MANAGUA, Aug 31 2012 (IPS) – Luisa Gutiérrez, 65, dances a frenzied mambo on an unusual dance floor: a street in the Nicaraguan capital. Dozens of cars line up behind her, honking their horns impatiently, while she, surrounded by elderly people with canes, walkers and protest signs, dances to demand a government pension.

The street dance performed by Gutiérrez, a former employee of a privately-owned footwear company that has since closed, is one of the diverse forms of protest staged by 20,000 retired workers who have come together in the non-governmental Older Adult Unit (UNAM).

The demonstrations will be stepped up in September, on the fifth anniversary of the start of the continuous protests.

UNAM is demanding the reinstatement of an old law requiring that t…

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (centre) speaks with a tuberculosis (TB) patient during his visit to the Institute of Respiratory Medicine in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

WASHINGTON, Oct 17 2012 (IPS) – The next several years could see either the elimination of tuberculosis in some regions or millions of otherwise preventable deaths, according to released in Washington Wednesday by the World health Organisation (WHO).

The outcome, experts are warning, rests on a three-billion-dollar gap in funding needed to fully address TB next year as well to ensure the proper introduction of new drugs.

“On the one hand we have existing as well as n…

Charles Kayongo, a Ugandan bar owner, and his wife Eunice, have defied traditional beliefs and refuse to have more than two children. Credit: Dennis Kasirye/IPS

KAMPALA, Nov 15 2012 (IPS) – Charles Kayongo of Uganda is a father of two girls aged five and three. And even though age-old traditions among his ethnic group, the Baganda, say a man should have an unlimited number of children and a son as an heir, Kayongo refuses to have more children.

Like a growing number of cash-strapped young parents in this landlocked East African nation who yearn for a modern lifestyle, he says that he and his wife, Eunice Kayongo, want a small family.

“Enough is enough. I do not…

WASHINGTON, Jan 9 2013 (IPS) – U.S. citizens suffer from poorer health than nearly all other industrialised countries, according to the first comprehensive government analysis on the subject, released Wednesday.

Of 17 high-income countries looked at by a committee of experts sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the United States is at or near the bottom in at least nine indicators.

These include infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, and adolescent pregnancies, as well as more systemic issues such as injuries, homicides, and rates of disability.

Together, such issues place U.S. males at the very bottom of the list, among those countries, for life expectancy; on average, a U.S. male can be expected to live almost four…

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.

…

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…