RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 7 2012 (IPS) – Brazil spends some 10 billion dollars a year on health care for smokers – more than three times the tax revenue from the tobacco industry in this country, which is the world s top exporter and second producer of tobacco. The effects of tobacco consumption in Brazil … Read more
HIV-positive children in Muhanga, a village in Rwanda. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS WASHINGTON, Jul 23 2012 (IPS) – As more than 20,000 health workers, scholars and activists from around the world gather here this week for a major biannual AIDS conference, observers are warning that U.S. government proposals to cut HIV/AIDS-related funding could undermine the significant … Read more
A malnourished and dehydrated baby cries as a doctor applies an intravenous drip to increase fluid intake at Banadir Hospital in the Somali capital Mogadishu. Credit: UN Photo/Stuart Price UNITED NATIONS, Sep 13 2012 (IPS) – While the global community made progress in reducing under-five child mortality to below seven million per year, it risks … Read more
Uganda conservationists are concerned that increasing numbers of people have begun eating primate meat. Credit: Samson Baranga/IPS ALBERTINE RIFT REGION, Uganda, Oct 25 2012 (IPS) – Conservationists struggling to protect the remaining population of Ugandan chimpanzees have raised concerns that people around wildlife reserves in the west of the country have taken to eating the … Read more
NEW DELHI, Nov 29 2012 (IPS) – While India has drastically reduced the spread of HIV over the past decade, new strains of the virus that cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are troubling medical scientists in this country. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, or , in its 2012 report, praises India … Read more
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 28 2013 (IPS) – The garbage strewn across many streets and sidewalks in the Argentine capital reflects the inefficiency of a waste collection and treatment system that, paradoxically, has become increasingly costly for the city’s residents, say civil society groups and opposition parties. The garbage crisis in Buenos Aires is a result … Read more
HIV-positive children in Muhanga, a village in Rwanda. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS WASHINGTON, Apr 4 2013 (IPS) – A first-time ranking of 54 top research universities in the United States and Canada has found that a miniscule percentage of funding goes to neglected diseases, despite the outsized influence that public universities play in developing medicines for … Read more
UNITED NATIONS, May 23 2013 (IPS) – Every three years since 2007, a global advocacy organisation called has convened an international conference to talk about issues relating to the health and well-being of girls and women. , the United Nations Population Fund, has been privileged to participate in these conferences, and looks forward to joining … Read more
Over the years Zanzibar’s sea levels have risen to erode beaches and contaminate some of the island’s fresh water supply. Credit: Giandomenico Pozzi/CC by 2.0 ZANZIBAR, Tanzania, Jun 12 2013 (IPS) – Khadija Komboani’s nearest well is filled with salt water thanks to the rising sea around Tanzania’s Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar. And until … Read more
A man crosses a bridge over one of Cité Soleil’s waste canals that lead to the Port-au-Prince harbor. Credit: HGW/Marc Schindler Saint Val PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 26 2013 – Lack of financing for a 10-year eradication plan means that cholera will likely be endemic to Haiti for years to come. Cholera spreads via contaminated food, water … Read more