Board Thanks Leadership, Staff and Members for Unwavering Commitment to Global Health Mission

 With deep regret, the Board of Directors of the Global Health Council (GHC) announces that the Council will close operations within the coming months. This decision about the Council’s future comes after serious deliberations about the state of global health issues, the role of the Council as a convenor and the Council’s current operating model.

GHC, formerly the National Council of International Health, is a U.S.-based, nonprofit membership organization that was created in 1972 to identify priority world health problems and to report on them to the U.S. public, legislators, international and domestic government agencies, academic institutions and the global health community. GHC is the world’s largest membership alliance dedicated to saving lives by improving health throughout the world, and worked to ensure that all who strive for improvement and equity in global health have the information and resources they need to succeed.

The Global Health Council has championed issues of importance to the global health community and can point with pride to significant advances on the five key issues critical to improving health and promoting equity: women’s health; child’s health; HIV and AIDS; infectious diseases and health systems.

For the past four decades, the Council has been the neutral convening place for a diverse community of organizations, all advocating for improvement and equity in global health. The Council’s members have been its strength, working together to form broad-based coalitions to address challenges that affected us– whether advocating for increased U.S. government funding on global health or developing common positions on major health policy issues.

However, times have changed. The compelling needs that gave rise to the Global Health Council’s mission have shifted. Funding that once existed to promote a broad-based health agenda is now focused on specific health issues. The fundamental shifts in the health landscape have led the Board to revisit the relevance of the organization and determine that the Council’s current operating model is no longer sustainable.

We wish to thank our staff, leadership past and present and our members of the international community who have supported the Global Health Council for the last 40 years.

We have accomplished much together, but despite the progress we have made, millions of people, many of them children, remain without access to basic health care. Our commitment to them must not waver. Although The Global Health Council will no longer play the same role, we will continue to fight for the goals that first inspired us to action.

Please leave comments here or submit to information@globalhealth.org – some comments may be posted online on the website: www.globalhealth.org.

SMART INTEGRATION

In time for World Malaria Day, Elaine Roman blogs on the advantage of integration

By Elaine Roman

This year’s Roll Back Malaria theme for World Malaria Day (April 25, 2012), Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria, speaks to the importance of maintaining the successes of the last decade while balancing that effort with a continued commitment to move malaria prevention and control to the next level: scaling up country-level programs, controlling the epidemic and eventually eliminating this disease.That’s the call to action, the imperative across the developing world. But on the frontlines, in communities and clinics throughout sub-Saharan Africa, integration of services offers the best chance to ensure that a pregnant woman,a mother of three children,or a child under five receives malaria prevention, treatment and care services whenever she visits a health clinic or accesses services in her community.

That’s smart. That’s strategic. That’s lifesaving.

Malaria is a maternal, newborn and child health issue because of this hard truth: the disease disproportionately affects these groups. In 2011, among the nearly 700,000 deaths due to malaria, approximately 600,000 occurred among children under five and most were in sub-Saharan Africa.Approximately 10,000 maternal deaths each year are attributable to malaria.For pregnant women, malaria has a trickle-down, negative effect in that it causes higher rates of anemia, which contributes to low birth weight and ultimately infant mortality.And a child’s mother and family are her first line of defense and best chance for surviving malaria.

For all of these reasons and complicating factors, integrating malaria prevention and control activities as a core component of both maternal and child health services is a fundamentalstep in helpingcountries further reduce malaria illness and death, as well as in achieving the Millennium Development Goals that seek to keep more women and children alive and healthy.

Integration of the health services needed within a population is, in itself, “smart.” Such integration builds on what is already in place and strengthens the health system’s capacityto provide all clients-women, children and their families-quality services.For malaria, a disease that affects the most vulnerable populations,including people co-infected with HIV,strengthening the health system with integrated care requires a coordinated and collaborative approach at all levels within the country-beginning with improved policies, leading to strengthened health services and community level-interventions.The importance of such coordination/collaboration for integration of services is particularly true in countries throughout Africa, where health systems are generally weak.But commitment to a comprehensive, smart integrated approach will lend toimproved health outcomes for women and children-effectively, efficiently and cost-effectively.

