Globe in Brief

Global health officials tackle Ebola outbreak

In the midst of the world’s largest Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization announced a $71 million funding appeal in July to contain the epidemic.

Medical staff with Doctors Without Borders put on protective gear before entering an Ebola isolation area at a treatment center on July 20 in Kailahun, Sierra Leone. Ebola was moving quickly through Sierra Leone and other Western African countries, with more than 1,600 cases of the disease as of Aug. 4.

Photo courtesy Reuters

Health officials from WHO and West Africa launched a new joint response plan July 31 aimed at stopping transmission of the virus in affected countries and preventing its spread beyond their borders. As of Aug. 4, more than 1,600 cases of the disease and about 880 deaths had been reported in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

While WHO had issued funding appeals for the outbreak in March and April, receiving more than $7 million from countries around the world, the organization reported in July that those funds had been exhausted. The new Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak Response Plan in West Africa would cover the period from July to December.

Hundreds of international aid workers, as well as more than 120 WHO personnel, were working to contain the outbreak as of July. On July 31, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it would be sending an additional 50 disease control specialists to establish emergency operations centers, strengthen laboratory networks and serve other needs.

To aid health workers responding to the epidemic, APHA is sharing the Ebola and Marburg virus chapter of the its Control of Communicable Diseases Manual for free on its website at www.apha.org/publications/bookstore.

For ongoing information about the Ebola outbreak, visit www.who.int.

Australian marketing laws reduce smoking

New tobacco packaging laws in Australia have resulted in a dramatic decline in smoking rates.

Following a legal requirement that cigarettes be sold in plain packaging without colorful logos and other branding, the Australian smoking rate dropped by more than 15 percent, from 15.1 percent in 2010 to 12.8 percent in 2013, reported the U.S.-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Australia was among the first nations to introduce graphic cigarette warnings and restrict tobacco marketing. Also, in 2010, Australian policymakers increased tobacco taxes by 25 percent, with more increases scheduled through 2016, said APHA member Matthew Myers, JD, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

“The tobacco industry has also recently promoted misleading data in an attempt to discredit plain packaging in Australia,” Myers said in a July news release.

A proposal by the Food and Drug Administration to require cigarette packs sold in the U.S. to include graphic warnings was struck down in 2012.

To learn more, visit www.tobaccofreekids.org.

Hotter temperatures influence migration

Hotter temperatures lead more people to permanently relocate than natural disasters do, according to a study published in June in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In examining 15 years of migration data on more than 7,000 families in Indonesia, researchers found that hotter temperatures and, to a lesser extent, rainfall influenced a family’s decision to move to another region. For comparison, natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes had a much smaller impact on permanent moves and in many cases, had no impact at all. The study found that people begin to rethink where they live for each degree that the average temperature rises above 77 degrees.

For example, with a change in temperature from 78.8 degrees to 80.6 degrees, the probability that a family would relocate increased by 0.8 percent. When the temperature rose from 80.6 degrees to 82.4 degrees, the chance of moving jumped to 1.4 percent.

“Images of refugees from natural disasters often dominate the overall picture,” said study author Pratikshya Bohra-Mishra, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. “It is important to understand the often less conspicuous and gradual effect of climate change on migration.”

Rainfall also affected migration. While families seemed to tolerate about seven feet of annual rainfall, chances of relocation increased with each additional meter of rainfall as well as with further declines. Landslides were the only natural disaster associated with permanent relocation. The study authors noted that higher temperatures had an economic impact on families.

For a copy of the study, visit www.pnas.org.