Skye Wheeler
JUBA, Sudan, Aug 14 2009 (IPS) – In the war-devastated South Sudan, a region with a population of over eight million people, Yeneneh Mulugeta is the only permanent ophthalmologist.
Dozens visit the eye clinic in the semi-autonomous region s capital every day from across the South trying to have their sight restored, mostly old and silent, waiting their turn with a helper. The Ethiopian doctor has performed hundreds of cataract operations removing the protein build-up that covers the eye that miraculously bring back sight.
Reversible cataract is probably responsible for half the cases of blindness in the South, but Mulugeta and government officials in the health sector know there are thousands who have no access to treatment. They also know although no com…
Adrianne Appel
BOSTON, Sep 18 2009 (IPS) – As all factions of the U.S. Congress continue a bruising debate about how to change the U.S. health system, one state, Massachusetts, seems to point the way clear, but activists say the Massachusetts plan is already troubled and doomed by skyrocketing costs.
All the major plans in Congress are mirrored after the reforms in Massachusetts, including the requirement that everyone purchase insurance at market rates which grow yearly or face a hefty fine. The fine is up to 1,000 dollars in Massachusetts.
Once failure to buy health insurance is a federal offence, what s next? Steffie Woolhandler, a Harvard physician and member of Physicians for a National Health Programme, recently told a Congressional committee.
The Massa…
Helen Clark
HANOI, Nov 4 2009 (IPS) – Think of a world where rich nations did not fund what was popular but instead collaborated to solve the developing world s most pressing health needs.
Lawrence Gostin, an Associate Dean and Professor of Global Health at the Georgetown University Law Center, dreams of such a world. He wants to see developed countries, for instance, make available to the rest of the world life-saving vaccines and technologies at affordable prices instead of hoarding them to the detriment of the world s poor.
Speaking at the first International Conference on Realising the Rights to Health and Development for All, held in Hanoi from October 26 to 29, Professor Gostin argued for a new approach to meeting the world s health needs, calling it a Global Pl…
LUSAKA, Nov 30 2009 (IPS) – Sixteen-year-old Andela Milambo* wants a husband. She is not looking for love, but for someone to share the burden of living with HIV. She wants to be able to take her medicine without having to hide, to discuss the recurring herpes with someone who understands.
A hand woven tag bearing the HIV symbol on sale at the Sokoni Market in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: Allan Gichigi/IRIN
Living with HIV since the age of six, she wa…
Kristin Palitza
LOUWVILLE, South Africa, Jan 6 2010 (IPS) – HIV-related stigma and discrimination remain a key concern in South Africa, despite the multitude of HIV awareness campaigns that have been launched by government and civil society organisations throughout the years, health experts say.
Stigma continues to be a seriously neglected issue , particularly in sub-Saharan countries, including South Africa, regardless of the fact that it has detrimental effects on public health and human rights, according to a 2007 UNAIDS report.
Fifty-year-old Gertrude* from Hopefield, a small village on South Africa s West Coast, experiences the effects of stigma and discrimination every day: A lot of people in my community shun me. They swear at me and call me names because I m H…
Servaas van den Bosch
WINDHOEK, Mar 16 2010 (IPS) – At home we have a bar, says grade seven learner David Bravo* (14). When my mother puts on the music I cannot concentrate on (my) schoolwork anymore. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I just sit there and watch the people.
One the learners who attends the AIDS Care Trust’s after-school programme in Katutura township near Windhoek. Cr…
Julio Godoy
PARIS, Apr 22 2010 (IPS) – French state-owned company Areva continues to deny any wrongdoing after findings that populated areas in Niger remain contaminated with high levels of radio-activity. The company seems to be escaping censure partly because of lack of data on cancer-related causes of death among Nigeriens working at or living near the uranium mines.
Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, May 24 2010 (IPS) – Her husband died last year, but he will be forever a guardian of biodiversity.
Guardian of Biodiversity from Brazil, Rena Martins Farias. Credit: Roberto Faidutti/IPS
Prof. César Gómez-Campo, who passed away in September 2009, was one of the first people to use seed banking for the conservation of wild plant species.
He was a pioneer in the conservation of wild plant genetic resources and he devoted his professional career to the efficient …
Esther Banales
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 25 2010 (IPS) – Mentally disabled legal permanent residents of the United States and asylum seekers face indefinite detention, erroneous deportation, and unfair hearings in U.S. courts, according to a new joint report from two leading human rights organisations.
The report released Sunday, and co-authored by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), points out that the shoddy treatment not only violates the human rights of affected individuals but also offends both U.S. and international standards of justice.
Non-citizens with mental disabilities with a lawful basis for remaining in the U.S. are unable to represent themselves and, in 61 percent of cases, do not have a lawyer when facing the judicial proc…
Matthew O. Berger
WASHINGTON, Aug 23 2010 (IPS) – The stories of Dr. Ciro de Quadros work in eradicating smallpox read like the stuff of global health legend.
Working for the World Health Organisation in Ethiopia in the early 1970s, he and his team once walked for 26 days along the remote Sudanese border region to investigate the spread of an outbreak and vaccinate those who may have come in contact with the disease.
Accessibility and communications were very difficult, he says, adding that eradication efforts there took six years, including an interruption for the overthrow of emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.
He then moved on to Somalia where transmission was eventually interrupted in 1977 and the last case of smallpox was found and contained, making it the f…