Category Archives: Global health

Mayor in Mozambique says negligence led to cyclone deaths

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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The campaign for a ‘drug-free world’ is costing lives | Louise Arbour and Mohamed ElBaradei

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Global policy on drug control is unrealistic, and has taken a harsh toll on millions of the world’s poorest people

Drug control efforts across the world are a threat to human dignity and the right to life.

In 2017, more than 70,000 people died from a drug overdose in the US. Among the reasons for these deaths are the lack of access to health and harm-reduction services, as well as the fear of legal repression, which often dissuades people who use drugs from asking for help.

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Doctors in Zimbabwe ‘sending patients away to die’ as drug shortages bite

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Senior doctors go on strike as president is warned that lack of medicine could lead to collapse of emergency services

A doctors’ strike in Zimbabwe entered its second day on Wednesday with health workers claiming patients in the biggest state hospital are dying due to a lack of drugs and medical supplies.

Dozens of doctors picketed outside Parirenyatwa hospital demanding improvements and claiming government promises to improve the health service had come to nothing.

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Fake drugs kill more than 250,000 children a year, doctors warn

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Printer ink, paint and arsenic found in some drugs sold to treat life-threatening illnesses

Doctors have called for an urgent international effort to combat a “pandemic of bad drugs” that is thought to kill hundreds of thousands of people globally every year.

A surge in counterfeit and poor quality medicines means that 250,000 children a year are thought to die after receiving shoddy or outright fake drugs intended to treat malaria and pneumonia alone, the doctors warned.

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‘Incredible moment’: impoverished Mali to give free healthcare to under-fives

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Sweeping health reforms, which also include free provision for pregnant women, heralded as national ‘turning point’

After decades of suffering some of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world, Mali has vowed to provide free healthcare for pregnant women and children under five in a “brave and bold” move to revamp its dismal healthcare system.

Following a raft of reforms announced by President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, free contraceptives will also be provided across the country as tens of thousands of community health workers are introduced in a bid to provide more localised healthcare to Mali’s population of 18 million people.

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Shock rise in global measles outbreaks ‘disastrous’ for children, UN warns

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Unicef calls for improved vaccination as study shows Ukraine, Brazil and the Philippines among 10 worst affected countries

Cases of childhood measles are surging to shocking levels around the globe, led by 10 countries that account for three-quarters of the rise.

Amid warnings of “disastrous consequences” for children if the disease continues to spread unchecked, a worldwide survey by the UN children’s agency, Unicef, said 98 countries around the globe reported a rise in measles cases in 2018 compared with 2017.

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Arsonists attack Ebola clinics in DRC as climate of distrust grows

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Health agencies re-evaluate approach after attacks on treatment centres in North Kivu

A second clinic serving patients affected by the escalating Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been set alight, as concerns mount over widespread distrust of health agencies.

Seven months since the start of the outbreak, which has claimed 548 lives, experts warned that the virus is still not under control and said suspicion of agencies is severely undermining Ebola services.

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Venezuela crisis threatens disease epidemic across continent – experts

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Collapse of Venezuela’s healthcare system could fuel spread of malaria and other diseases across region

Experts have warned of an epidemic of diseases such as malaria and dengue on an unprecedented scale in Latin America following the collapse of the healthcare system in Venezuela.

Continent-wide public health gains of the last 18 years could be undone if Venezuela does not accept help to control the spreading outbreaks of malaria, Zika, dengue and other illnesses that are afflicting its people, experts have warned in a report published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

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‘I came to Peru to survive’: the Venezuelans migrating for HIV drugs | Dan Collyns

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Darwin Zerpa is among those who have fled to Peru to get the antiretrovirals he needs. Now he counsels others with the virus

By day it is one of Lima’s grandest squares. By night the Plaza San Martín becomes a magnet for nightclubbers and bag-snatchers, as well as a haunt for male sex workers and their clients.

It is here just before midnight that 29-year-old Darwin Zerpa and other volunteers set up shop. Pulling up in an out-of-service ambulance and folding out a table on the pavement, they mark out a spot where passersby can get HIV finger-prick test results in less than 10 minutes.

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Polio spreads in Afghanistan and Pakistan ‘due to unchecked borders’

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Campaigners say resurgence of deadly virus threatens despite huge successes of vaccination drive

The unmonitored movement of people across the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan threatens efforts to eradicate polio from the two countries, as the year’s first cases of the virus are recorded in the volatile region.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative said people travelling through unchecked crossings is believed to be one of the main causes of the spread of the disease in the area.

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‘We can’t end FGM without talking to men’ – in pictures

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More than 200 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation and about 3 million more are at risk every year. Africa has the highest numbers, but its young people are fighting back

Photographs by the Girl Generation

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‘I feel alive again’: prosthetics and hope in Central African Republic | Saskia Houttuin

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A clinic making artificial limbs in CAR – the country’s only centre of its kind – is changing lives devastated by conflict

Exaucé Bagaza can’t keep his eyes off his feet. A moment ago the five-year-old boy had one foot and now he has two: they are tucked into a pair of white tennis shoes adorned with flecks of green glitter.

Wobbling a little, the child presses his right hip on to his new leg, a prosthesis made of polypropylene. His physiotherapist leans forward, reaching for his hands: “Come here,” he says.

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