Daily Summit was caught out by news that reproductive health was one of the summit's unresolved issues.
The contentious text obliges governments to provide health care for all in a way "consistent with national laws and religious values." The Women's Caucus has been rallying support for text that reads "in conformity with all human and fundamental freedoms."
According to WSSD Gem, opposition to the change is being led by the US, Catholic and Muslim countries.
David Steven |
03:40 PM | |
September 1, 2002
"Yes, my friends, this disease is killing me slowly. I am going to die because of my mother. I want to be a doctor, but instead I am going to die." - a young child with HIV speaking on the Mountain of Hope in Soweto today.
David Steven |
11:57 PM | |
Daily Summit caught up with Gro Brundtland, head of the World Health Organisation, in Soweto earlier today.
Gro Brundtland was the first women to lead a modern democratic state (Norway), while the Brundtland Commission pioneered the concept of sustainable development in 1987.
Dr Brundtland reacted angrily to suggestions that some countries were unwilling to commit to strong targets because they lacked faith in the UN to deliver.
"UN agencies are not the ones to deliver development," she told us. "They are facilitators for the co-operation between governments and other actors. Who are the democratically responsible actors in the world? Governments. The biggest governments with the most money are most responsible. They must accept that responsibility."
David Steven |
05:07 PM | |
August 31, 2002
Mechai Viravaidya is a hero in the struggle against AIDS, so Daily Summit was honoured to catch up with him earlier.
Mechai used his experience in promoting family planning in Thailand to run the developing world's most successful anti-AIDS campaign.
"It was an all out fight," he told us, with high level political commitment (Mechai became a cabinet member) and mobilisation of everyone from primary school children to policemen (the "Cops and Rubbers" scheme).
"We didn't wait for somebody to help us. We were the people dying, so we had to help ourselves. We made no moral judgement. We wanted to save lives. We went to the sex industry and we said 'you are on the front line, you will be the first to die in this war.' More people are living because we took real action."
Mechai called for Heads of State in all developing countries to chair their National AIDS Committee.
"President Mbeki should take over here in South Africa. He'd probably enjoy it."
Every minute, it says, 380 women become pregant; 100 women have an abortion; 1 woman dies of a pregnancy complication; and 20-30 others suffer serious disability or injury.
Which means - according to Daily Summit's trusty calculator - that 26% of the world's pregancies end in abortion and 8% in the death or serious injury of the mother...
David Steven |
05:17 PM | |
August 25, 2002
One final point-of-interest from today's press conference, was the Sunday Times, London, asking Dr Zuma what the South African government's policy was on the link between HIV and AIDS.
Many Daily Summit readers will remember that President Mbeki has been very wobbly on this issue, ever since he came across the work of dissident scientists while surfing on the net one night (which makes this a peculiarly modern story).
Somewhat fewer, we suspect, will know that the Sunday Times was once a supporter of the self-same theory and, indeed, of some of the self-same scientists.
This 1992 article, for example, entitled "Conspiracy of Humbug Hides the Truth of AIDS," still floats around the net.
Dr Zuma replied that there was doubt about the link between AIDS and the virus - and spoke on the subject for another 15 minutes, ensuring that many media questions (including your correspondent's) went unanswered.
David Steven |
04:07 PM | |
August 24, 2002
The hoodia cactus has traditionally been used to stave off hunger and thirst on long journeys.
Now the pharmaceutical industry wants to use it as a slimming aid, but there has been a wrangle over intellectual property between Pfizer, a South African and UK lab – and the San tribe who have long used the plant.
David Steven |
09:31 AM | |
August 19, 2002
The Daily Summit's eye was caught by a throw-away line in the Economist story reported below
Currently Tanzania spends around $8 per head on healthcare. The Tanzania Essential Health Interventions Project chose two pilot districts in which to spend $2 a head more.
"Neither in Morogoro nor in Rufiji was the system able to absorb more than an extra 80 cents or so," the Economist reports.
The Daily Summit urges campaigners to remember this when they call for large infusions of extra cash.
Better small incremental increases well spent than huge dollops of money that distort, corrupt, and even ruin delicate, but desperately needed, systems…
David Steven |
03:25 PM | |
An Economist leader draws some lessons from the Tanzanian study reported below.
The Economist calls (subscription required) for donors to spend more money on health care, but urges poor countries to show they are capable of "scaling up" effective interventions.
The key, it believes, is "putting a price on human life" and ensuring that poor countries "start by spending money on interventions that save a lot of lives cheaply."
Why doesn't this happen already?
Because "health care systems have long been vulnerable to capture by elites" - and elites want "expensive high-tech fixes" for heart disease and cancer - not cheap, low-cost prophylactics against malaria or TB.
David Steven |
03:23 PM | |
Shock, horror! A good news story. While most of the media remains steadfastly grumpy about the summit's - and the world's - prospects, the Economist pops up this week with a good news story.
Over the last couple of years, two rural districts have reported enormous health improvements (infant mortality, for example, has fallen by as much as a quarter).
The secret of their success?
Small amounts of extra money, spent rationally - on diseases that impose the greatest burden on the population.
Health workers now use simple algorithms when assessing a patient's symptoms, drugs are purchased according to need, and local people are more involved in the health care system.
Anti-malarial bed nets have also been used to great effect.
Mustapha Dangeni, a farmer, says life is now "continually improving." His children have been healthy for a year, while he and his wife are able to spend more time tending their fields.
"With the extra cash," the Economist reports, "they have bought a radio, a bicycle and some furniture."
It believes that more countries should copy the Tanzanian model - but it warns donors to heed the lessons too. More money is needed to tackle poor countries' health problems but "how it is spent is more important than how much is spent."
David Steven |
03:12 PM | |
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