Medical and media experts gathered recently in a webinar hosted by Citizen News Service to deliberate on how to address the world’s deadliest childhood infection: pneumonia. According to the Global coalition against childhood pneumonia (GCACP), pneumonia is the most deadly infectious illness for children under age 5 worldwide. Even though from 2000 to 2015,the annual death toll from childhood
pneumonia decreased from 1.7 million deaths annually to 920,000 in 2015,
approximately 2,5000 children still die from pneumonia every day. |
| Dr Navneet Singh, PGIMER (L), Shobha Shukla, CNS (C) and Dr Marzi Mehta, surgical oncologist (R) |
To improve coordination and responses on youths Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), a state level inter-sectoral coordination meet is convened today under the auspices of Citizen News Service (CNS) in collaboration with Youth Champion Initiative (YCI) and FPA India. Around 50 representatives from government agencies (National Heath Mission, SIFPSA, Health & Family Welfare, Education) and other sectors such as (Youth, Women, PLHIV, Medical Professionals, NGOs, and Media), met to discuss integrated responses for ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights for the young people. 
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[Watch recording or listen to podcast] Breast cancer is the most common, killer cancer in women. 'Men have breasts too' and less than 1% of breast cancer occur in men. If urgent measures are not taken, in next decade: 19.7 million cases of breast cancer will occur and 5.8 million women will die. But governments have promised to deliver on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, one of which is to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like breast cancer by one-third. 
Both TB and HIV pose serious health risks. But when these two infections join together, the result is a potentially lethal co-epidemic of TB-HIV. Their coexistence is similar to opposites attracting each other despite glaring differences like two unlike poles of a magnet. They are two linked epidemics that must be fought together, in order to make significant progress in ending both.  |
| Jacqueline Wambui |
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| Dr Suwat Chariyalertsak, Director, RIHES, CMU |
World's leading infectious killer of children under the age of five years, is Pneumonia. Pneumonia, a common respiratory illness, also has potentially serious outcomes for the elderly. According to Stop Pneumonia, the most vulnerable children are in poor and rural communities, underlining the need to improve equitable access to high quality care, diagnostics, and treatment for all children.
An estimated 300 million people are living with asthma worldwide with an additional 100 million new cases expected to be added by 2025. WHO estimates that 15 million disability adjusted life years (DALYs) are lost annually because of this chronic disease that kills an estimated 250,000 people annually. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) hold the promise of reducing deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by one third by 2030 - a tall order indeed, as far as asthma is concerned.
[Listen or download this podcast] One of the most recognized Indian film-stars globally, 60 years old Anil Kapoor, was made the Grand Ambassador for Clean Air and Healthy Lungs at the 18th National Conference on Pulmonary Diseases (NAPCON 2016). Emeritus Director Professor (Dr) KC Mohanty, Chairman of NAPCON 2016 and Dr Ishwar Gilada, Co-Chairman of NAPCON 2016 and President of AIDS Society of India, appealed to Bollywood film-icon to bolster the cause of clean air and healthy lungs. Anil Kapoor is perhaps one of the most fit and healthy actors in the film industry and a champion advocate for health. [Listen or download this podcast]
Alarming rates of pulmonary diseases in India are warranting urgent action as well as well-coordinated and inter-sectoral comprehensive health responses across the country to ensure every citizen enjoys lung health. 
[Watch this video interview] [Listen or download the audio podcast] Success breeds complacency and complacency breeds failure. When the number of people affected by a disease decreases, there is a tendency to disregard it as a public health problem. |
| FCTC Art.19 expert Daniel Dorado, Corporate Accountability International |
[Read presentation of Prof Jeff Collin] Governments of over 180 countries that have ratified the global tobacco treaty had met recently earlier this month and adopted and advanced strong measures to stop tobacco industry interference in health policy and also to hold tobacco industry liable.The meeting formally called the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) concluded with commendable progress on WHO FCTC Articles 5.3 and 19 (liability). In this context, I find it pertinent to share some of the learnings from the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health that was held in Liverpool last month. 
[Watch webinar recording] [Listen or download the audio podcast] In lead up to World AIDS Day 2016 let us recollect governments' promise to end AIDS and TB by 2030. But TB continues to be a lead killer for people living with HIV. What more needs to happen to meet SDGs by 2030?
Coming back from the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health held in Liverpool in October 2016, it is time to reflect upon the myriad advancements and debates to better the quality of care for people with TB—shortening the treatment schedule for multi drug resistant TB (MDR-TB), addressing the otherwise forgotten groups like adolescents, celebrities opening up about having lived with TB, and plenty more on fresh approaches to end the epidemic.
To say that more poor people succumb to non communicable diseases (NCDs) as compared to the rich is not an understatement. One would wonder, why this co-relation between poverty and NCDs— if these diseases are non communicable how do they end up killing more poor people? Poverty stricken communities have little or limited recourse to healthcare, and hence access to medical screening is constrained and at times not available to them.
[Click here to listen or download this podcast] So said Dr Tara Singh Bam, Regional Advisor for Tobacco Control at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) on the sidelines of the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, UK.  |
| Dr Tara Singh Bam |
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| Dr Enos Masini |
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| Dr Jonathan Cranston, UK |
With a week left for inter-governmental meeting of global tobacco treaty (formally called World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control or WHO FCTC), more than 120 civil society organisations from India and several other nations globally have endorsed a letter calling upon the governments (that are Parties to the WHO FCTC) to act against the tobacco industry interference in FCTC. We are reproducing this letter below:
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| Eleanor Frame |
A group of international cancer organizations today launched a new initiative to encourage governments to increase taxes on tobacco. Tobacco causes 20 percent of all cancer deaths and more than 4,000 people die from tobacco-related cancer each day. 
Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis. As per WHO’s Global TB Report 2016, 480,000 people fell ill with MDR-TB in 2015, with 3 countries - India, China, and Russia - carrying the major burden and together accounting for nearly half of all MDR-TB cases globally. 
Final results of a potentially game-changing study on a nine-months treatment regimen for multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) were announced at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, UK. This study carried out in nine Francophone countries has shown a treatment success rate of 82% with limited adverse side effects - a significant stride towards stopping TB.
[Watch this video interview] [Listen or download this audio podcast]
[First published in India Saga on 20th October 2016]