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…
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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