Because the majority of pregnant women attend antenatal care (ANC) services at least once and often twice during pregnancy, ANC is an ideal platform for pregnant women toreceive a broad range of services-including malaria prevention and control services.All sub-Saharan African countries where malaria is a year-round threathave adopted the World Health Organization’s three-prong approach:

• Giving pregnant women at least two treatment doses of an antimalarial, currently sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, following first movement of the fetus andmonthly thereafter;
• Promoting the use of insecticide-treatedbednets; and
• Ensuring that individuals diagnosed with malaria receivethe approvedtreatment promptly.
Health care providers who are trained to prevent malaria as a core component of a woman’s care-integrated with ANC services, throughout her pregnancy-can have a tremendous,positive impact on the health of mothers andbabies who are at risk.

Comprehensive ANC, sometimes referred to as focused ANC or FANC, is the smart way to deliver health promotional and preventive services to pregnant women.The focus of FANCis on the quality of care received at each visit rather than the quantity of visits: health promotion and disease prevention; early detection and treatment of complications and existing diseases; and preparation for birth and complications that may occur.Integrating malaria prevention and control services with the FANC platform is both smart and effective as a strategyfor reaching pregnant women with lifesaving care.

Likewise, integrating malaria prevention and control services with existing child health programs,including vaccination services, can have a direct, positive impact on child health and survival. For parents seeking services for their children, either in their own community or at a health facility,integrated services not only help combat malaria but also address other major contributors to child morbidity and mortality, such as malnutrition, diarrhea and pneumonia.

In Kenya,Jhpiego worked with the Ministry of Health’s Division of Reproductive Health to introduce and scale up FANC services as a platform for delivering prevention and treatment servicesfor malaria in pregnancy. We developed a user-friendly orientation package for frontline health care workers and trained 3,000 providers and 264 trainers-to train even more providers.As newly trained providers returned to their health facilities, they received mentoring and supportive supervision to ensure that their new learning was transferred into practice with actual clients.As a result of this intervention, the number of providers updated on malaria in pregnancy virtually doubled within the intervention area. But more important: uptake ofintermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) increased from 19% to 61% in the intervention areaversus17% to 28% in the control area; the number of women who received the first dose of IPTp increased to 77%; and providers who said they gave the appropriate drug, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine,increased to 93%.

NO MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Although many countries have made great strides in addressing and combating malaria, resulting in a drop in malaria cases by 38% in the last decade alone, too few have achieved their goals in reducing malaria illness and deaths.In the last three years, the global community under the Roll Back Malaria Partnership has recognized and promoted the value and necessity ofsmart and effective integration.Within countries, to varying degrees, national malaria control programsare working closely with reproductive health and child health programs, as well as HIV/AIDS programs.

Indeed, these are critical steps in ensuring that malaria prevention and control efforts provide “quick gains” and,ultimately, lasting and sustainable results.

But such results will require ongoing commitment of policymakers and health care providers to work together in achieving smart, strategic and lifesaving integration of services, and “no missed opportunities,” for reducing morbidity and mortality due to malaria illness and other preventable causes.

Elaine Roman is a Senior Technical Advisor – Malaria for Jhpiego, a global health non-profit organization and affiliate of The Johns Hopkins University.

 

Women Deliver 50 Winner Abriendo Oportunidades Helps Empower Young Mayan Girls

 Claudia*, a Mayan girl visiting from her village home in El Cerro Grande, arrived at a Guatemala City hospital with severe abdominal pains. After a brief medical exam she was released by the doctor, who found nothing wrong with her.

Claudia belongs to Guatemala’s most disadvantaged group: indigenous young females. Girls like her typically live in isolated rural communities with limited access to basic services like water, sanitation, passable roads, schooling, and health care. Their lives are marked by early marriage, frequent childbearing, social isolation, violence, and chronic poverty. Often they are disregarded by more affluent Guatemalans, like the doctor who examined her.

Given her background, Claudia might have accepted the doctor’s dismissal of her symptoms. She might have left the hospital in pain and suffered with the infection later diagnosed as appendicitis. But Claudia is no ordinary girl. She is an Abriendo Oportunidades (“Opening Opportunities”) girl.

To help Claudia and girls like her reach their full potential, the Population Council works with the public sector, local government, and nongovernmental organizations to administer and evaluate Abriendo Oportunidades, a program that provides safe spaces where girls can develop friendships, play sports, interact with older female mentors who serve as role models, and learn practical skills like managing their health and their finances. The girls also receive paid internships that provide income and experience. These opportunities change the way girls think about themselves and their abilities—and, as they take on new roles in the community, they help to change the way their families and communities think about the value of girls.

