Category Archives: Global health

Killings of police and polio workers halt Pakistan vaccine drive

Posted on by

Deaths follow wave of rumours and a hoax video intended to derail final push to eradicate the disease

A federal government campaign to vaccinate more than 40 million children under five against polio in Pakistan has been suspended following a series of attacks on workers and police over the past week.

On 23 April a police officer responsible for protecting polio workers was gunned down in Bannu. The same day, a polio worker was injured with a knife in Lahore by a man refusing to allow his child to be vaccinated, citing a recent hoax video that claimed children were becoming ill after the immunisations.

Continue reading...

Vaccines by air as drone medicine service takes off in Ghana

Posted on by

Up to 600 flights expected daily as largest service of its kind in the world targets country’s remote areas

Twelve million people in Ghana are set to benefit from the launch of the world’s largest drone medical delivery service.

Up to 600 drone flights will be made each day, delivering vaccines, blood supplies and life-saving medicines to 2,000 health centres in remote areas around the country.

Continue reading...

Rumour and violence rife as Congo Ebola outbreak surges out of control

Posted on by

Attacks on health centres are impeding efforts to contain an epidemic that has claimed nearly 900 lives in nine months

Archippe Kamuha knows the signs of Ebola well: diarrhoea, bleeding, persistent fever. But if the 25-year-old developed such symptoms, she would not contact specialist health workers.

“I know that if I go [to a treatment centre], I’ll die. All my friends who go there don’t come home, they die,” said Kamuha, whose home town, Butembo, in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, is at the centre of the country’s escalating Ebola outbreak.

Continue reading...

Malawi starts landmark pilot of first ever child malaria vaccine

Posted on by

Immunisation gives partial protection against the killer disease, and lessens the severity of other cases

Malawi will begin immunising young children against malaria today, in a landmark large-scale pilot of the first vaccine to give partial protection against the disease, the World Health Organization said.

Although the vaccine protects only a third of children aged under two years from life-threatening or severe malaria, clinical trials have found those who are immunised are likely to have less severe cases of the disease. Earlier, smaller trials also showed the vaccine prevented four in 10 cases of malaria overall, in babies aged between five and 17 months.

Continue reading...

‘Stigma does not go away’: Mumbai’s dedicated LGBT health clinic | Payal Mohta

Posted on by

After reports of transgender people being refused treatment, a new centre offers specialised services – and respite from discrimination

Vivek Sharma has travelled 20km from his home to the congested eastern suburb of Mumbai for his HIV treatment. But the journey is no hardship for the 23-year-old student.

“My file was shifted to this clinic. I am so happy that this has finally happened.”

Continue reading...

‘The harder you look the more you find’: Nepal’s hidden leprosy | Rebecca Ratcliffe

Posted on by

Almost two decades ago the World Health Organization declared leprosy eliminated, but millions of cases go undiagnosed

One summer’s morning Paniya Sardar noticed a strange mark on her leg. It was the size of her palm, light in colour and felt numb to touch. She had no idea what had caused it.

The family took Paniya, then 14, to a private clinic near their home on the outskirts of Biratnagar, a city in southern Nepal, where they were sold lotions and pills and told not to worry. Three months later, a deep wound appeared on her foot. “This particular blister was pretty big and wouldn’t heal,” her father, Sita Sardar, says through an interpreter. Six months later, it was still there.

Continue reading...

Mounting concern over cholera health crisis in Yemen

Posted on by

More than 2,000 new cases reported every day, with 25% of those affected being children under five

Yemen is facing a massive resurgence of cholera in what was already one of the world’s worst outbreaks, with more than 137,000 suspected cases and almost 300 deaths reported in the first three months of this year.

With well over 2,000 suspected cases being recorded every day – a doubling since the beginning of the year – aid agencies fear they could be facing a major new health crisis.

Continue reading...

Portable kit to treat babies with jaundice goes on trial in Peru

Posted on by

Jaundice affects 60% of babies. Left untreated it can be life-threatening. But treatment has always been difficult to access in rural Peru

Health workers in a remote province high in the Peruvian Andes are trialling a revolutionary method to treat babies with jaundice – with nothing more than a colour-coded ruler, blood reader and carrycots.

Their goal is to screen, diagnose and treat jaundice in 12,000 newborns over the next two years in a country where 90% of the public health facilities lack the capability to adequately diagnose or treat it in newborns.

Continue reading...

Emergency panel meets as Congo Ebola outbreak gathers pace

Posted on by

Faltering national response to epidemic prompts experts to consider official announcement of public health crisis

Experts will convene for an emergency meeting on Friday to determine whether the recent escalation of Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo should be declared a global health crisis.

More than eight months into the epidemic, which has killed 751 people, agencies warned the disease is still not under control. The response to the outbreak has been complicated by conflict, political instability, and distrust of Ebola services.

Continue reading...

Why should we Yemenis stop having babies and surrender to war? | Elle Kurancid, Elham Hassan and Amira Al-Sharif

Posted on by

Four years into the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crisis, three Yemeni women ask – exactly what is required of people living in warzones?

A news report from December 2018 lays bare the depths of the crisis gripping Yemen. Mothers watch doctors measure the arms of their children. “When the tape shows red,” the TV correspondent narrates, “it means they’re severely malnourished.” After more than four years of a civil war and proxy conflict, these Yemeni children, mothers, and doctors are trapped in what the UN has called “the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time”.

