Even in the time of H1N1, there are other health issues to think about. There is a vaccine to prevent cancer of the cervix or cervical cancer. HPV vaccine. Unless HPV vaccine is included in the national immunisation programme, cervical cancer will continue to occur and screening and treatment will continue to cost families and […]

Here is a lesson in the making from Sri Lanka. It banned betel+tobacco but not betel alone. Jamie ++++++++++++++++++ Chewing betel with tobacco and arecanut banned from today Daily Mirror, Columbo 2017-07-19 08:12:11 Using tobacco and arecanut in betel quids apart from smokeless Tobacco Products and mixtures that contain tobacco would be banned from today, […]

Now is not the time to panic about H1N1. Though it is bound to get a lot worse. https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmar-asks-help-fight-h1n1-virus.html I am impressed with the Minister of Health and Sports for his openness in dealing with H1N1. I can’t help contrasting this response with the closed way SARS was approached in 2002. The newest influenza preparedness […]

You know I often complain that big glossy documents are too big to easily download in Myanmar. Here is one. The new UNAIDS progress report: http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/Global_AIDS_update_2017_en.pdf But I’ve ripped one page from it so you can just open Page 127 https://www.dropbox.com/s/zj7q05z1zyocqm1/report%20card.pdf?dl=0 Page 127 has a report card for countries in Asia. You can clearly see […]

A few days back I noted that the number of donors to the 3 MDG Fund had decreased. Australia is out. So is the EU. http://hivinfo4mm.org/donors-depart-the-3mdg-fund/ Some anonymous thoughts from readers: The Australia DFAT decision is not a recent one. Although Fund Managers and remaining donors to 3MDG Fund did not publicise it to save […]

Welcome to Oussama Tawil. Congratulations to Myanmar on scaling up HIV treatment. Treatment has been responsible for this decline in deaths. This article is interesting for what it does not say. It does not say that Global Fund resources for treatment are so limited that the speed of growth of treatment initiation has been slowed. […]

Before the deluge of HIV stories this week … The human rights abuses of Patjasan can be heard but not seen on this BBC World Service radio broadcast. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p057w3f6 Rev Samson of Patjasan admits to torture. Starting at 23 minutes into it. Jamie

I went to the launch of the WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2017 yesterday. Mike Bloomberg, Dr Tedros, and the WHO staffer tried to put a positive spin on it. This wa not an easy job. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/255874/1/9789241512824-eng.pdf Decreases in global tobacco smoking prevalence have been offset by a population increase. There are more […]

All but one of the named speakers in this AIDF Asia highlight video are men. Jamie

I’m all for better data on the burden of disease in Myanmar. Verbal autopsies can be a valuable method to triangulate on other sources of data on deaths. They are highly dependent on the skills of the interviewers. What quality assurance methods are built into this programme? Jamie ++++++++++++++++++ How death by numbers promotes global […]

Will Myanmar be one of the *last* Asian countries to offer HPV vaccination to prevent cervix cancer? http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijgo.12186/full Great set of articles on cervical cancer in this issue. Jamie

Jeremy Douglas of UNODC does not mince words in this video. Why doesn’t UNODC produce such clear and convincing videos? Jamie