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
He died in his mother s arms as Al…
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…
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 tra…
KINSHASA, Dec 1 2011 (IPS) – Nadine Mbwol suffers from konzo, an epidemic paralytic disease that affects the lower body. I lost my marriage because of this disability, she says sadly.
Many people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) believe that this disease, which affects many young, female victims like 20-year-old Mbwol, is caused by witchcraft.
But it s not true, says Dr Pierre Makadi-Nkeni, who works at the hospital Le bon berger . Konzo is not caused by a curse or witchcraft as many people believe in all the provinces where the disease occurs, he says. In the DRC, many rural territories like Kahemba, Feshi or the province of Bandundu are severely affected by konzo.
Konzo is a spastic (sudden and painless) paralysis which causes permanent and incurable pa…
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 1 2012 (IPS) – The government of the state of Rio de Janeiro is unveiling a battery of creative tactics to engage the population in the battle against dengue fever, which is threatening to reach unprecedented epidemic proportions as a new virus strain hits Brazil.
Racing for Peace in the Rocinha favela, one of the many creati…
LUANDA, Mar 8 2012 (IPS) – The brightly painted old shipping container with solar panels on its roof and high-specification filtration devices inside looks out of place in this dusty Angolan village of Bom Jesus, 50 kilometres east of the capital Luanda.
Joaquina Xavier who currently collects water from the river in front of the new AQUAtap machine in her village. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS
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JOHANNESBURG, Apr 20 2012 (IPS) – Thousands of residents in Diepsloot, a large township north of Johannesburg, South Africa, are queuing for hours to access clean, safe water a week after their supply was contaminated by sewage.
Hundreds of residents in Diepsloot queue for hours to access clean, safe water. Credit: Siphosethu Stuurman
The contamination occurred when a contractor working on a nearby sewer line broke the water pipe that supplies Diepsloot. Th…
Vaccination drive against measles at the Jalozai refugee camp. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
PESHAWAR, May 22 2012 (IPS) – The deaths of 20 children in an outbreak of measles in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Agency (FATA) are raising concerns over the state of immunisation in the conflict-ridden areas along the Afghanistan border.
Over the past month, at least 20 children have died of measles in North and South Waziristan because they couldn’t be immunised due to the raging militancy, said Sahibzada Khalid, deputy director of the expanded programme of immunisation (EPI) in the FATA.
North and South Waziristan are part of seven triba…
Oral polio vaccination in Peshawar. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jul 9 2012 (IPS) – By ordering a ban on polio immunisation, in its strongholds along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Taliban is holding up an ambitious global programme to rid the world of the crippling childhood disease, say World Health Organisation (WHO) doctors.
“The Taliban s ban on polio immunsiation in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) poses a serious threat to the global polio eradication effort as countries declared polio-free long ago could import the virus from Pakistan,” Dr. Khalid Khan, who works for the WHO’s polio programme in the FATA, tells IPS.<…
KARACHI, Aug 27 2012 (IPS) – About two months back, 28-year old Asif Ahmed* put up an announcement on the internet to sell one of his kidneys.
“I lost a lot of money in business some four years back and pumped in more money by taking a loan, but I’ve lost all. I know there is a law that prohibits selling of any organ, but I can’t think of any other way to pay back this loan,” he told IPS over the phone.
However, not one person has contacted him even to inquire or show any interest. But then Ahmed is based in the southern port city of Karachi, in Sindh province, where the illegal organ trade is well under control, unlike reports of a rise in Punjab province.
Pakistan enacted a transplant law in 2010 to shake off its reputation as a leading destination for …