With the self-confidence and help of friendships nurtured at Abriendo, Claudia recognized the doctor’s biased attitudes. She sought the care she knew and believed she deserved. At a second hospital she was correctly diagnosed and treated, and today she is healthy as a result of her own actions.

Abriendo is part of a sisterhood of programs for adolescent girls created by the Population Council to empower the poorest girls in the poorest communities. Two similar Council programs, Ishraq (“Sunrise”) for out-of-school girls in conservative rural Upper Egypt and Biruh Tesfa (“Bright Future”) for domestic servants in the urban capital of Ethiopia, were also recognized by Women Deliver’s expert panel. By administering and evaluating these programs, the Council provides evidence that shows developing countries the value of investing in girls’ lives.

Now that we’ve demonstrated the power of Abriendo, the Council’s goal is to support the continued expansion of the program into a national network of regularly evaluated girls clubs. Most Abriendo girls remain connected to each other and the program through a rural girls’ network, contributing to the program’s sustainability and growth. “Graduates” are hired for supervisory positions to expand the effort. Many have continued their education and found jobs. Further, most stay in their communities, where they become leaders, advocates, and examples of and catalysts for social change. Eventually, the program will be fully self-supported and girl-powered, fueled by the resources and energy channeled back into the clubs by each successive group of newly empowered graduates.

*Names have been changed for privacy 

Abriendo Oportunidades is a winner of the Women Deliver 50. This was originally published on Women Deliver’s website. 

Jennifer Catino and Alejandra Colom work with the Population Council and Abriendo Oportunidades 

Women need access to dual protection and more female-controlled options.

If you’ve been following the discussion around the World Health Organization’stechnical guidance on hormonal contraception and HIV, chances are you’ve seen this message emerge. So what female-controlled, dual protection methods are available today—methods that help prevent both pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV?

Right now the female condom is the only method that fits this bill. But don’t let the term deceive you—there are actually quite a few different female condom designs. Some of which, are just beginning to make their way into the hands of women, helping to expand choices for urgently needed dual protection.

One of these is the Woman’s Condom, which the public voted into the top 10 technologies and innovations in the Women Deliver 50 contest. Under funding from USAID and other donors, the Woman’s Condom was developed by PATH and our partner CONRAD with input from women in several countries. Engaging women and men as co-designers helped us develop a highly acceptable female condom. Clinical studies in multiple countries confirm that the product is safe, easy to use, and performs well.

The Woman’s Condom has features that help bring a bit of sensuality to dual protection. The condom is very thin and smooth, conducts heat well, and allows for good sensation. It is packaged dry but comes with a packet of water-based lubricant, so couples can choose the amount of lubricant that’s right for them. Women and men have given the Woman’s Condom some high marks. For instance, male focus group participants in Shanghai, China, described the product as “fresh,” “mystical,” and “brilliant.”

So what’s happening with the Woman’s Condom today? PATH licensed the Woman’s Condom to the Dahua Medical Apparatus Company (Dahua) in Shanghai, China, to manufacture and distribute the product. It has regulatory approval in China and the European Union, and additional applications are under way. For example, the Woman’s Condom is in review by a World Health Organization/United Nations Population Fund committee which will determine whether it is suitable for public-sector programs. The Woman’s Condom became available to consumers for the first time in late 2011 through limited commercial distribution channels in China. Market development in China is ongoing. PATH and its partners are also working to bring the product to sub-Saharan Africa.

So when you hear renewed calls for expanding access to female-initiated dual protection, know that there are indeed new tools like the Woman’s Condom around the corner. For more information about the Woman’s Condom, please visit the PATH website or send an email to womanscondom@path.org.

PATH’s Woman’s Condom is a winner of the Women Deliver 50. This was original published on Women Deliver’s website. 

Kimberly Whipkey is a Global Advocacy Specialist at PATH

MCHIP Director Koki Agarwal blogs on a potentially livesaving drug

Bleeding to death after delivery is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide, with the greatest burden of disease in the developing world. Women who give birth at home are especially vulnerable to succumb to this largely preventable cause of death. To address this, the MCHIP Project, which is USAID’s flagship maternal and child health program, is training community health workers to educate women in their homes-and arming them with just three tablets of misoprostol, a potentially lifesaving drug.