Continue reading...

UN urged to declare full-scale crisis in Venezuela as health system ‘collapses’

Posted on by

Researchers warn of rise in infectious diseases amid spike in levels of malnutrition and infant and maternal mortality

The UN must officially declare a full-scale humanitarian emergency in Venezuela after the “utter collapse” of the health system, experts have said.

Warning of the return of infectious diseases and rising levels of malnutrition and infant and maternal death, a report published this week by Human Rights Watch and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health calls on the UN secretary general, António Guterres, to declare a “complex humanitarian emergency”.

Continue reading...

Mayor in Mozambique says negligence led to cyclone deaths

Posted on by

People in rural areas were not told about red alert days before Idai struck, says city official

The Mozambican government failed to warn people in the areas worst hit by Cyclone Idai despite a “red alert” being issued two days before it struck, the mayor of the city of Beira has said.

The southern African country was completely unprepared for the disaster and “profound negligence” led to many deaths, said the mayor, Daviz Simango, who is also the leader of an opposition party.

Continue reading...

Kenya steps up Aids battle as building starts on $100m drug factory

Posted on by

Nairobi facility will be largest of its kind in Africa, boosting Kenyan economy and supplying 23 countries

Construction has started on a multimillion dollar Aids drug factory that will become the largest in Africa when it opens later this year.

The $100m (£75m) facility will bring 1,000 jobs to Kenya and reduce the reliance of almost half of the continent’s countries on European imports.

Continue reading...

Cyclone Idai crisis deepens as first cases of cholera confirmed in Mozambique

Posted on by

Five people test positive for waterborne disease in flooded port city of Beira amid warnings outbreak will spread

The first cases of cholera have been reported in the cyclone-ravaged Mozambican city of Beira, complicating an already massive and complex emergency in the southern African country.

The announcement of five cases of the waterborne disease follows days of mounting fears that cholera and other diseases could break out in the squalid conditions in which tens of thousands have been living since Cyclone Idai struck on 14 March, killing at least 700 people across the region.

Continue reading...

Children’s chances of surviving cancer less than 30% in poor nations – study

Posted on by

Stark differences revealed in five-year survival rates between rich and low- and middle-income countries

Figures reveal a striking disparity in five-year cancer survival rates for children in developing nations compared with those from rich countries.

More than 80% of children diagnosed with the disease in high-income states will live for more than five years, yet fewer than 30% of young people with cancer in low- and middle-income nations have the same chance of survival, research has shown.

Continue reading...

‘Yet another killer for children left starved by war’: cholera grips Yemen

Posted on by

In the last two weeks, 1,000 young people a day have been infected with the disease

Yemen is seeing a sharp spike in the number of suspected cholera cases this year, with 1,000 children a day infected in the last two weeks alone, agencies said.

More than 120,000 cases have been reported, with 234 deaths in the country, which has been at war for four years this month. Almost a third of the 124,493 cases documented between 1 January and 22 March were children under fifteen. Increasing rates of malnutrition among Yemen’s children have left them more prone to contracting and dying from the disease.

Continue reading...

Dirty water 20 times deadlier to children in conflict zones than bullets – Unicef

Posted on by

World Water Day study highlights lethal nature of unsafe sanitation and hygiene for children, especially under-fives

Children under five who live in conflict zones are 20 times more likely to die from diarrhoeal diseases linked to unsafe water than from direct violence as a result of war, Unicef has found.

Analysing mortality data from 16 countries beset by long-term conflict – including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen – the UN children’s agency also found that unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene kills nearly three times more children under 15 than war.

Continue reading...

UN to explore wave of deaths linked to food aid porridge in Uganda

Posted on by

World Food Programme halts distribution of fortified cereal as four people die and hundreds suffer suspected food poisoning

The World Food Programme and Ugandan government have launched an investigation into deaths linked with the distribution of fortified porridge to refugees and people suffering from malnourishment.

The health ministry was alerted to reports of possible food poisoning among people who had consumed Super Cereal, a blended food designed to prevent malnutrition, in the north-east region of Karamoja on 12 March.

Continue reading...

‘It’s a godsend’: the healthcare scheme bringing hope to India’s sick

Posted on by

In a country where treatment can cost two years’ wages, a new project could mean free medical care for 500 million people

Rajiv Gupta has a distinct spring in his step. He has brought his mother to New Delhi from the northern state of Bihar for a hip replacement, for which he won’t have to pay. His mother qualified for free treatment under Ayushman Bharat, the government’s ambitious new health insurance scheme.

“I can’t quite believe this is happening. When the doctors in Bihar told me it would cost 200,000 rupees [£2,180], I took mum home. That kind of money is impossible for me. I just run a tiny sari shop. And now she’s getting it done here free,” says Gupta. Then he hurries off as though scared he has got it wrong and someone is going to present him with a bill.

Continue reading...

Key to saving lives of newborns lies in half a teaspoon of blood, study claims

Posted on by

Research reveals striking changes in babies’ immune development that could form the basis for lifesaving vaccines

A groundbreaking study has claimed that the key to saving the lives of newborns is found in just half a teaspoon of blood.

Research has revealed dramatic changes in the immune systems of newborns, which scientists say could transform our understanding of disease in babies.

Continue reading...