WASHINGTON, Mar 21 2013 (IPS) – Patients, doctors and international aid groups are calling on donors and governments to support measures that would make treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis more effective and accessible.
The demands are being made amidst the recent or imminent approval of two new drugs, bedaquiline and delamanid. Advocates say the drugs present an historic opportunity to tackle the notoriously difficult-to-treat disease.
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“As we know with all infectious diseases, we need to seize this opportunity before an airborne infectious disease gets too out of control,” Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a policy advisor with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an aid group, told IPS.
On Monday, MSF released a , signed by TB patients and their do…
Syrian refugee children learn to survive at a camp in north Lebanon. Credit: Zak Brophy/IPS.
WASHINGTON, May 14 2013 (IPS) – Humanitarian assistance groups in Washington are warning that the health care system has become a deliberate target in the increasingly brutal civil war in Syria, presenting major challenges to addressing the humanitarian and refugee crises spurred by the conflict.
In a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron stressed the centrality of the unfolding health crisis, emphasising the need in Syria to care for trauma injuries, help torture victims to recover, [and get] Syrian families clean drinking …
Government hospitals in Kashmir are mostly visited by the poor. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
SRINAGAR, India, Jun 5 2013 (IPS) – Leaning on her daughter’s arm in the post-operative ward of a hospital in Srinagar, capital of the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Raja Begam views the anti-infection pill she is being offered with a large dose of suspicion.
“How can I be sure it will relieve my suffering?” the 49-year-old asked. Begam has just had her gall bladder removed and is giving her attendants a tough time, insisting, “Everyone says we are being fed fake drugs in Kashmir.
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Intellectual property provisions proposed by the United States would extend monopoly powers derived from patents to pharmaceutical companies that sell their medicines abroad. Credit: Bigstock
WASHINGTON, Jul 16 2013 (IPS) – As a new round of talks behind a major proposed free trade area, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), get underway this week, the United States is pushing several developing countries to accept provisions that critics say would make it more difficult for their citizens to access medicine.
“The concern about access to medicine, and that the TPP deal will lead to high health-care costs, is huge,” Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of Citizens Tr…
Many Haitian women have their blood pressure taken for the first time at mobile clinics like this one staffed by a Cuban medical brigade in Salomon market in Port-au-Prince.
Credit: Patricia Grogg/IPS
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Aug 28 2013 (IPS) – It s Saturday, and the entrance hall of a police station in front of the busy market in Salomon in the Haitian capital has become an improvised health post. In a few minutes there is a long queue of people waiting to be seen by the Cuban medical brigade.
The police officer on duty said he was not authorised to speak to journalists, but the extent of police cooperation is obvious. The police stations tables and chairs are quickly lined up…
Patients at a chemotherapy session in the Civil Hospital in the province of Cienfuegos, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS
HAVANA, Nov 12 2013 (IPS) – The meagre budgets of Cuban families are put to the test when one of the members is diagnosed with cancer. Although treatment is free of cost, only extended networks of support help alleviate the economic impact of the disease, which is now the number one cause of death.
“The most expensive thing is the diet. We have to buy fruit, vegetables, chicken and fish, which are costly and hard to get,” said Adolfo (not his real name), who changed jobs four times in his efforts to help his wife through her 11-year battle w…
Bogotá is famous for its vast network of bike lanes. Credit: Helda Martínez/IPS
CARACAS, Dec 17 2013 (IPS) – “I ride 43 km a day and I love it,” said Carlos Cantor in Bogotá, Colombia. “Five years ago I switched my car for a bike,” explained Tomás Fuenzalida from Santiago, Chile.
They are both part of the burgeoning growth of cycling as a transport solution in Latin America.
But in the second-most urbanised region in the world, public sentiment towards bicycles is mixed, with some seeing them as a symbol of low socioeconomic status, says the study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) with regard to the expansion of this sustainable me…
Ready for the wedding night? Credit: Courtesy of David Trilling/EurasiaNet
BISHKEK, Feb 27 2014 – It starts out like any gymnastics class: A teacher guides a roomful of women through stretching and breathing exercises. The yoga, ballet and tai chi moves train pelvic muscles, the stomach and legs.
You only realize you are in a “sex class” when the egg-shaped stones appear. They are used for vaginal weightlifting, a Chinese technique for strengthening muscles and increasing sensitivity in the genital area. The goal is something rarely discussed in Kyrgyzstan: better sex.“After the fall of the Soviet Union, sex hit Kyrgyzstan like a hammer. People were not ready.” — Bu…
The global drawdown in the use of leaded fuel has resulted in benefits of some 2.5 trillion dollars a year. Credit: Bigstock
WASHINGTON, Apr 22 2014 (IPS) – Consumer advocates, public health workers and environmental groups here are calling on the federal government to take a formal step towards regulating the use of lead in aviation gasoline, despite a failure to do so for nearly two decades.
The United States is one of the few countries that continue to allow the use of lead in aviation gasoline, known as “avgas” and used in more than 150,000 small planes and helicopters at around 20,000 U.S. airports. Avgas is now the country’s largest source of lead in a…
The richest 66 people have the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of humanity. Credit: Bigstock/IPS
NEW YORK, Jun 17 2014 (IPS) – Two major injustices – inequality and climate change – are threatening to undermine the efforts of millions of people to escape poverty and hunger.
By concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few, inequality robs the poorest people of the support they need to improve their lives. And as climate change devastates crops and livelihoods, it undoes poor people’s efforts to feed their families.
But an historic opportunity is on the horizon as the sun sets on the (MDGs). Right now the United Nations is i…