More than 10 million of the world's children under age 5 die every year, many from preventable diseases such as measles or malaria.

	Related content See a map showing child mortality rates around the world. The Millennium Development Goals

About 1.1 billion people -- about one-sixth of the world's population -- lack access to safe drinking water, and at least 2.4 billion lack adequate sanitation.

Every day, 6,500 people die of AIDS in Africa alone, and another 9,500 are infected with the AIDS virus.

A two-day conference that opens Friday at the University of Pittsburgh will explore those and other public health problems that plague faraway nations and areas closer to home.

"Global Problems, Global Solutions: Health, Dignity and Human Rights" will be held at the David L. Lawrence Hall on the Pitt campus. The third annual conference is sponsored by the university's Graduate School of Public Health and La Roche College, which hosted the event the past two years.

Keynote addresses will be given by the School of Public Health's new dean, Dr. Donald Burke, and Dr. Kollo Basile, director of human resources for the Cameroon Ministry of Public Health.

Also delivering remarks are former U.S. Treasury secretary and Alcoa chairman Paul O'Neill; Sister Candace Introcaso, president of La Roche College; and Carol Welch, U.S. coordinator for the Millennium Campaign, a United Nations effort to address the Millennium Development Goals, a series of objectives related to global poverty and health.

Workshops also will be held on a variety of issues. Dr. Douglas Jay Perkins, for example, will contribute to a workshop about the challenges of confronting communicable diseases such as AIDS and malaria. His research includes a focus on malaria and children in Kenya. Dr. Robbie Ali, also of Pitt's public health school, is part of another panel that will discuss global health challenges in Asia.

Other workshop topics include medical relief efforts following natural disasters, the use of child soldiers in Africa, prevention education in sex trafficking, conflicts in the Middle East, language and cultural competence, the link between clean water and health, careers in global health and development, and the role of private and international development organizations in fostering human security.

La Roche began the conference two years ago to support the Millennium Development Goals, said Dr. Paul Le Blanc, the college's dean of arts and sciences.

The goals, agreed upon at a U.N. summit in 2000, focus on a variety of targets for reducing hunger and poverty and improving health and well-being by 2015.

This year's conference focuses particularly on goals related to health, including those calling for reducing maternal and child mortality rates, reversing the spread of HIV and AIDS, and improving access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

So far, progress on the goals is "definitely a mixed bag," Ms. Welch said.

More headway needs to be made in reducing child mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa, she noted, and pregnancy-related death rates remain high among women in that region and in parts of southeast Asia and Latin America.

While promising efforts have been made to address AIDS and malaria, more needs to be done, she said.

More research into diseases that affect the poorest people also is needed, Ms. Welch said, as well as additional clinics and health professionals to provide services.

Substantial progress has been made on meeting the Millennium Development Goals in some places, though not in others, said Dr. Burke, who intended to discuss the goals in his keynote address Friday night.

He also planned to address Pitt's capabilities in global health. "My intention is to take those capabilities and project them more effectively internationally," he said, adding that he wants to explore "how we can take the science base that's here right now and become more involved in global health issues."

Among those efforts at Pitt, he noted, is research by Dr. Sharon Hillier on developing microbicides, including vaginal gels, to block the spread of HIV.

He also noted that Pitt is opening a new vaccine research center that will focus in part on diseases such as dengue, a mosquito-borne infection that poses a threat in many countries but not in the United States.

Still other capabilities in global health exist at Pitt outside the public health school, such as in the schools of medicine, nursing and pharmacy and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, he said.

"The question is how to foster that," he said. "That is going to be part of my job."

"The University of Pittsburgh has not had a significant profile in the global health arena. But I think that will change with Don Burke," said Dr. Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council, a membership alliance of health professionals and agencies working to improve world health.

"He's an internationally known figure, especially for his work in HIV and AIDS."

Dr. Burke, 60, came to Pitt in July from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he directed the Disease Prevention and Control Program and the Center for Immunization Research.

He formerly served 23 years in the Army, where he was associate director for emerging threats and biotechnology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

He has been a member of many influential panels and boards, chairing a review panel for the government's Ecology of Infectious Disease Program last year and serving on the HIV/AIDS vaccine review panel for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He also serves on the policy advisory board for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which he co-founded.

While there has been a lack of incentives in the past, from a business standpoint, for developing vaccines, interest has increased, Dr. Daulaire said, in part because of a "growing global consensus that vaccines need to be very much front and center to maintain the world's population, both rich and poor."

Funding opportunities also have increased from both government agencies and private groups such as the Gates Foundation, he said.

Besides his duties as dean, Dr. Burke holds two new positions at Pitt, serving as associate vice chancellor for global health, health sciences and director of the Center for Vaccine Research. He also occupies the UPMC-Jonas Salk chair in global health.

The university did not initially envision one person holding the multiple positions, but named Dr. Burke to them because of his expertise, said Dr. Arthur Levine, senior vice chancellor for health sciences and dean of the Pitt medical school.

Avian flu, like the viral illness known as SARS, is a reminder that an emerging disease elsewhere in the world can quickly spread to the United States, Dr. Levine said.

But in a larger sense, the U.S. needs to reach out to others in need, he said.

"We need to be concerned as much about others as we are for our own health."

"Global Problems, Global Solutions: Health, Dignity and Human Rights" is free and open to the public, but registration is suggested. For information and to register, visit www.publichealth.pitt.edu/globalproblems or call 412-624-3100, extension 3.