Danilo Valladares

GUATEMALA CITY, Mar 3 2010 (IPS) – Guatemala knows that when it comes time to demonstrate compliance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global anti-poverty and development target to be met by 2015, it will make a poor showing.
Along with the rest of the world s governments, authorities in this impoverished Central American nation committed themselves at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, from 1990 levels.

In 1989, 20 percent of the Guatemalan population was living in extreme poverty. At the start of this century, the MDG poverty goal appeared to be within reach, because by 2000 absolute poverty had been reduced to 16 percent of the population, which cur…

Lloyd Himaambo

LUSAKA, Apr 10 2010 (IPS) – As the heavy rains subside, signifying the end of the rainy season, a cholera outbreak is sweeping through the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

Flooding in Lusaka in 2009: despite investment in improved drainage, this year s floods were the worst in several decades. Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

Humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Fronti…

Stephanie Nieuwoudt

CAPE TOWN, May 11 2010 (IPS) – South Africa is experiencing a shortage of over 80 different drugs in its public health sector, including flu vaccinations and medication for tuberculosis and high blood pressure. The severity of shortages varies from province to province and hospital to hospital, depending on the leadership and skills levels of management.
Experts blame the shortage on a number of factors, including a lack of trained pharmacists, an ineffective tendering process and the inability of some pharmaceutical companies to deliver drugs.

The distribution and consumption of medicine forms a chain with many links. Each link has to function optimally for a patient to eventually get her medication, says Dr Elma de Vries, a former chairperson of…

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Jun 23 2010 (IPS) – The majority of people surveyed in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Nicaragua are in favour of legalising therapeutic abortion, but not all forms of elective abortion, according to a study by the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO).
There is a shared opinion in the four countries that abortion is a serious problem, of public health and equality, study coordinator Claudia Dides, director of the FLACSO-Chile gender and equality programme, told IPS.

Most of the survey respondents believe that the existing strict abortion laws need to be revised, particularly for cases in which the health of the mother is at risk, and that changes in the law should be made through referendums, before congressional debate.

Neve…

Genevieve Marie Ilg

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 16 2010 (IPS) – The Nigerian government is trying to cope with an outbreak of lead poisoning which has killed over 200 people in Zamfara State since early July.
According to NGO News Africa, medical personnel supervising the treatment of victims confirmed that most of those who died were children aged five years and younger.

Doctor Alhassan Hamisu Dama, told Good Health Weekly, I cannot say precisely, but more than 200 children died and that is why we are concentrating on treating victims of that age group.

He also urged for financial and technical assistance. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is working with its U.N. partners to mobilise funds to deal with this unprecedented environmental emergency, Dama said.

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Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Aug 10 2010 (IPS) – Tobacco multinational Philip Morris may have had good reason to send out victory smoke signals when Filipinos elected Benigno Aquino III to be president in May. After all, he is a regular smoker who has said he will not quit the habit.
But the strong tobacco industry lobby in one of the region s most lucrative cigarette markets received a sharp reminder in August that Aquino s penchant for a puff when under stress will not come in the way of the Philippines joining the global trend to discourage the smoking habit.

Newly appointed Health Secretary Enrique Ona assured local anti-tobacco groups that the health department would be pushing for higher tobacco taxes, raising hopes for a tougher policy in a country of 94 milli…

Patricia Grogg interviews scientist CONCEPCIÓN CAMPA, director of Cuba’s Finlay Institute

HAVANA, Sep 7 2010 (IPS) – Even today, many years after it was proved effective, the Cuban vaccine against meningitis B is still ignored by industrialised countries, whose medical literature usually states there is no immunisation against that strain of the disease.

Above all, we are working for the good of human health, says Concepción Campa. Credit: Patricia Grogg/IP…

BULAWAYO , Sep 30 2010 (IPS) – Judith Sikhosana recently gave birth to a healthy baby boy. And while she has strictly followed the advice of health workers about the post-natal care for her child, there is one thing she is yet to understand: why nurses want her baby to be circumcised.
I have been advised about the benefits of circumcision for my baby concerning HIV, but he is just a child. I should not be thinking about things like that, said Sikhosana about her four-month-old son.

Sikhosana said she has not met any mothers who had their babies circumcised and she does not want to be a pioneer . I will see as time goes, she said, as she chatted among other new mothers who nodded in agreement.

Nurses in Bulawayo’s high density council clinics say Sikhosana’s res…

Patricia Grogg*

HAVANA, Oct 25 2010 (IPS) – The risk of meningitis outbreaks rises during the dry season December to June in some 20 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Meningitis in the region is too often deadly, though the disease can be prevented with vaccination.

A technician in a Finlay Institute lab producing meningitis vaccines for Africa. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Nana Diallo, 45, has her children vaccinated whenever possible. It s one o…

Soumaïla T. Diarra

BAMAKO, Nov 27 2010 (IPS) – Despite successive awareness campaigns, many Malian women see no need to attend pre-natal check-ups. Health workers say this results in an elevated rate of maternal and infant mortality.

Doctors say 90 percent of potential complications could be predicted and addressed if Mali s women came in for pre-natal checks. …