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)…

Fabiana Frayssinet

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 6 2011 (IPS) – Scientists in Brazil have created the first map of clusters of antibiotic resistance in Brazil, linking the phenomenon to abuse of the drug and opening doors to guide public policies for antibiotic prescription and sales.

Superbug carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumonia (CRKP) Credit: Public domain

The map of probability of risk of resistance to the ciprofloxacin antibiotic in Escherichia coli was produced by the EUREQA (the acronym for epidemiology of use…

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, May 11 2011 (IPS) – Health experts from around the world have acknowledged rising numbers of lifestyle or non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in different countries, admitted inadequate funds are the biggest obstacle in health delivery, and called on the global community to consolidate efforts to effectively tackle the problem.
The health, socioeconomic and developmental costs are immense. More than nine million people die prematurely in their productive years before the age of 60. Healthcare costs are spiralling, says Ala Alwan, assistant director-general of World Health Organizations (WHO s) Non-communicable Disease and Mental Health Cluster. The time to act has come.

Jessica Brinton, a representative from the Center for Global Developmen…

Julio Godoy

BERLIN, Jun 13 2011 (IPS) – The deadly epidemic of escherichia coli (EHEC) in Germany, that broke out in mid May, and which has killed 29 people so far, is the latest in a series of food and hygiene emergencies that have shaken European households for more than a decade.
This series of emergencies range from epidemics such as the so called mad cow disease (BSE) and its human variant, Creuztfeld-Jacob disease (CJD), which affected mostly Britain and France killing some 210 people, to the more frequent contamination of eggs with dioxin, or the recurrent presence of salmonella in dairy products.

Putrid meat has been discovered in sausages, high amounts of antibiotics in shrimp and fish, and there have been revelations of a lack of general hygiene in industria…