Nergui Manalsuren
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 2008 (IPS) – Despite the admirable progress made by some African countries in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS since 2000, 14 million Africans have died of AIDS in that time span, and an additional 17 million have been infected, says a new report on HIV/AIDS on the continent.
According to the report Securing Our Future launched Monday by the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa, the disease is reducing capacity in all social and economic sectors, undermining and slowing the overall development of the region.
It estimates that by 2020, the nine most severely hit sub-Saharan countries may lose 13-26 percent of their agricultural workers to AIDS people who are also household heads, mothers and fathers of young children,…
Bernarda Claure* – Tierramérica
LA PAZ, Jul 10 2008 (IPS) – Indigenous communities in Bolivia and Brazil have declared an emergency in response to the construction of the Madera River Hydroelectric Complex, which Brasilia is pursuing even as independent research efforts try to measure the impacts of what will be one of South America s largest energy projects.
The town of Porto Velho on the Madeira River. Credit: Agencia Brasil
The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this year has proposed construction of the Jirau and San Anto…
PESHAWAR, Aug 6 2008 (IPS) – The polio eradication campaign has ground to a halt in the Swat Valley, in northern Pakistan, with the breakdown of a peace agreement with a hardline militant group.
TTP s Maulvi Omar (left) insists there is no ban on polio immunisation. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
In fact, violence has escalated in recent weeks in the entire North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), except the Peshawar Valley, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with the Pa…
Heike Barkawitz
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 2008 (IPS) – As world leaders gather at the United Nations to discuss progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Presidents Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Tarja Halonen of Finland, and Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete of Tanzania are calling for more attention to be paid to maternal and child health.
In too many countries of Africa women s ability to survive childbirth remains a matter of chance, Kikwete stressed at a special event Thursday on the sidelines of the General Assembly.
Improving maternal and child health embodied in MDG four (to reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate) and five (to reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio, and to achie…
Cherrie Heywood
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov 18 2008 (IPS) – Israel has imposed a virtual news blackout on the Gaza Strip. For the last ten days no foreign journalists have been able to enter the besieged territory to report on the escalating humanitarian crisis caused by Israel s complete closure of Gaza s borders for the last two weeks.
A baby in Shifa hospital in Gaza struggles against illness and lack of medicines and electricity. Credit…
Zahira Kharsany
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 15 2009 (IPS) – A new UNICEF report reveals there is still much to be done to reduce infant and maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Failure to improve care for pregnant women and newborns threatens to undermine progress on all health-related development goals.
Newborn deaths account for up to 40 percent of all under-five deaths around the world, UNICEF Chief of Health Peter Salama told IPS in Johannesburg.
With 9.2 million deaths across the world, half of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 40 percent are of newborn infants in the first 28 days of life. We now know that without addressing the issue of newborn care, we can t actually achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals.
UNICEF s State of the World s…
Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Mar 2 2009 (IPS) – Zimbabwe’s crumbling health system makes it almost impossible to detect and treat tuberculosis (TB), doctors say. As a result, they suspect the country has large numbers of unidentified cases of multi-drug resistant (MDR) as well as extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB.
International humanitarian relief organisation, Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF), said Zimbabwe has the public health system of a country at war.
HIV and TB
Someone in the world is newly infected with tuberculosis (TB) bacilli every second; overall, one-third of the world’s population is currently infected with the TB bacillus.
TB is spread through the air when infectious people cough, sneeze, talk or spit, they propel TB germs, known as bacilli…
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Apr 2 2009 (IPS) – While the authorities squabble over what or whom to blame, Argentina is suffering its worst epidemic of dengue fever since 1998 in terms of the number of people and the size of the area affected. And on top of that, the most dangerous form of the illness, never recorded here before, has made its appearance.
There is a major breakout of the disease and it is more serious than in other years, because the number of infected people is larger and more provinces are involved, Dr. Alfredo Seijo, a specialist in infectious diseases in charge of the Dengue Unit at the Muñiz Hospital in Buenos Aires, told IPS.
But official information about the epidemic is confusing. The figures mentioned so far by the national authorities are …
Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING, May 5 2009 (IPS) – Rebuked in the past for its sluggish response and attempts to cover up the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), China s measures to curb the spread of the swine flu virus are earning opposite marks of being extreme and unjustified.
The country s health authorities have been accused of discriminating against Mexican nationals by singling them out for forced isolation amid fears that the world s most populous nation may be exposed to the spread of the flu. Beijing suspended flights with Mexico the country hardest hit by the current outbreak of H1N1 flu after health minister Chen Zhu warned the virus would very likely enter mainland China.
Beijing has now shifted into a defensive mode, attempting to ste…
Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON, Jun 5 2009 (IPS) – The World Health Organisation (WHO) urged Friday that rotavirus vaccines be included in routine immunisation schedules of countries around the world in order to provide global protection against the most common and lethal form of diarrheal disease.
The rotavirus is responsible for more than 500,000 diarrheal deaths and two million hospitalisations annually among children. More than 85 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries in Africa and Asia.
This new policy will help ensure access to rotavirus vaccines in the world s poorest countries.
This is a tremendous milestone in ensuring that vaccines against the most common cause of lethal diarrhea reach the children who need them most, noted Dr. Thomas C…