Easy to administer, misoprostol is an oral uterotonic in tablet form that does not require refrigeration or storage in a cool, dark place, or administration by a skilled attendant. Because women can die within two hours of the onset of bleeding with postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), a key prevention strategy must include advance provision of misoprostol to expectant mothers for self-administration after birth.

MCHIP projects in a number of countries have demonstrated that antenatal care providers and health workers in the community can effectively distribute-and women can safely use-misoprostol for PPH prevention during home birth. In Tanzania, for example, women who delivered at home and did not use misoprostol were almost nine times more likely to need additional interventions for the treatment for PPH than those who used the drug . Moreover, distribution of the drug directly to women has proved to increase the proportion of women who are covered by use of a uterotonic drug immediately after birth. Providing them with the three tablets of misoprostol has also not prevented communities from seeking delivery care at a facility. In fact, in almost all MCHIP programs, as a consequence of effective counseling, more women have delivered with a skilled attendant.

This International Women’s Day, let’s continue our work to help women help themselves. Rarely the decision-makers in their households, women in low-resource settings-where the majority of these deaths occur-are often assumed to be incapable of correctly taking misoprostol . An expectant mother is the only person who will surely be there at the time of her delivery. Who better, then, to receive misoprostol and be trained to take it responsibly?

In the public health community, we know well the close link between a mother’s health and that of her children-if a mother passes away in childbirth, there is a more than 75% chance that her baby will not survive. Therefore, whatever we can do to ensure that when women deliver at home, they have access to misoprostol and related training, the less we have to worry about finding someone to help her should a life-threatening hemorrhage occur. And the more confident we can feel in her continued health, the more confidence we can have in the security of her family and the health of her larger community.

Ideally, all women would have access to a skilled attendant for their birth, and the necessary emergency obstetric care to handle life-threatening emergencies. As we work toward that goal, putting misoprostol in the hands of all women who may need it is the best way forward.

Happy International Women’s Day!

Koki Agarwal is the director of the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program(MCHIP).

REFERENCE

Ifakara Health Institute, Venture Strategies Innovations, et al. 2011. Prevention of Postpartum Hemorrhage in Home Births:Misoprostol Distribution during Antenatal Care Visits in Tanzania. Final Report Brief. (February)

GHC Senior Policy Manager Craig Moscetti breaks down the President’s global health budget numbers

President Obama released his Fiscal Year 2013 budget request yesterday, showing an essential flat-line in international affairs funding, but a $300 million cut to U.S. global health programs, a 4% decrease from levels enacted last year. Most global health issues were requested at levels 3-5% lower than FY2012 enacted levels, though several accounts received much deeper cuts, notably bilateral funding for HIV/AIDS and neglected tropical diseases. There were exceptions, including a continued emphasis to support women and girls through family planning and reproductive health, which received a modest 1.1% increase. A more detailed breakdown of accounts under Global Health Programs (which replaces the Global Health and Child Survival Account) is below.

 

A closer look at the numbers reveals potentially dramatic implications for how the U.S. approaches global health specifically and aid effectiveness generally. The President, including in the GHI, has embraced a much stronger multilateral approach to foreign affairs. Within the GHI, this means a commitment to supporting partnerships like the Global Fund and GAVI. To achieve multi-year pledge to both – which are both positive steps from an aid effectiveness perspective – the FY2013 request includes significant increases for both – the Global Fund received a 27% increase from FY2012 levels, and 12% for GAVI.

The concerning part is a possible classic instance of robbing Peter to pay Paul. In the case of the Global Fund, the offset appears to come from bilateral HIV/AIDS funding. But does this move fail to recognize the complementary elements of U.S. bilateral HIV/AIDS programs and the Global Fund? The Global Fund and GAVI are recognized as two of the most efficient and effective global health institutions, but will this type of significant resource shift effect the balance between Global Fund and PEPFAR in the field?

