health

Abdurrahman Warsameh

MOGADISHU, Jul 20 2011 (IPS) – Tens of thousands of starving Somalis have made their way to the government- held part of Mogadishu in search of food, but many parents have made the anguished decision to leave a child too weak to make the journey behind in hope of saving the others.

One of the millions of children in Somalia in need of food aid. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

As many from the south abandon their homes and make their way to the city s c…

Arsène Séverin

BRAZZAVILLE, Aug 24 2011 (IPS) – Marguerite Kassa feared she would find herself alone in the small crowd of a dozen other pregnant women at the integrated health centre in Mossendjo, in the southwestern Republic of Congo. I am six months pregnant already, but I hesitated to come here before now, because there is so much contempt for us, the thirty-year-old indigenous woman tells IPS. Yet I was warmly welcomed.
While around 80 percent of Congolese women give birth in health facilities, fewer than one in four indigenous women give birth at health centres.

Widespread discrimination

In 2007, indigenous people in Congo numbered 43,500, just under two percent of the country s population of 3.7 million. To promote and protect their rights, a law was…

PESHAWAR, Jan 20 2012 (IPS) – In their efforts to kill and injure more people as part of a terror campaign in northern Pakistan, the Taliban militia have resorted to lacing bombs with toxic chemicals that leave survivors with complicated wounds.

Taliban bombs are now laced with chemicals. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

The new techniques devised by the militants are designed to inflict complicated injuries on the survivors of the bombings and suicide attacks. They develop contractures and physical deformities, said Muhamma…

Sujoy Dhar

A pregnant mother and her daughter in the rural Purulia district of West Bengal state in India struggle against the country s son preference Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

NEW DELHI, Mar 1 2012 (IPS) – At the intensive care unit of the state-run All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi, a two-year-old battered baby girl is fighting to survive.

The doctors attending to her have waged a six-week battle to keep her alive, but they are quickly losing hope that she will ever live a no…

TRIPOLI, Apr 7 2012 (IPS) – At a crowded corner of the Tripoli Medical Centre, people gather every morning to submit paperwork for medical treatment abroad, or worriedly scan new lists of approved names plastering the walls.

Kaltoum Alhadi bound for Italy for corrective surgery stands before a list of approved patients. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS.

Kaltoum Alhadi Marwan, 29, is one of the lucky ones. She won a visa and the g…

Women’s rights and reproductive health are critical factors in sustainable development. Credit:Ignatius Banda/IPS

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 2012 (IPS) – What does birth control have to do with reducing global emissions?

Everything, women around the world would say,  because they know how closely linked reproductive health is to issues ranging from poverty and food security to climate change and beyond. This message was precisely what female leaders brought to the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, but not many were listening, least of all the Vatican.

The only way to respond to increasing human numbers and dwindling resources is through the emp…

KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug 3 2012 (IPS) – “This is just a trailer of the horror that awaits us,” says noted demographer Farid Midhet, referring to Pakistan’s bulging population and the possibly corresponding  link to rising crime, including murders, robberies, rioting and extremist activity.

According to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 1,257 people, including 64 children, have been murdered in different parts of Karachi alone, since the beginning of the year.

Karachi, Pakistan’s financial capital and the world’s fifth largest city, has an estimated population of 20 million, which is increasing at the rate of six percent per year…

After four years, tens of thousands of children in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are receiving the polio vaccination. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Sep 26 2012 (IPS) – Over thirty thousand children in the remote Tirah area of the Khyber Agency, part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Northern Pakistan, have waited four years for protection from polio, a viral disease that is sometimes referred to as ‘infantile paralysis’ due to its crippling effects on children.

A massive government and civil society effort through the month of September finally began to reverse the trend that had kept the children of Ti…

Anuary Saidi, who suffers from viral diarrhoea, with his mother Mariam. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

DAR ES SALAAM, Dec 13 2012 (IPS) – Half asleep, Anuary lies exhausted on his bed in Amana Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital. His mother, Mariam Saidi, sits on the edge of his mattress, staring blankly out of the window. Every now and then, she turns to wipe her 18-month-old son’s forehead.

When she brought Anuary to the hospital the day before, he had a high fever, was suffering from viral diarrhoea, was severely dehydrated and had lost consciousness by the time he was admitted. The doctors saved his life, but he faces a slow discovery.