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...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...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...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...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...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...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...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...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Analysis of community where 73% of residents contracted Zika in 2015 offers new clues about epidemic
Scientists studying the 2015 Zika outbreak in Brazil have discovered that people previously exposed to dengue may have been protected from the virus.
Three-quarters of the inhabitants of a favela in the country’s north-east caught the mosquito-borne Zika virus during the epidemic. The outbreak left more than 3,000 babies across Brazil with microcephaly, a birth defect caused by mothers catching the virus during pregnancy.
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