In stepping back, however, the largest concern is with progression towards stated goals of the GHI, particularly the funding goal. Despite assurances that the President’s budget request supports a comprehensive approach to global health, funding for the Global Health Initiative is severely lagging behind its stated funding goal of $63 billion between FY2009 and FY2013. This year’s request still leaves a $20 billion gap for the GHI heading into its final year. Many in the global health community support the Administration’s strong embrace of efficiency and innovation, but will the huge funding gap prove too great to overcome for the Administration to achieve its stated global health goals?

On Burn Awareness Week, Johnson & Johnson highlights the work of a clinic in Johannesburg

Our skin both protects us from the world and lets us experience it. It fits us perfectly, stretches as we grow, warns us of danger, allows us to feel wind and sun. But it is also delicate. In low-resource areas, where women and children are more likely to spend time around open fires and cooking stoves, serious burn victims experience a trauma that leaves them vulnerable in a way most of us can’t imagine.

Twenty-one years ago, the Johnson & Johnson Burn Treatment Center opened its doors at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. The hospital is located in Soweto, a primarily poor urban neighborhood of Johannesburg whose residents were subject to discrimination and violence under apartheid. When it opened, the burn treatment center was the only one of its kind in Africa, and in an area more commonly known for poverty and racial tensions. In two decades, the center has seen nearly 12,000 patients and performed more than 9,000 procedures.

Today, doctors from around the world visit the clinic in Soweto to learn new skills in burn management, and the medical and nursing staff there share a special understanding of the needs of the world’s most vulnerable people at their most vulnerable moments. It was this understanding that led Victoria Makalima, assistant director of nursing at the center, to return to school for training in psychiatry so she could counsel her patients and provide them with emotional support to accompany their physical healing. “We measure the success of burn injury management by the successful assimilation of the patient into the community after injury. If we accomplish that, I say we have achieved our goal,” Victoria says.

In October, we were privileged to take part in a special professional development workshop at the center, supported by the South African Burn Society, to highlight advancements in burn treatment and management. The symposium featured two surgeries, including one to treat a pediatric burn patient. Both procedures were streamed live to 80 other surgeons and burn health professionals – a remarkable reminder of how health and technology can intersect to improve access to health information and care all over the world.

The ability to restore health and wellness that is more than skin deep is what is so rewarding about this work. The partnership that made the burn center possible is at the core of the Johnson & Johnson commitment to saving and improving lives, building the skills of those who serve community health needs, preventing diseases and reducing stigma. Our vision of making life-changing and long-term improvements in human health continues to be realized through the hard work and dedication of the multidisciplinary specialists who make the burn center the success story it is today.

Roger Crawford is executive director, Government Affairs and Policy, Johnson & Johnson, and recent recipient of the Lifetime Acheivement Award by the South Africa Burn Society. Conrad Person is director, Worldwide Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson.

GHC Research Associate Katie Rosecrans outlines the new campaign to address NTDs, the first in a series on the topic

“Business is not as usual,” said Dr. Lorenzo Savioli, director of the World Health Organization’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), regarding the new collaboration Uniting to Combat NTDs announced Jan. 30 in London. Thirteen pharmaceutical companies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, donor and recipient governments, the World Bank, and several NGOs have committed to work together to reach the targets outlined in the WHO’s new publication, Accelerating Work to Overcome the Global Impact of Neglected Tropical Diseases: A Roadmap for Implementation. The roadmap does not set new targets, but compiles existing resolutions and sets out common strategies for integrated NTD prevention and treatment programs.

The campaign surrounding Uniting to Combat NTDs highlights ten NTDs targeted for eradication, global elimination, or control by 2020:

Eradication
• Guinea worm

Elimination
• Blinding trachoma
• Leprosy
• Human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness)
• Lymphatic filariasis

Control
• Soil-transmitted helminthes (ascariasis, hookworm, and trichuriasis)
• Schistosomiasis (snail fever)
• Visceral leishmaniasis (kala-azar)
• Onchocerciasis (river blindness)
• Chagas disease

Though the WHO roadmap includes 17 NTDs, nine of 9 diseases above (the exception being Guinea worm) have been selected as priorities because they will benefit from increased drug donation by the pharmaceutical industry. In an unprecedented partnership brokered by Bill Gates, companies will maximize the impact of their donations by addressing the burden of NTDs together, instead of piecemeal by disease. Looking beyond their individual corporate social responsibility objectives, companies are combining efforts to achieve broader health goals set out by the WHO.

