The Lancet
Apr 12, 2014 Volume 383 Number 9925 p1269 – 1358
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current
Editorial
Neglected tropical diseases: becoming less neglected
The Lancet
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Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) cover a wide range of infections that predominantly affect the poorest and most vulnerable individuals. Neglected, but not unknown, these diseases are preventable and treatable. They threaten the lives of more than 1 billion people worldwide, including half a billion children. To take the “neglected” out of NTDs, public and private partners—including drug companies, donors, and governments—committed to what is now referred to as the 2012 London Declaration to control, eliminate, or eradicate by 2020 ten NTDs (lymphatic filariasis, trachoma, soil-transmitted helminths, onchocerciasis, schistosomiaisis, leprosy, guinea worm, visceral leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and human African trypanosomiasis).

Health Policy
Advancing social and economic development by investing in women’s and children’s health: a new Global Investment Framework
Karin Stenberg MSc a, Henrik Axelson MSc e, Peter Sheehan DPhil p, Ian Anderson MSc q, A Metin Gülmezoglu PhD c, Marleen Temmerman PhD c, Elizabeth Mason MSc d, Howard S Friedman PhD n, Prof Zulfiqar A Bhutta PhD g h, Joy E Lawn PhD k, Kim Sweeny PhD p, Jim Tulloch MBBS r, Peter Hansen PhD i, Mickey Chopra MD m, Anuradha Gupta MBA l, Joshua P Vogel MBBS c, Mikael Ostergren MD d, Bruce Rasmussen PhD p, Carol Levin PhD s, Colin Boyle MBA t, Shyama Kuruvilla PhD f, Marjorie Koblinsky PhD o, Neff Walker PhD j, Andres de Francisco MD f, Nebojsa Novcic MPhil f, Carole Presern PhD f, Prof Dean Jamison PhD s, Flavia Bustreo MD b, on behalf of the Study Group for the Global Investment Framework for Women’s Children’s Health
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2813%2962231-X/abstract
Summary
A new Global Investment Framework for Women’s and Children’s Health demonstrates how investment in women’s and children’s health will secure high health, social, and economic returns. We costed health systems strengthening and six investment packages for: maternal and newborn health, child health, immunisation, family planning, HIV/AIDS, and malaria. Nutrition is a cross-cutting theme. We then used simulation modelling to estimate the health and socioeconomic returns of these investments. Increasing health expenditure by just $5 per person per year up to 2035 in 74 high-burden countries could yield up to nine times that value in economic and social benefits. These returns include greater gross domestic product (GDP) growth through improved productivity, and prevention of the needless deaths of 147 million children, 32 million stillbirths, and 5 million women by 2035. These gains could be achieved by an additional investment of $30 billion per year, equivalent to a 2% increase above current spending.

Viewpoint
Children growing up with HIV infection: the responsibility of success
Sarah Bernays, Prudence Jarrett, Katharina Kranzer, Rashida A Ferrand
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An estimated 3•4 million children are living with HIV, more than 90% in sub-Saharan Africa.1 Those working in paediatric HIV care are now cautiously optimistic. Comparing the landscape with 10 years ago when HIV-infected infants faced inevitable death, those born with HIV now have access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) so that increasing numbers of children are surviving to adolescence and beyond.2 Coupled with this progress, the number of new infections has substantially decreased (from 450 000 in 2005, to 260 000 in 2012) because of scale-up of interventions to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT), resulting in a shift of burden of HIV towards older children.

The Lancet
Volume 383, Issue 9924, Pages 1197 – 1199, 5 April 2014
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60590-0
Typhoon Haiyan recovery: progress and challenges
Sima Barmania
5 months on, progress has been made in the provision of health services for those affected by Super Typhoon Haiyan but vital gaps remain. Sima Barmania reports.