Full coverage: Health

31.05.2008 CAPE TOWN, May 30 (IPS) - When four-year-old Alice Were suddenly developed a fever, her mother Miriam took her to the local medicine woman close to her house in Kangemi, a poor, cramped settlement on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Two days later, Alice was unconscious. Her frantic mother rushed to hospital with the child in her arms. But it was too late. Alice died of malaria.

29.05.2008 Inspired by a national television programme, women in Chhattisgarh villages in central India went on to form Kalyani clubs to drive awareness on health-related issues. Six years after their inception, the declining cases of diseases and improved maternal and child health speak of the clubs' success in transforming lives.

29.05.2008 Since January this year bird flu in Bangladesh has taken epidemic proportions affecting 47 of its 64 districts. To spread awareness on the disease and encourage safe practices among poultry handlers, UNICEF is working with local folk theatre groups. So far it has organised more than five hundred performances.

29.05.2008 At a shareholders meeting just days before "World No Tobacco Day," the embattled cigarette giant Altria (formerly Philip Morris USA) has been urged to scale back its massive lobbying efforts against U.S. public health and tobacco control.

28.05.2008 According to World Bank’s Global Monitoring Report 2008, the rate of absenteeism among health workers is highest in India. The report says that if corrective measures are not taken the MDGs with regard to reduction in child and maternal mortality are unlikely to be met.

27.05.2008 Reliance Industries Ltd. and UNAIDS will together tackle the HIV epidemic in India. The partnership will facilitate expansion of quality healthcare services in rural areas especially to those suffering from the dreaded virus and support the realisation of the UN Millennium Development Goal.

27.05.2008 According to a latest research, women in labour can now be tested for HIV in rural hospitals in India. By using a woman’s blood and saliva samples, doctors can detect the infection and start the antiretroviral therapy (ART) that prevents transmission of the virus to the newly born.

26.05.2008 Oxfam’s latest publication Health insurance in low-income countries: Where is the evidence that it works? argues that without adequate funding and government support health insurance cannot provide equity and universal access to health care.

22.05.2008 US based Sarnoff Corporation and Viocare Technologies have developed a new mobile phone-based dietary assessment tool. Designed for the National Institute of Health (NIH), this innovative system can track user’s eating habits and calorie intake through photographs and speech recognition.

22.05.2008 In a recent campaign by the government in Bangladesh, 19 million children under the age of five have been administered life-saving vitamin A doses. Vitamin A deficiency increases the risk of diseases measles and diarrhoea, both contributing to more than one-third of child deaths in the country.

19.05.2008 Amidst increasing criticism of the military junta for obstructing aid assistance to cyclone victims, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs arrived in Myanmar to speed up relief activities. With no clean water available, health experts warn of an outbreak of infectious diseases.

16.05.2008 Low levels of literacy make it difficult for families in Pakistan to access information on post-natal care, contraception and medical attention. With only two percent of its GDP allocated to education, the country risks achieving the Millennium Development Goals, says UNESCO.

15.05.2008 Indian Committee of Youth Organisations will be holding a national convention in partnership with UNICEF from May 28-30, 2008 in Bangalore, India. The event will provide a platform for various youth groups and networks across the country to take up issues concerning the fight against AIDS.

15.05.2008 At a recent review meeting of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights held in Geneva after 17 years, India was adjudged a poor performer. A panel of observers found the progress in critical human development areas such as food, health, housing and education as ‘unsatisfactory’.

14.05.2008 The global food price rise is leading to further malnourishment among Indian children, UNICEF warns, as families reduce the number of meals in a day. India already has the worst indicators of child malnutrition in South Asia, along with 40% of the world’s underweight newborns.

14.05.2008 The Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation invites applications for India’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2008. The Award seeks to recognise social entrepreneurs whose efforts and innovations have contributed towards achieving sustainable development.

13.05.2008 WASHINGTON, May 13 (OneWorld) - What single silver bullet is simultaneously reducing air pollution and oil dependency, rolling back urban congestion, and fighting obesity?

13.05.2008 It rains on an average 200-250 days in a year in India's north eastern state of Assam. Home to more than a hundred species of mosquitoes, a fifth of all malarial deaths in the country are reported from here. This season, however authorities claim they are prepared.

12.05.2008 Twenty-two Nobel Prize winners have written a letter to Indian prime minister and president for the release of Dr Binayak Sen, a public health and civil rights activist. There will be protests in several cities of India and the world to mark the first anniversary of his detention on May 14.

12.05.2008 Experts warn that non-availability of fresh drinking water, tardy relief work and health care measures are pushing the cyclone-hit Myanmar towards a major public health catastrophe. Inflexibility of military in not allowing most foreign aid workers is only adding to the woes of affected people.