Category Archives: Global health

Illegal drug classifications are based on politics not science – report

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Global Commission on Drug Policy calls for a reclassification of drugs including cocaine, heroin and cannabis

Illegal drugs including cocaine, heroin and cannabis should be reclassified to reflect a scientific assessment of harm, according to a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

The commission, which includes 14 former heads of states from countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Portugal and New Zealand, said the international classification system underpinning drug control is “biased and inconsistent”.

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‘Most complex health crisis in history’: Congo struggles to contain Ebola

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Political, security and cultural complications – not least a refusal to believe that Ebola exists – have thwarted efforts to overcome DRC’s deadly outbreak

Moise Kitsakihu-Mbira has lost his brother, his grandson and 11 other family members to Ebola. When he himself fell sick he sought treatment in secret. His family don’t believe the virus exists and think a man in their village poisoned them.

Refusal to believe in the existence of Ebola is one difficulty for doctors who say the current outbreak of the deadly virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the “most complex public health emergency in history” and warn it could drag on for months.

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Survey shows crisis of confidence in vaccines in parts of Europe

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Just half of people in eastern Europe think vaccines are safe, compared with 79% worldwide

A global survey of attitudes towards science has revealed the scale of the crisis of confidence in vaccines in Europe, showing that only 59% of people in western Europe and 50% in the east think vaccines are safe, compared with 79% worldwide.

Around the globe, 84% of people acknowledge that vaccines are effective and 92% say their child has received a vaccine. But in spite of good healthcare and education systems, in parts of Europe there is low trust in vaccines. France has the highest levels of distrust, at 33%.

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‘The fight isn’t over’: nurses’ leap of protest from an Indian hospital roof

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The two medical workers in Punjab who survived a dramatic end to their rooftop hunger strike over staff rights

Everyone who works at Rajindra hospital in Patiala knows Karamjit Kaur Aulakh. Their eyes follow the 35-year-old nurse as she walks around the hospital with the support of her crutch. Others stop by to ask how she is after her fall.

On 28 February Aulakh jumped from the dome of the main building at Rajindra hospital, where she had sat for 23 days on a rooftop hunger strike. The leap of almost 15 metres was a desperate cry for attention to her cause, and left her with three major fractures in her right leg. Joining her in the protest was her colleague Baljit Kaur Khalsa, who was not injured in the jump.

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WHO calls for more funds to fight DRC Ebola outbreak

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Panel backs off from declaring international emergency despite spread into Uganda

The World Health Organization has backed off from declaring that an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is an international emergency despite it spreading into Uganda.

After long discussions, a WHO committee ruled that although the outbreak was an emergency for DRC, it did not fit the criteria to be declared a public health emergency of international concern.

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Five-year-old boy dies in Uganda as Congo Ebola outbreak spreads

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Ugandan authorities confirm two other patients also undergoing treatment as officials consider declaring global health emergency

A five year-old-boy who became the first confirmed Ebola case outside the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the current outbreak died in Uganda on Tuesday night.

The child’s three-year-old brother and 50-year-old grandmother are also being treated, according to the Ugandan authorities. They have been isolated at a hospital near the Congo border.

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Patients sleep under the stars in long queue for medical visas | Stefanie Glinski

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Sick and elderly Afghans queue outdoors for several nights for their chance to get into Pakistan for medical care

Surrounded by barbed wire and without shelter from rain or dust, outside Pakistan’s embassy, hundreds of sick Afghans pass days and nights waiting for their visa appointment.

Abdul Ajan is first in the queue for when the embassy opens the next morning, squeezed into a space that smells of urine and is littered with rubbish and stale bread.

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Mosquito-killing spider juice offers malaria hope

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Scientists have genetically modified a fungus to make it produce the same lethal toxin as is found in the funnel web spider

A genetically modified fungus that kills malaria-carrying mosquitoes could provide a breakthrough in the fight against the disease, according to researchers.

Trials in Burkina Faso found that a fungus, modified so that it produces spider toxin, quickly killed large numbers of mosquitos that carry malaria.

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Congo Ebola response must be elevated to maximum level, UN told

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Charities call for outbreak to be put on a par with crises in Yemen, Syria and Mozambique as death toll reaches 1,287

The UN has been urged by charities to ramp up Ebola prevention work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the highest level of emergency response.

Only three crises – Yemen, Syria and Mozambique – are treated as the equivalent of a level-three response, activated when agencies are unable to meet needs on the ground.

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UK refuses to back ‘game-changing’ resolution on drug pricing

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Global agreement urges governments to share information on actual cost of medicines, with aim of making them more affordable

The UK government has refused to sign up to a global resolution on greater transparency for drug pricing.

