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Nigeria, UNICEF launch first national child health week

UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman, who visited Nigeria to launch the country's first ever National Child Health Week, said an unacceptably high number of children in the country are dying from preventable diseases, and she called on Nigerian government officials to provide integrated healthcare, Xinhua reports (8/3).

3 Aug 2009

Increased fighting makes humanitarian work, health situation more difficult in Somalia, U.N. says

Despite increasing danger posed by "al Qaeda-linked militants," U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said Tuesday U.N. aid workers "were not backing away" from the country, Reuters reports.

22 Jul 2009

Toronto Star columnist examines polio eradication in India

According a Toronto Star column, it is an "enormous challenge" for India's government to try to get all of its citizens immunized against polio. "It has used everything from elephants and camels to rickety boats and bikes to ferry the vaccine to remote regions where temperatures have topped 40C the past three months.

15 Jul 2009

G8, African leaders agree to strengthen water access partnership

G8 and leaders from Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and the African Union on Friday announced an agreement to strengthen their partnership to improve access to water in Africa, Ennahar Online reports (Oudina, 7/10).

13 Jul 2009

IPS examines need for new drugs to treat neglected tropical diseases

Inter Press Service News Agency examines the shortcomings of treatments for neglected tropical diseases - which, according to the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), account "for 12 percent of the global disease burden," and 1.3 percent of the new drugs developed between 1975 to 2004.

8 Jul 2009

Climate change, hunger, economy G8 Summit top priorities; France's First Lady calls on G8 to expand on global health 'achievements'

President Barack Obama joined world leaders in Italy on Wednesday for "three days of intense talks on threats to global security and stability" at a G8 summit "where climate change, the continuing global economy crisis and world hunger got top billing," AP/Google.com reports (Babington, 7/8).

8 Jul 2009

Communicable disease epidemics in developing world not being adequately addressed, IFRC says

The "crippling" and "growing burden" of communicable diseases such as dengue fever, polio, or meningitis is not being sufficiently addressed in developing countries, according to "The Epidemic Divide," a report released Monday by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), AFP/Google.com reports. According to the report, resources to deal with existing epidemics are "scarce."

7 Jul 2009

International health experts hold two-day H1N1 meeting

WHO leaders and international health ministers met Thursday for a two-day meeting in Cancun, Mexico, to share the lessons learned from the spread of H1N1 (swine flu) (Xinhua, 7/3) and strategies for "battling the pandemic," the AP/Washington Post reports (Rodriguez, 7/2).

7 Jul 2009

Namibia close to reaching some MDGs

Namibia's recently released second MDG Report 2008 finds that the country is making progress toward achieving some of the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. However, the Prime Minister says the global economic situation could reverse progress and notes that the country is behind on some health-related targets, New Era reports.

24 Jun 2009

UNHCR calls for world to do more to protect refugees

To mark World Refugee Day on June 20, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) urged the "international community to do more to protect and care for refugees around the world," VOA News reports (Schlein, VOA News, 6/20).

22 Jun 2009

Economist examines schistosomiasis in China

The Economist examines schistosomiasis in China. The disease, which is also called snail-fever, is the "world’s second-most prevalent tropical disease after malaria, affecting 207 million people of whom 726,000 are Chinese, according to the most recent official figures, from 2004," the Economist reports.

21 Jun 2009

Africa marks “Day of the African Child”

Liberia's Ministry of Gender transported 1,000 children to events in northwest Lofa County. IRIN writes, "In an effort to improve access to health care and slash neonatal deaths, Liberia's government suspended health care fees in 2007. The recent UNICEF-Save the Children report named Liberia as one of the few sub-Saharan African countries on target to meet its child health goal by 2015" (IRIN, 6/16).

18 Jun 2009

Relief efforts for displaced people in Pakistan barely coping, report says

Despite significant efforts from Pakistani authorities and humanitarian organizations to respond to the world’s largest and fastest displacement of people in more than a decade, relief efforts are barely coping, according to an Oxfam report published on Monday, the International News reports.

17 Jun 2009

Preventing spread of infectious diseases is everyone’s responsibility – and everyone’s job

According to a report published today, we must all share responsibility for preventing the spread of diseases such as swine flu, SARS, avian influenza, diarrhoeal and skin diseases, and even the common cold.

16 Jun 2009

UK tops the list of countries at extreme risk to the spread of swine flu

A Warwick Business School professor and one of the founders of global risks specialist, Maplecroft, has released three new maps and indices revealing the countries most at risk from an influenza pandemic.

12 Jun 2009

Times of Zambia/allAfrica.com examines maternal mortality

The Times of Zambia/allAfrica.com examines abortion in Zambia and efforts to reduce maternal mortality. "Unsafe abortions are one of the top five causes of maternal mortality in Zambia," writes the newspaper, which adds they are one factor keeping the country from meeting the U.N. Millennium Development Goal target of reducing maternal mortality.

9 Jun 2009

International health experts to discuss environmental effects on children's health

International health experts will gather through Wednesday in Busan, South Korea, to discuss the effects of the environment on children's health for the Third WHO International Conference on Children's Health and the Environment, the Korea Times reports.

9 Jun 2009

Ongoing refugee crisis in Pakistan overwhelms health system

The AP/Washington Post examines how the millions of Pakistani refugees fleeing from the army's offensive against the Taliban in the northwest of the country are overwhelming the country's health care system. "The crisis has exhausted doctors, used up limited supplies of medicines and buried hospitals in a mountain of red tape as they try to get money and medicine for the crisis" pushing the entire health system to the brink of collapse, the AP/Washington Post writes.

9 Jun 2009

WHO recommends worldwide use of rotavirus vaccine for children

To reduce an estimated half million deaths and two million hospitalizations from diarrhea caused by rotavirus each year, the WHO on Friday recommended that oral rotavirus vaccines be added to national childhood immunization programs, broadening access to the vaccine in the developing world, Reuters reports.

5 Jun 2009

WHO recommends global use of rotavirus vaccines - can protect millions of children from diarrhoeal diseaseas

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that rotavirus vaccination be included in all national immunization programmes to provide protection against a virus that is responsible for more than 500,000 diarrhoeal deaths and 2 million hospitalizations every year among children. More than 85% of these deaths occur in developing countries in Africa and Asia. This new policy will help ensure access to rotavirus vaccines in the world's poorest countries.

5 Jun 2009