Ignatius Banda

BULAWAYO , Jun 9 2010 (IPS) – Twelve-year-old Tapuwa Bakare* darts through the traffic as irate motorists hoot at him and the tyres of speeding vehicles screech to a halt to avoid hitting him. Miraculously, the box filled with sweets and chewing gum that he carries does not fall from his grasp.

An AIDS orphan sits on an old bus seat. Zimbabwe has over one million AIDS orphans. Credit: IRIN

Bakare has things on his mind other than the traffic: he has a business to…

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 8 2010 (IPS) – Her husband works as a nurse in one of Pakistan s most prestigious private hospitals, but when their two-year-old daughter Mary was diagnosed with leukaemia, Sadaf John could only be thankful that the Children s Cancer Hospital (CCH) existed in this country.
If it hadn t been for this (hospital), said the 32-year-old mother of three, we would not have been able to afford such expensive treatment.

According to CCH chief Muhammad Shamvil Ashraf, the average cost of a complete treatment for leukaemia at the hospital could run up to 800,000 Pakistani rupees (more than 9,000 U.S. dollars).

Fortunately for the Johns and other families with members seeking treatment at CCH here in Karachi, the hospital is a chari…

Brahima Ouédraogo

OUAGADOUGOU, Jul 31 2010 (IPS) – The government of Burkina Faso has embarked on the construction of 55,000 latrines each year to improve access to proper sanitation for the population from the present 10 percent to 54 percent by 2015.

Public toilet in Ouagadougou, built during an earlier sanitation drive in 2007. Credit: Brahima Ouédraogo/IPS

According to the authorities, the average rate of access to sanitation in urban areas is …

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Aug 27 2010 (IPS) – The deaths of four infants during a recent vaccination drive in Lucknow, capital of northern Uttar Pradesh state, has raised questions about the Indian government s plan to introduce five-in-one vaccines in a countrywide immunisation programme.
Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told journalists this week that action would be taken against those found guilty of negligence. He refused to speculate on the cause of the deaths, but said an investigation has been launched and would submit its report shortly.

Unconfirmed reports said the Lucknow vaccinations on Aug. 21 were carried out as a pilot project to test the efficacy of pentavalent vaccines. The health ministry is planning to introduce these vaccines into its Expanded…

Amantha Perera

COLOMBO, Sep 20 2010 (IPS) – An aggressive public health and information programme is giving Sri Lanka a key weapon in its battle against the deadly dengue fever, bringing it under control after hitting epidemic proportions in the last two years.

Pupils hold up dengue awareness posters in school. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

Between 2009 and mid-September 2010, dengue fever infected over 65,000 people in Sri Lanka and caused 563 deaths. The largest caseload was reported in 2009, which had 346 deaths an…

Zukiswa Zimela

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 14 2010 (IPS) – Chronic hunger is intensifying in Africa, despite the world s commitment to address this Millennium Development Goal and reduce world hunger by half by 2015.
This is according to the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP), which said on Oct. 13 that 75 percent of the world s ultra poor, those living on living on less than 50 cents per day, are in Africa.

World hunger and the progress of various social protection programmes in Africa and across the world were part of the United Nations Development Programme s (UNDP) International Policy for Inclusive Growth dialogue held in Johannesburg from Oct. 11 to 13. The event brought together experts from 28 countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America for the south-s…

Tinus de Jager

JOHANNESBURG*, Nov 15 2010 (IPS) – Researchers are testing a new combination of tuberculosis drugs on patients in South Africa which they are hoping will shorten the treatment term of the disease to six months.

Examining a patient with drug-resistant TB. Credit: Dominic Chavez/IPS

I think I have lost my job, you know, says commuter taxi driver Paul Kyazze We are not like those office people, [we] have to be at work every day. Now I am here.

Kyazze is a TB patient at Uganda s Mulago National Referral Hospi…

Cléo Fatoorehchi interviews DR. MARIE-PAULE KIENY, WHO Assistant Director-General

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 2010 (IPS) – This past September, world leaders meeting at the United Nations vowed to spend $40 billion over the next five years to save the lives of more than 16 million women and children dying of deadly diseases or lack of medical care, particularly during and after pregnancy.

Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny Credit:

Known as the Global Strategy for Women s and Children s Health, it involves commitments from 35 governments, 15 charitable institutions, seven U.N. agencies, 13 private corporations and mo…

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Feb 9 2011 (IPS) – Millions of cancer patients around the world benefit from a medication called Paclitaxel (Taxol), which may begin to be produced from a new source: fungi found at the summit of Venezuela s flat-topped mountains. But the indigenous communities who have lived in that area since time immemorial will receive no benefits, and were not even consulted on the matter.
In another case, researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, after signing an agreement with the Venezuelan government in 1998, began to do field work early this decade among Yanomami communities in the extreme southern part of this South American country.

They studied and collected medicinal plants used by the Yanomami, an Amazon jungle people…

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Mar 14 2011 (IPS) – Desperate efforts by the government to avoid the looming nightmare of a nuclear meltdown in tsunami damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants, 240 kilometres north of Tokyo, have brought no relief to the public who face the possibility of another explosion that could spew deadly radiation across the country.
After two explosions in three days at Fukushima reactors No. 1 and No. 3, a third reactor No. 2 has now lost its ability to cool.

The nation was informed of a deadly development Monday that fuel rods of the No. 2 reactor of the Fukushima plant may have partially melted after emergency cooling systems failed, raising the spectre of toxic radioactive contamination, given the fact the plant is operated on mixed oxide (MOX)…