Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON, Apr 24 2009 (IPS) – About one million people die every year from malaria, including a child every 30 seconds. Half a billion people are infected annually. Africa alone, according to studies, loses 12 billion dollars in productivity and to treating the disease. And almost all of it is easily preventable.
But resources have been scarce and attention to the killer mosquito-borne disease relatively low, in large part because the disease burden rests almost exclusively in the poorest countries.
On the eve of World Malaria Day on Apr. 25, leaders of international agencies, activists, and U.S. President Barack Obama, among a host of others, are set on changing this situation.
The United States stands with our global partners and people around …
Lowana Veal
REYKJAVIK, Jun 19 2011 (IPS) – Public health authorities in Reykjavik have criticised plans for the expansion of the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant. They say that levels of the gas hydrogen sulphide could increase by 40 percent if a new geothermal field, Grauhnukur, is developed and nothing is done to ensure that the levels of the gas remain below maximum permitted levels.
The steam contains the problematic hydrogen sulphide. Credit: Lowana Veal/IPS.
The Hellisheidi plant is about 30 km east of Re…
Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Aug 25 2011 (IPS) – Counterfeit medicines have flooded the market in Ghana and have even made their way into government hospitals as the country s drug regulator struggles to control the importation of drugs.
The president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana, Alex Dodoo, said the country s Food and Drugs Board (FDB) is not a stringent regulator when it comes to the care and management of medicines in Ghana.
Dodoo said fake medicines have found their way into public hospitals as there have been instances where patients on effective antibiotics did not get well until there was a change in the brand of drug administered. This clearly showed that the first line of treatment used had been counterfeit drugs.
He says this has happened becaus…
Egyptian HCV carriers will soon have cost-effective alternatives to interferon therapy. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.
CAIRO, Apr 9 2014 (IPS) – Mohamed Ibrahim first learned he had hepatitis C when he tried to donate blood. Weeks later he received a letter from the blood clinic telling him he carried antibodies of the hepatitis C virus (HCV). He most likely acquired the disease from a blood transfusion he received during surgery when he was a child.
“I needed a lot of blood, and this was at a time before they screened it,” Ibrahim recalls.Even with new drugs showing promise in reversing cirrhosis, it may already be too late for late-stage HCV patients.
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Preethi Sundaram is Policy Officer and author of the report and Fiona Salter is a writer, both at International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Young girls in the village of Sonu Khan Almani in Pakistan’s Sindh province perform most of the household chores, like making bread. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
NEW YORK, Mar 16 2015 (IPS) – It is estimated that women account for two-thirds of the 1.4 billion people currently living in extreme poverty. They also make up 60 per cent of the world’s 572 million working poor.
Rapid global change has undoubtedly opened doors for women to participate in social, economic and political life but gender inequality still holds w…
Martin Khor is Executive Director of the South Centre, a think tank for developing countries, based in Geneva.
Dark pollution clouds over Cairo. Credit: Khaled Moussa Al-Omrani/IPS.
PENANG, Nov 11 2016 (IPS) – New research is showing that air pollution is a powerful if silent killer, causing 6.5 million worldwide deaths as well as being the major cause of climate change.
Air pollution has emerged as a leading cause of deaths and serious ailments in the world. Emissions that cause air pollution and are Greenhouse Gases are also the main factor causing climate change.
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Traveling man: the Goodwill Ambassador shares a joke with two residents of a leprosarium in Krantau, Uzbekistan during a visit in 2013.
May 29 2020 –
Warm greetings from Sasakawa Health Foundation in Tokyo.
The 100th Issue of the WHO Goodwill Ambassador’s Newsletter has been published. Read special interviews with the Goodwill Ambassador and the UN Special Rapporteur on leprosy, and check out the Timeline of all that has happened since the first issue.
My Journey Continues
I started this newsletter in April 2003 to share information about the fight against leprosy. This marks the 100th issue. Over the years I have reported my views…