PAKISTAN: Scientists Turn Sights on Childhood Meningitis

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Pakistan, Dec 27 2010 (IPS) – She is already eight months old, but Aiman Azam can neither sit up nor clutch anything with her tiny hands. She cannot even hold her neck up or roll on her back. All she does is moan.
Eight-month-old Aiman, who has bacterial meningitis, in her mother Maria s lap. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

Eight-month-old Aiman, who has bacterial meningitis, in her mother Maria s lap. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

The last time she smiled, cooed, and gurgled was five months ago, when she was just three months old, says her mother…

INDIA: Stemming Experiments in Stem Cells

Keya Acharya

BANGALORE, Feb 14 2011 (IPS) – Hundreds of patients are now streaming into stem cell therapy clinics all over India, despite the controversy surrounding stem cell research and even though, doctors say, no one has yet been cured by this technology.
With a 2 percent share of the 56-billion dollar world market, India enjoys one of the highest growth rates in stem cell treatment and is widely perceived to be a centre of stem cell work.

But scientists across the board say successful treatments are a long way away and ethical questions, apart from health and scientific ones, have yet to be fully addressed.

It s a rather uncritical explanation that we re already there, says Dr. Jyotsna Dhawan, Dean of the Bangalore-based Institute of Stem Cell Biology a…

U.S. Nuke Plant Safety Questioned in Wake of Japanese Disaster

NEW YORK, Mar 15 2011 (IPS) – As Japan continues to battle the threat of nuclear meltdown in the wake of Friday s devastating earthquake, lawmakers, environmental activists and the nuclear industry in the United States are squaring up for a heated contest over the future of atomic energy in this country.
Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga, Tennessee, one of the 104 nuclear reactors across the U.S. Credit: Photorush/creative commons license

Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga, Tennessee, one of the 104 nuclear r…

Smart Planning for the Global Family

WASHINGTON, Apr 12 2011 (IPS) – When it comes to population growth, the United Nations has three primary projections. The medium projection, the one most commonly used, has world population reaching 9.2 billion by 2050. The high one reaches 10.5 billion. The low projection, which assumes that the world will quickly move below replacement-level fertility, has population peaking at eight billion in 2042 and then declining.
If the goal is to eradicate poverty, hunger, and illiteracy, then we have little choice but to strive for the lower projection.

Slowing world population growth means ensuring that all women who want to plan their families have access to family planning information and services. Unfortunately, this is currently not the case for 215 million women, 59 percent …

NAMIBIA: Feature Film Explores Realities of Safer Sex

Servaas van den Bosch

WINDHOEK, May 12 2011 (IPS) – A new film explores the real complexities of relationships for young people in Namibia, and the effects of gender inequality and culture on the choices people make about their sexual lives.
 Sex and Chocolate delivers messages about sexual health in the context of real pressures on young people. Credit: Rachel Coomer/LAC/IPS

Sex and Chocolate delivers messages about sexual health in the context of real pressures on young people. Credit: Rachel Coomer/LAC/IPS

Lucy is a second-year s…

JAPAN: Aid Cut to Hit Health Campaigns

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jun 13 2011 (IPS) – International campaigns against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria are headed for cuts in funding assistance, now that Japan is reducing its Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) budget in the wake of the disaster that hit the country in March.
These global programmes which are part of the Millennium Development Goal of fighting infectious diseases, one of eight anti-poverty targets governments around the world have committed to meet before 2015 could suffer reductions of as much as 200 million dollars, aid groups say.

In a bid to appease criticism, Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto recently explained to the press that the ODA reduction will be for only one year.

Japan s 2011 ODA budget stood at 7.2 billion dollars, l…

Thai Campaign Tempers Use of Antibiotics

Marwaan Macan-Markar

CHOKECHAIPATTANA, Thailand, Jun 24 2011 (IPS) – Every month, Buddhist monk Phra Patarapong visits this village of mostly wooden houses on stilts and draws crowds, but not just for his regular sermons on spiritualism. People come to see him also for his tips on health, in particular his warnings about the excessive use of antibiotics.
Drink warm lemongrass when you have a cold, the 35-year-old monk advised a group of some 40 men, women and children who had gathered in Chokechaipattana s airy community centre on a recent afternoon. Clean food, clean drinks and regular exercise are better for you to stay healthy.

The body can recover from viral infections, he continued, as some nodded in agreement. Antibiotics cause unnecessary expenses to househol…

SOMALIA: “I Carried Him a Whole Day While He Was Dead, Thinking He Was Alive”

Abdurrahman Warsameh

MOGADISHU, Jul 28 2011 (IPS) – As the first of food aid from the United Nations World Food Programme was airlifted into Mogadishu on Wednesday, it came too late for Qadija Ali s two- year-old son Farah.
A mother and daughter who survived the dangerous journey from south Somalia to an aid camp in Mogadishu. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

A mother and daughter who survived the dangerous journey from south Somalia to an aid camp in Mogadishu. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

He died in his mother s arms as Al…

COTE D’IVOIRE: Toxic Waste Victims Wait Years for Compensation

Inaki Borda

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 6 2011 (IPS) – Thousands of victims affected by toxic waste dumping in 2006 in Abidjan, Côte d Ivoire s commercial capital, still have not received the economic compensation they were promised.
There is a complete lack of transparency as to what happened to the millions of dollars which should have been paid out by the government compensation scheme, Benedetta Lacey, special advisor on corporate accountability at Amnesty International, told IPS.

According to a United Nations report published in 2009, toxic waste from a tanker chartered by the international commodities trading firm Trafigura Beheer BV affected more than 100,000 people, who sought medical attention for a range of health problems. The incident has been linked to the deat…

Potential Vaccine Halves Malaria Risk for Children

Elizabeth Whitman

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 2011 (IPS) – In a major breakthrough Tuesday, researchers announced that the vaccine candidate RTS,S reduces the risk of malaria by half in children ages five to 17 months, first results from a continuing phase three trial showed.
The plasmodium parasite, seen here in the ring stage taken from a blood smear, is transmitted through infected mosquitoes. Credit: Bobjgalindo/wikimedia commons

The plasmodium parasite, seen here in the ring stage taken from a blood smear, is tra…