The resolution urges governments and others buying health products to share information on actual prices paid, and pushes for greater transparency on patents, clinical trial results and other factors affecting pricing from laboratories to patients.

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Scientists pursue universal snakebite cure using HIV antibody techniques

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British specialist among those aiming to develop ‘next generation’ treatment that could help millions of victims each year

Scientists in five countries, including the UK, hope to find a universal cure for snakebite using the same technology that discovered HIV antibodies.

A new consortium of venom specialists in India, Kenya, Nigeria, Britain and the US will locate and develop antibodies to treat critical illness from snakebites, which harm nearly 3 million people worldwide each year.

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Argentina and Algeria stamp out malaria in ‘historic achievement’

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Improvements in detection, diagnosis and treatment hailed by World Health Organization as ‘a model for other countries’

Algeria and Argentina have been declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization, in what has been described as a “historic achievement” for both countries.

The declaration follows warnings that the global fight against malaria has slipped off track in recent years, with cases rising in many of the countries worst affected by the disease.

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‘Hygiene is the first priority’: Nepal looks to clean up its act on sepsis

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In a country where dirty water and poor sanitation jeopardise the lives of millions, moves are afoot to improve health facilities

It was midnight when Kalpana and Rohit Agri had to take their three-day-old daughter, Kritima, to Bardiya hospital in western Nepal. She was listless and, despite the antibiotics she’d been prescribed, had developed a high fever. Hearing her struggling to breathe, they woke a neighbour to take them.

Kritima was admitted with life-threatening neonatal sepsis, probably an infection she had picked up in the hospital where she was born.

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Congo violence sparks fears over UK Ebola response

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Attacks on health clinics provoke concern that disclosing details of funding might ‘put a target on the head’ of medical workers

The UK has agreed not to publicly disclose how much funding has been allocated to the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, following warnings this might put those responding to the outbreak at risk.

Harriett Baldwin, minister of state for Africa, said the Congolese government had asked for these details not to be made public over fears this will put “a target on the head of some of the responders”.

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‘Simple mistakes have big impact’: the man with a tablet for making aid better

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Struck by failings in the implementation of health projects, a Mozambican entrepreneur has turned to tech for a solution

The limited success of foreign-backed projects to fight diseases in Africa is down to basic misunderstanding about how to communicate even the simplest messages, a Mozambican education entrepreneur has said.

Dayn Amade, founder of Maputo-based technology company Kamaleon, is calling for the World Health Organization and aid groups to reassess how people on the African continent are educated about disease prevention.

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Ebola in the DRC: everything you need to know

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Key facts about the second largest outbreak of the disease in history

With more than 2,577 confirmed cases and more than 1,803 confirmed deaths, the outbreak in the eastern DRC is the second largest in history. It has a 67% fatality rate and 11 months after it began, the case numbers are still escalating. It is disproportionately affecting women (55% of cases) and children (28%).

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‘Terrifying’ Ebola epidemic out of control in DRC, say experts

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More than 1,600 people infected in North Kivu province since outbreak began in August

An Ebola epidemic in a conflict-riven region of Democratic Republic of Congo is out of control and could become as serious as the outbreak that devastated three countries in west Africa between 2013 and 2016, experts and aid chiefs have warned.

New cases over the past month have increased at the fastest rate since the outbreak began last year, as aid agencies struggle to enact a public health response in areas that have suffered decades of neglect and conflict, with incredibly fragile health systems and regular outbreaks of deadly violence involving armed groups.

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Britain must do more to stop drug firms from lining their pockets | Stephen Doughty

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Overcharging for life-saving medicines costs lives, yet the UK seems reluctant to support efforts to encourage fairer pricing

In a year when the British government should be working to secure progress towards universal health coverage, they are failing to champion access to life-saving medicines globally.

The Italian government has put forward a draft resolution to improve the transparency of markets for drugs, vaccines and other health-related technologies, to be discussed at the World Health Assembly in 10 days’ time.

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Inspired touch: how blind women outdo doctors at finding breast cancer

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Visually impaired women in Colombia are using their enhanced sense of feel to improve early breast cancer detection

As a child, Francia Papamija started progressively losing her eyesight due to a retinal detachment. Today, everything is darkness for the 36-year-old – except for the job she holds in a clinic in Cali, Colombia, where she contributes to the early detection of breast cancer.

Papamija is a medical tactile examiner (MTE), a role created especially for women who are blind and have higher sensitivity in their fingertips.

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Ebola death toll in Congo to pass 1,000, World Health Organization warns

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Women and children fare worst as efforts to contain outbreak are undermined by health centre attacks and local mistrust

The number of people killed by the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is expected to exceed 1,000 on Friday, the World Health Organization has warned.

Weekly infections have been rising since late February, with attacks by armed groups and a failure to win community trust undermining the response to the epidemic.

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