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…
Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Jun 30 2009 (IPS) – The torture of drug addicts who had turned to the Serbian Orthodox Church for help has sent shock waves across the country.
The methods used at the Crna Reka monastery and its rehabilitation centre, some 300 kilometres southwest of capital Belgrade, had been secret for years until the weekly Vreme placed two cellphone videos made by a former patient on its website.
The videos show head priest Branislav Peranovic and an employee repeatedly beating patients with shovels, and kicking them inside a room decorated with icons. The patient who made videos told the weekly he witnessed at least 40 to 50 such beatings.
The authenticity of the videos was confirmed by Peranovic, who told Serbian media that the methods wer…
Mel Frykberg
BREJ, Gaza, Aug 5 2009 (IPS) – Tens of thousands of children in Gaza are still suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following Israel s three-week bombing December- January.
Several crisis counselling teams run by international organisations and NGOs have been carrying out intervention programmes aimed at helping Gaza s most vulnerable put the pieces of their lives back together.
But these groups warn that while there has been some improvement in the collective psyche of Gaza s children, the long-term effects of war are now beginning to show, and unless the rights of Gazans are respected, the next generation s future will be hard to predict.
What is needed is sustained advocacy at a political level to ensure practical changes can b…
Analysis by Bankole Thompson*
DETROIT, Michigan, Aug 26 2009 (IPS) – The message machine of the Barack Obama administration appears to need oiling, as the U.S. president s push for a Sep. 15 deadline for a bipartisan deal on healthcare reform in the U.S. Congress continues to meet stiff resistance.
The debate is playing out like the battle of Armageddon between forces who want serious changes in the healthcare system to cover an estimated 47 million U.S. citizens without health insurance, and those with vested interests in preserving the status quo.
According to an analysis by Plunkett Research Ltd, total U.S. healthcare expenditures will increase from 2.39 trillion dollars in 2008 to 2.72 trillion dollars in 2010, with annual increases averaging about 7 percent.
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PHNOM PENH, Oct 28 2009 (IPS) – Mey Chamnan has learned the hard way about the global economic crisis. Both she and her husband were fired from their 50 U.S.-dollar a month jobs in a local garment factory after declining overseas orders caused huge job losses across Cambodia s garment industry.
FRESNO, California , Oct 21 2009 – They call it Tortilla Flats a haphazard cluster of tents and tarps sprawling across a sidewalk and a vacant lot smack in the middle of Fresno, a city of 500,000 in California s Central Valley.
The tent city, reminiscent of the Depression-era Hoovervilles depicted by author John Steinbeck in his classic novel The Grapes of Wrath , is home to a shifting population of about 70 homeless people.
That s where I met a couple named Kerry and John. They asked me not to use their last names. They live in a cramped two-person tent strewn with blankets and clothes. Both are native to the Valley. And both are now homeless for the first time in their lives.
Kerry was a preschool teacher until a year ago, when her world caved in. I got sick, she …
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 21 2010 (IPS) – Last week, the price of a small can of rice was two dollars. On Tuesday, it cost Haitians 3.50 dollars. A gallon of cooking oil that cost 10 dollars only days ago now fetches 20 dollars.
Haitians displaced by the massive earthquake that devastated their country form a long line to wait for UN-distributed meals. Credit: UN Photo/Log…
Emilio Godoy
SANTA MARÍA RAYÓN, Mexico, Feb 28 2010 (IPS) – The lives of many rural women and children in Mexico are changing, and the country s high deforestation rate could be reduced, as inexpensive fuel-efficient cook stoves are being distributed by non-governmental organisations with corporate and government support.
The open cooking fires replaced by the improved stoves cause respiratory and eye infections, as well as severe burns, which are especially frequent among young children who stumble or fall into their mothers fire pits.
Acute respiratory infections are among the main causes of childhood morbidity and mortality in Mexico and many other poor countries around the world.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), which has designated the issue as one …