David Cronin
BRUSSELS, Sep 25 2008 (IPS) – Almost two years after the European Union resolved to step up its efforts to address the shortage of doctors and nurses in poor countries, its progress has been found unsatisfactory by the bloc s own officials.
In December 2006, the EU s governments approved a programme of action for ensuring that a higher number of qualified health workers are made available to treat the world s poor.
But a new assessment by the European Commission, the EU executive, says it is impossible to tell if the level of funding provided to obtain this goal has increased since then because not enough data has been furnished by the EU s governments. It complains, too, that most of the relevant activities financed by the Union are being pursued in an u…
Kristin Palitza
DURBAN, Apr 1 2009 (IPS) – Researchers are now investigating if antiretroviral (ARV) drugs can play a role in not just treating HIV, but in preventing infection. Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC), called it a pivotal moment in HIV/AIDS research .
Erin Cunningham
GAZA CITY, Jun 29 2009 (IPS) – They are little white, yellow or green pills and are available almost anywhere. At the pharmacies or in the market, they are accessible, addictive and cheap.
I take them because it makes me forget, at least for a little while, that I m in Gaza, says Abu Ala a, a resident of the strip and father of four. There is no alternative.
Looking to escape years of war, searing poverty and an unrelenting economic blockade, medical officials in the Gaza Strip say residents have developed a serious addiction to the narcotic painkiller Tramadol.
The embattled enclave s borders have been hermetically sealed by both Israel and Egypt for two years, and an Israeli military assault last winter killed some 1,500 Gazans.
Gaz…
Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, May 13 2011 (IPS) – The world is experiencing a change in the geographic distribution of diseases. Traditionally, infectious diseases, which claim the lives of so many children, affected poor countries, and noncommunicable diseases like diabetes, cardiac ailments and cancer plagued rich countries.
But the latest statistics released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Friday show that the income level of nations is no longer so important, and that all countries now face the burden of both kinds of diseases.
Up to now, noncommunicable diseases tended to be identified as the ills of opulence, limited to high-income countries, WHO director of Health Statistics and Informatics Ties Boerma told IPS.
However, due to changes caused by the …
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari receives a dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Abuja, Nigeria, on March 6, 2021. First batch of COVAX vaccines arrived in March, country aims to inoculate 70% of 200 million people by 2022. Credit: Africa Renewal
UNITED NATIONS, May 4 2021 (IPS) – Since the COVID-19 vaccination began in the US in mid-December 2020, Africa had been looking forward to its turn. For Nigeria, that time came on 2nd March 2021 when the first batch of 3.9 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine arrived in the country from the Serum Institute of India.
The delivery is part of a first phase of arrivals in Nigeria that will continue in the coming days and…