Matthew O. Berger

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 2010 (IPS) – When the Green Revolution took root in the 1960s and 1970s, plant biologists main concern was increasing the yield of the staple crops on which people in poor countries depended. This, it stood to reason, would increase the amount of food available to the world s poor and decrease hunger.
It generally succeeded. But what if those staple crops were themselves lacking in the micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron or zinc that people were short on but which are necessary for healthy bodies?

Addressing this micronutrient deficiency would require a new approach and a new effort which is only now beginning to, quite literally, bear fruit.

In sub-Saharan Africa, many people, especially in rural areas, depend on staples…

Cléo Fatoorehchi interviews JENNIFER REDNER of the International Women’s Health Coalition

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 2010 (IPS) – At the start of this month, the U.S. Senate unanimously adopted the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act . Women s rights groups are now urging the Congress s lower chamber to pass it before adjourning at the end of the year.

Jennifer Redner Credit: Courtesy of IWHC

Jennifer Redner, a consultant to the International Women s Health Coalition on U.S. foreign policy issues related to the health and rights of women and girls, explai…

Emilio Godoy

MEXICO CITY, Jan 31 2011 (IPS) – Leonor, a Mexican citizen, took part in a 2006 clinical trial of a drug to treat kidney disease, designed by a transnational pharmaceutical company.
A friend of mine who is a nurse told me about the trial and I decided to take part, Leonor, a 30-year-old saleswoman who has kidney problems, told IPS. I was given regular doses of the medicine for several weeks, and they said it worked.

Her story is just one among many as clinical trials are increasingly taking place in countries like Mexico and Brazil, for reasons that range from cheaper costs to less rigorous oversight.

Labs need patients in a given short time, U.S. expert Lorna Speid, author of the book Clinical Trials: What Patients and Healthy Volunteers Need …

FREETOWN, Apr 3 2011 (IPS) – On Apr. 5, the United Nations Children s Fund will launch a report on teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone. Teenage pregnancies account for 40 percent of maternal deaths in the country, and the report comes as public health authorities recalibrate strategy to address a problem that endangers both mothers and children.

This young woman from Makeni dropped out of school when she had her first child at 16. Credit: Anna Jeffreys/IRI…

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 3 2011 (IPS) – The United Nations is predicting that come Oct. 31, the world population will hit the seven billion mark and keep expanding till it reaches 9.3 billion by the year 2050.
Much of this increase, according to the Population Division of the U.N. s (DESA), is projected to come from 58 high-fertility countries: 39 in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America.

These countries include some of the poorest of the world s poor: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Mali, Ethiopia, and East Timor, along with middle income countries such as Jordan, Pakistan, Honduras, Guatemala and the Philippines.

The projections were part of the released Tuesday by DESA.

A world of seven billion …

DAKAR, Jun 7 2011 – Think hand washing can t be fun? Think again. In Senegal, a unique water system offers people an easy, cheap and environmentally friendly way to wash their hands frequently, reducing the spread of hand-borne transmittable diseases.

Students learning how to use the canacla: 30 seconds of hand washing while singing and dancing. Credit: Benoit Vanhercke

It is recess at Clair Soleil elementary school in Dakar. …

Aimable Twahirwa

KIGALI, Jul 22 2011 (IPS) – When Callixte Munyabikari, a potato farmer from Gakenke in northern Rwanda, was rushed to a regional hospital after he fell ill with diarrhoea, he thought it was just a bad case of food poisoning.

A contaminated stream in Kimicanga, a suburb in Kigali. A majority of people in rural Rwanda still consume pol…

Thalif Deen

STOCKHOLM, Aug 25 2011 (IPS) – The statistics coming out of Africa are staggering: 40 percent of Africa’s 1 billion people live in urban areas and 60 percent live in slums, where water supplies and sanitation are severely inadequate , according to the Nairobi-based U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).
The worst affected are countries in sub-Saharan Africa where shortage of financial resources, bureaucratic mismanagement and lack of political leadership are hampering progress towards resolving longstanding problems relating to water scarcities and lack of sanitation facilities.

The London-based WaterAid points out that at least five African countries Angola, Comoros, Zimbabwe, Liberia and Togo have no specific public sector budget-line for sanitation. Comor…

Pavol Stracansky

BRATISLAVA, Oct 5 2011 (IPS) – Almost half of all doctors working in Slovakia s hospitals have handed in their notice in a mass protest over working conditions and wages which they warn could cause the Eastern European country s healthcare system to collapse.
They have given two months notice but say that if by the end of that time their demands for better wages and reforms of the healthcare system are not met they will carry through their resignations, leaving hospitals having to limit operations, close wards and provide only essential health services.

The mass resignations have been inspired by similar action taken by doctors in the neighbouring Czech Republic.

They also come, though, as discontent among low-paid medical staff runs high in a…

PRAGUE, Jan 22 2012 (IPS) – The Czech government has defied calls from international human rights groups to stop the degrading practice of surgically castrating sex offenders.
Announcing a raft of new health care legislation earlier this month, Prime Minister Petr Necas said the government would not be putting an end to the controversial practice, defending castration as an efficient method of stopping recidivism among sexual offenders.

But rights groups have questioned the move and even the government’s own human rights commissioner has said the practice is a throwback to out of date thinking on criminal punishments and leaves the Czech Republic out of step with the rest of Europe.

Other methods of treatment are given preference all over Europe. We consider it n…