact program, according to the Rotary Club website is, to bring together young people ages 12-18 to develop leadership skills while discovering the power of service above self. The Laughlin Interact Club has done two projects for the year the first: raising $500 for the Purple Pinky project to combat polio in Africa through donations and food sales at the LHS homecoming, an accomplishment that earned members the right to see LHS Principal Dawn Estes and teacher Heidi Zenefski get to wear purple-dyed hair for a week around school. The Interact team assembled in Room 505 for a presentation by David Talbot of Crutches for Africa who was there to show the students exactly what the disease they have been fundraising to fight — polio — looks like in real life. Polio is a disease that most Americans in 2020 know little about. It was a major health issue in America back in the 1940s and '50s until Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin's successful vaccines came out in 1955. It remains a serious health issue for a few nations that still see the polio virus in their midst today such as Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The LHS Interact students presented Talbot a check for $1,000 to aid in the ongoing battle to eradicate the disease from Africa where it does the most harm today. Talbot showed film footage of some modern-day African polio victims who often must crawl to move about on a daily basis. Others use wooden poles and wheelbarrows to get about. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, Talbot said, there are dangers associated with trying to bring help to those already suffering from polio and others who might contract the disease. He explained that in those nations the mistrust of the intentions of those who try and help fight the disease — especially Americans — runs deep. Many people in those nations suspect that the people who come to help fight the disease are either sterilizing the population or poisoning the populace they seek to treat. Zenefski, advisor of the Interact Club at LHS, showed her obvious pride in her students who went the extra mile to help fight this debilitating disease by raising funds to aid those afflicted with it in Africa. She said, "These are the best students in the region." The $1,000 donation has the possibility of immunizing around 3,000 people in Africa as the vaccines now cost roughly about $1 for three doses, the cost of a Snickers candy bar, said Talbot. The donation also may be used to purchase crutches, walkers and wheelchairs to be shipped to Africa for those already affected permanently by the disease, giving them the gift of mobility that they have never known in their lives.  |
| Bill would let R.I. enter compact to reward disease cures - The Providence Journal Posted: 30 Jan 2020 05:27 PM PST House Majority Leader K. Joseph Shekarchi wants to raise billions of dollars in prize money to reward any company that finds a cure for chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer. To do it, the Warwick Democrat introduced a bill Thursday that would have Rhode Island enter into a multi-state agreement to set up, pay for and give out awards for medical cures. The compact is being championed by Ohio Republican state Rep. Jim Butler, who has been traveling the country promoting it and trying to get other states to sign on. After Ohio passed his "cure bill" last summer and became the compact's charter member, he needs five more states to sign on. Shekarchi said Butler convinced him about the compact last year, and the Ohio lawmaker was in Rhode Island last week to discuss it. Rep. Robert Phillips, D-Woonsocket, is a cosponsor and has also worked on the bill, Shekarchi said. "I suffer from a chronic disease, type 2 diabetes, and I thought this would be a good idea," Shekarchi said. "Quite frankly the federal government can't pass a lot of substantive legislation. They seem to be paralyzed and a lot of this stuff would fall to the states to accomplish." If at least six states agree to join and the compact launches, a committee representing the member states would decide which chronic diseases it wants to offer prizes for, according to a copy of the bill provided by Shekarchi. Then each member state would pay into the prize pool based on how much those diseases increase their public-health expenses. Shekarchi didn't have an estimate of how much Rhode Island's share of the prize pool would be and said the size of the reward would depend on the size and number of the states participating. He said the state would probably need to approve borrowing to provide an upfront contribution for the prize pool, but if a cure proved effective, the resulting savings over the long run would more than make up for it. Drug companies of course, make plenty of money without taxpayer-funded prizes, but Shekarchi said the problem is that the market incentives encourage them to develop treatments they can sell under patent for many years instead of drugs that might cure a disease and potentially eradicate the need to spend money on it. "This has to do with a cure, not to find another treatment, to find another cure, like the cure for polio," Shekarchi said. "Drug companies have obligations to shareholders. I want to incentivize this so drug companies and venture capitalists are interested. If you create a prize worth billions, you are incentivizing it." The prize committee would decide if a treatment was effective enough to qualify as a cure and could claim a prize. To claim a prize, an entrant would have to transfer the rights for the new treatment over to the prize commission, which would then arrange for it to be manufactured and sold at cost, according to a copy of the bill.  |
| What the WHO Coronavirus Declaration Means - TIME Posted: 30 Jan 2020 01:45 PM PST  The World Health Organization (WHO) took the rare step Thursday of declaring a novel coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan, China a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). But what does that actually mean? The WHO defines a PHEIC as an "extraordinary event" that "constitute[s] a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease" and "potentially require[s] a coordinated international response." Since that framework was defined in 2005—two years after another coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), spread through China—it has been used only six times: for outbreaks of "swine flu" in 2009, polio in 2014, Ebola in 2014, Zika virus in 2016, Ebola in 2019 and, now, coronavirus in 2020. A PHEIC is meant to mobilize international response to an outbreak. It's an opportunity for the WHO, with guidance from its International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, to implement "non-binding but practically & politically significant measures that can address travel, trade, quarantine, screening, treatment. WHO can also set global standards of practice," the organization tweeted. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasized that, at its core, a PHEIC is about prompting countries to work together to contain a threat. It is not about punishing China, nor doubting its ability to contain the outbreak, he said at a press conference Thursday. Related Stories  "This declaration is not because China is not doing what it can," Ghebreyesus said. "It's actually doing more than what China is required to do. [The PHEIC is about] protecting countries with weaker health systems." In this case, the WHO advises countries not to unnecessarily restrict travel and trade to China; to support nations with weaker health systems; accelerate the development of vaccines and treatments; stop the spread of rumors and misinformation; work to treat those who are already sick while limiting spread; share knowledge with the WHO and other countries; and work together "in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation." In a statement also released Thursday, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, an independent body that works toward preparedness for global health crises, encouraged nations to invest in their own public health and outbreak response systems while supporting the WHO's Contingency Fund for Emergencies. Countries are not compelled to contribute based on the PHEIC designation, but Ghebreyesus tweeted that the WHO "welcome[s] their call for countries to sustainably finance WHO's preparedness and response activities."  |
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