Pharmaceutical companies will not only provide more medication, they will also shareintellectual property, both among industry partners and with the academic research community, and will pursue development of new technologies and improved formulations of existing medications to address NTDs. “I have never seen so many competitors working together,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan. Though this is certainly not the first public-private partnership in global health, the scale of cooperation, especially among private companies, is unprecedented. If the partners are able to achieve the WHO targets, this initiative could serve as a model-a new way to do business in global health.

The new donations mean that availability of the drugs themselves will no longer be the primary barrier to access, but there is still the hard work of delivery left to do. And drugs alone will not eliminate these diseases. Lack of clean water and sanitation, among other conditions of poverty, are what allow NTDs to continue to plague the most vulnerable. Uniting to Combat NTDs is just one piece of what is needed in an integrated development strategy to alleviate poverty, but it is an important and necessary piece.

This post is part of a blog series about neglected tropical diseases.

The Global Health Council endorses the London Declaration on NTDs. To learn more about NTDs, read the Global Health Council’s NTD position paper.

Kathryn Rosecrans, MPH is a research associate at the Global Health Council.

As an historic partnership to combat neglected diseases is announced, a visual representation of the burden and strategy

Click on the image for a larger view.

Source: Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases

As the International AIDS Conference returns to the U.S., Craig Moscetti shares some of the names that will shape the agenda

Today the organizers of the XIX International AIDS Conference (IAC) announced 15 plenary speakers and presentations that will help shape the overall conference theme “Turning the Tide Together.” Many global health advocates are excited to see the conference back in the United States after a 22-year ban on entry into the U.S. for people infected with HIV/AIDS was overturned by President Obama in late 2009. The conference also comes as a critical time for global health financing generally, and efforts to reaffirm U.S. leadership specifically. Coming just six months after a speech by Secretary Clinton to recommit the to helping achieve an AIDS-free generation, and President Obama’s World AIDS Day commitments, the IAC and the G8 Summit being held in Chicago are shaping up to be two huge political stages for the U.S. and its future positioning in global health.

Here are the 15 newly released plenary presentations and speakers – a combination of several long-standing challenges in trying to turn the tide on the epidemic, but also a more pronounced focus on HIV and broader global health issues, including the intersection with growing challenges like non-communicable diseases. What are your thoughts? Please leave your thoughts and comments.

Monday, 23 July: Ending the Epidemic: Turning the Tide
Ending the HIV Epidemic: From Scientific Advances to Public Health Implementation
Anthony S. Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), United States

The U.S. Epidemic
Phill Wilson, Black AIDS Institute, United States

Turning the Tide in Affected Countries: Leadership, Accountability and Targets
Sheila Tlou, UNAIDS

Tuesday, 24 July: Challenges and Solutions
Viral Eradication – the Cure Agenda
Javier Martinez-Picado, AIDS Research Institute – IrsiCaixa, University Hospital “Germans Trias i
Pujol”, Spain

Implementation Science: Making the New Prevention Revolution Real
Nelly Mugo, University of Nairobi and Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya

What Will It Take to Turn the Tide?
Bernhard Schwartländer, UNAIDS

Wednesday, 25 July: Turning the Tide on Transmission
Vaccines
Bart Haynes, Duke Human Vaccine Institute, United States

Turning the Tide for Women and Girls
Geeta Rao Gupta, UNICEF

Turning the Tide for Children and Youth
Chewe Luo, UNICEF

Thursday, 26 July: Dynamics of the Epidemic in Context
Turning the Tide for MSM and HIV
Paul Semugoma, Global Forum on MSM and HIV, Uganda

The Tide Cannot Be Turned without Us: HIV Epidemics amongst Key Affected Populations (Public Health, Human Rights and Harm Reduction)
Cheryl Overs, Monash University, Australia

Expanding Testing and Treatment
Gottfried Hirnschall, WHO

Friday, 27 July: HIV in the Larger Global Health Context
TB and HIV – Science and Implementation to Turn the Tide on TB
Anthony Harries, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, France

Intersection of Non-Communicable Diseases and Ageing in HIV
Judith Currier, University of California, Los Angeles, United States

Optimization, Effectiveness and Efficiency of Service Delivery – Integration of HIV and Health Services
Yogan Pillay, National Department of Health, South Africa

Craig Moscetti is the senior manager for policy at the Global Health Council.