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U.S. Must Do More To Address Maternal Mortality In Developing Countries, Rep. Moore Writes In Opinion Piece
President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama"s visit to Africa this weekend "will send a powerful message to the world about their commitment to ensuring Africa"s continued progress," Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) writes in an opinion piece in The Hill. She continues that "for Africa to make this long-forestalled progress, a renewed promise must be made to provide highly cost-effective solutions to ensure that women are healthy before, during and after pregnancy."According to Moore, "More than 500,000 women worldwide die from pregnancy each year, and millions more endure life-threatening complications." For example, in Ghana, women"s risk of pregnancy-related death is one in 45, compared with one in 4,800 in the U.S., she writes. "In some of the world"s poorest countries, including Afghanistan, the maternal death risk is as high as one in eight," Moore adds. Access to health care is a significant part of the problem, she writes, noting that "[o]nly 40% of births worldwide take place in a health facility" and that "[s]ix of the seven countries with the highest levels of maternal mortality have less than one doctor per every 10,000 people."Moore continues that she is "encouraged" that the House Appropriations Committee recently approved increased funding for family planning and maternal and child health as part of the fiscal year 2010 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill (HR 3081). "However, more remains to be done by the United States and our partners around the world if we are truly going to fulfill the promise of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, one of which is to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters and achieve universal access to reproductive health," she adds. Although there has been progress in fighting HIV/AIDS and working toward other Millennium Development Goals, "[w]e must recognize the appalling lack of progress that has been made in the area of maternal mortality, child mortality and family planning as major barriers to progress on all of the other goals," according to Moore."Pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood should not be a death sentence," Moore writes. She concludes, "Improving impoverished women"s chances of survival before, during and after pregnancy is an issue of rights and social justice. It is also a sound economic and social investment, given the importance of women to the well-being of their children, families and societies" (Moore, The Hill, 7/7).
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N.Y. Health IT Program A National Model
A New York City health information technology project could provide a model for the implementation of stimulus-funded electronic health records in hospitals and doctors offices around the country, reports Government Health IT, a publication of an e-health lobbying group. "The Primary Care Information Project (PCIP), a program started in 2007 by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, supports the adoption of health IT among primary care providers who tend to the city"s underserved populations," the report explains.
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New Lab Test Offers Better Prediction Of HIV Microbicide Safety
Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have devised a laboratory test for predicting whether microbicides against HIV are safe for human use. The researchers have also discovered why several supposedly "safe" microbicides made women more susceptible to HIV infection. The study appears today in the online version of the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Cardiovascular

Eiger BioPharmaceuticals Acquires Exclusive License To Novel Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Technology From Stanford University

Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company developing antiviral therapies, announced today that it has licensed the exclusive worldwide rights to novel Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) technology from Stanford University. This technology, discovered in the lab of Stanford scientist and Eiger founder Dr. Jeffrey Glenn, M.D., Ph.D., is focused on a variety of novel targets, including key features of NS4B, a non-structural protein in the HCV genome, which binds to HCV-RNA and is required for viral replication. "We are delighted to have licensed the rights to this exciting new technology from Stanford University," said David Cory, President and CEO of Eiger. "Disrupting the interaction between NS4B and HCV-RNA may be a promising new method to treat HCV infection and help combat drug resistance to HCV polymerase and protease inhibitors. We are rapidly advancing novel small molecule inhibitors of NS4B-RNA binding into the clinic for the benefit of clinicians and HCV patients." "The unique two component nature of the NS4B-RNA target appears to decrease the virus" ability to escape inhibition by the small molecule inhibitors in development at Eiger, and that should decrease HCV resistance to this type of antiviral therapy," said Jeffrey Glenn. "These virus specific agents in development at Eiger possess the promise of more effective, oral drugs that can be essential components of all future cocktails for HCV therapy." About Hepatitis C Virus Infections from HCV have reached pandemic proportions, affecting over 150 million people worldwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 3.9 million Americans have been exposed to HCV, resulting in 2.7 million cases of chronic infection. Chronic HCV infection leads to serious liver disease (e.g. liver scarring and cirrhosis) and is the leading cause of liver cancer and liver transplantation in the U.S. About Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, Inc. Eiger is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of new antiviral agents against novel targets for the treatment of hepatitis virus infections. Eiger"s pipeline includes repurposed clinical stage therapeutic agents as well as preclinical NCEs from discovery that exhibit antiviral activity against Hepatitis C, Hepatitis D, and other viruses. Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, Inc


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