Media/Policy Watch
This section is intended to alert readers to substantive news, analysis and opinion from the general media on vaccines, immunization, global; public health and related themes. Media Watch is not intended to be exhaustive, but indicative of themes and issues CVEP is actively tracking. This section will grow from an initial base of newspapers, magazines and blog sources, and is segregated from Journal Watch above which scans the peer-reviewed journal ecology.

We acknowledge the Western/Northern bias in this initial selection of titles and invite suggestions for expanded coverage. We are conservative in our outlook in adding news sources which largely report on primary content we are already covering above. Many electronic media sources have tiered, fee-based subscription models for access. We will provide full-text where content is published without restriction, but most publications require registration and some subscription level.

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The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/
Accessed 5 December 2015
Measles Outbreaks Are a Sign of Bigger Problems
For health agencies tracking global vaccine coverage, the disease is the canary in the coal mine.
Seth Berkley
1 December 2015
This year was supposed to mark the point when measles—one of the most infectious diseases on the planet—was finally under control. As a step in its plan to eliminate measles worldwide by 2020, the World Health Organization set a target to reduce the number of cases by 95 percent between 2000 and 2015. The effect has been significant: Measles deaths have fallen from more than 700,000 in 2000 to around 115,000 last year. But for a disease that’s easily preventable, 115,000 deaths—the majority of them children under 5 years old—is still too high. And as the WHO reported in November, progress has flat-lined over the past five years, and outbreaks are still common.

What, exactly, went wrong?

At first glance, it seems impossible to pinpoint just one reason for all the various outbreaks around the world. In the Nuba mountains of Sudan, a key factor is the lack of access to humanitarian aid for people trapped in conflict zones; in West Africa, a measles resurgence can be attributed largely to the Ebola epidemic’s crippling effect on local health systems. And in California, the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of anti-vaccine groups for whipping up unfounded fears about the safety of measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines.

However, all of these seemingly disparate cases—and all other measles outbreaks, for that matter—still have a common underlying cause. Whenever measles strikes, it’s more than just an outbreak of a single disease, or an indication that children aren’t receiving their measles shots; it’s also a warning that immunization coverage in general, for all vaccine-preventable diseases, is lower than it should be. To put it another way: When rates of routine vaccination—children receiving all their shots on schedule, as a preventive measure rather than a reaction to an outbreak—start to fall, the first sign is usually a measles outbreak. In global-health security terms, these outbreaks are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine…

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The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Accessed 5 December 2015
COP21: A Defining Moment for Human Health
Margaret Chan
3 December 2015
This week’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris offers a chance to save the planet from severe, pervasive and irreversible damage. Though often lost in the debate, saving the planet also means saving the conditions that sustain human life in good health. If sufficiently ambitious and effective, the climate agreement will be a major turning point in environmental policy, but also a far-reaching treaty for protecting public health.

The stakes are high. Unless a deal is clinched to keep the temperature rise within two degrees Celsius, the consequences will be catastrophic. Many of the same inefficient and polluting energy choices that are driving climate change are also devastating human health. Climate change degrades air quality, reduces food security and compromises water supplies and sanitation.

WHO estimates that, each year, more than 7 million deaths worldwide can be attributed to air pollution. Climate change is also causing tens of thousands of yearly deaths from other causes. Records for extreme weather events — like droughts and floods, storm surges, heatwaves and wildfires — are being broken a record number of times, claiming human lives and livelihoods. The World Meteorological Organization says 2015 is already the hottest year since records began in 1880. Next year is predicted to be even hotter…

…The health sector has critical evidence, and positive arguments, to bring to the climate talks. Existing strategies that work well to combat climate change also bring important health gains. Investments in low-carbon development, clean renewable energy, and greater climate resilience are investments in better health….

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Accessed 5 December 2015
Health
Ebola Crisis Passes, but Questions on Quarantines Persist
By SHERI FINKDEC. 2, 2015
The Ebola epidemic has subsided, but in the United States the fallout over how health care workers and their families were treated during the crisis continues.

Throughout the months of fear and uncertainty, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended monitoring people entering the United States from Ebola-affected countries, not confining them, because research showed that people with Ebola are not contagious before they show symptoms. But states, which have the legal authority to impose quarantines, often exceeded those guidelines, restricting the movements of returning health workers and others.

Interviews with more than a dozen people who either were quarantined or were involved in imposing quarantines revealed troubling details about the steps that were taken. Some said they were left without basic necessities like garbage removal and without psychological support. In one case in New York, a stove was left inoperable after an apartment was cleaned and no one was allowed to come fix it. Others were not given the legally required notice of the restrictions to be imposed.

Similar findings are documented in a report released on Thursday by the Yale Global Health Justice Partnership and the American Civil Liberties Union, which for the first time tried to quantify how widespread quarantines were in response to the Ebola epidemic…

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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Accessed 5 December 2015
Everything went wrong in the Ebola outbreak. We’re still not ready if it happens again.
By Editorial Board 28 November 2015
ALMOST EVERYTHING that could go wrong did go wrong in the world’s early response to the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014. Before it was over, the virus infected some 28,634 people and claimed more than 11,000 lives. It could happen again — and the world is still not ready.

Guinea had a weak health-care system when the virus took root in its remote regions, making it easier for the virus to spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. Guinean authorities played down the seriousness for fear of creating panic and disrupting business. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak “relatively small still” in April 2014, and expert teams that had been sent in to the region were pulled out prematurely in May. WHO outbreak response teams had been “disproportionally” cut in a wave of headquarters layoffs. Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO, did not use her authority to declare a public-health emergency of international concern until five months after Guinea and Sierra Leone had notified the organization. Even after the emergency was declared, and a substantial global response was mobilized, “this response arrived late, was slow to deliver funds and health workers, was inflexible in adapting to rapidly changing conditions on the ground, was inadequately informed about cultural factors relevant to outbreak control, and was poorly coordinated,” according to a new study. “The result was, in essence, a $5 billion scramble.”

This is a sample of the findings contained in a report made public Nov. 22 by an independent panel of 19 experts who examined responses to the outbreak, particularly by the WHO, an agency of the United Nations. The report describes a cascade of failures and serves as a reminder that the existing methods of coping with infectious disease outbreaks are fragmented and fragile. The panel, launched by the Harvard Global Health Institute and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, found that during the Ebola outbreak, the WHO fell down in all of its core functions: helping nations build up health-care capacity, providing early warning, establishing technical norms and mobilizing resources. The agency now faces an “existential crisis of confidence,” is “starved” of resources and “seems to have lost its way,” the experts write. “Confidence in the organization’s capacity to lead is at an all-time low.”

Before another bacterium or virus goes on a rampage, the panel recommends bolstering the WHO’s ability to respond quickly, including with a worldwide research and development fund for diagnostics, drugs and vaccines for diseases that have been neglected by the pharmaceutical industry. In many poor countries, basic health-care systems are still lacking, hampering their ability to fight outbreaks. It is also essential that governments give early warning of disease, regardless of the consequences. Response teams must take into account not only health and science concerns but also the beliefs, traditions, cultures and fears of local populations. The world fails to learn these lessons of Ebola at its peril.