Suleiman Mbatiah
NAIROBI, Mar 19 2010 (IPS) – Kenya s Constitutional Court heard on Mar. 18 from counsel representing the government that the Anti-Counterfeit Act of 2008 does not threaten the importation or manufacturing of cheap generic medicines and therefore does not deny Kenyans their constitutional right to life.
Health rights activists protest outside the Constitutional Court in Nairobi. Credit: Suleiman Mbatiah/IPS
Three people living with HIV and AIDS…
Suleiman Mbatiah
NAIROBI, Apr 23 2010 (IPS) – The Constitutional Court in Kenya has barred the government from implementing the Anti-Counterfeit Act of 2008 as it applies to generic medicines until a verdict is delivered in a case filed by three people living with HIV.
Activists celebrate the ruling safeguarding generics outside the Constitutional Court in Nairobi. Credit: Suleiman Mbatiah/IPS
Three petitioners in July…
Servaas van den Bosch
REHOBOTH, Namibia, Jun 1 2010 (IPS) – A landmark court case, alleging that HIV-positive women were forcibly sterilised in Namibian state hospitals begins in Windhoek s High Court on Jun. 1. Human rights groups claim the practice has continued long after the authorities were notified.
The operating theatre at St Mary s hospital…
Inés Acosta
MONTEVIDEO, Jul 26 2010 (IPS) – Uruguay is on the point of reaching the Millennium Development Goal for reducing the maternal mortality ratio, but it is still behind in other aspects of maternal health, like providing integrated sexual and reproductive health care, fighting syphilis and checking on mothers and babies during the postpartum period.
These targets are still far off and there is no exemption just because maternal mortality is low, said Lilián Abracinskas, head of the non-governmental organisation Mujer y Salud en Uruguay (MYSU, Women and Health in Uruguay).
She told IPS that public campaigns to promote mother-and-child health policies are also needed.
This country has been successful in lowering maternal mortality and is on track to m…
Beatrice Paez
MONTREAL, Canada, Aug 25 2010 (IPS) – A mother accused of backing insurgents in the Philippines and her newborn son are awaiting their release from prison, in a case that has gained international attention.
Amaryllis Enriquez, the head of Karapatan, an alliance of individuals and organisations that investigate human rights cases, told IPS a new motion was filed Monday by the lawyers of Judilyn Oliveros, who gave birth in July and was brought back to prison last week after the court denied an appeal to extend her temporary release for six months to nurse her baby.
Oliveros is among a group of 43 people two doctors, one registered nurse, two midwives and 38 volunteer health workers who were arrested on Feb. 6 for the illegal possession of explosives and fi…
Peter Richards
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Sep 16 2010 (IPS) – An inescapable fact of living in societies that are as small and highly personalised as those in the Caribbean is that information travels very quickly and not always very accurately.
The result usually is that privacy is, more often than not, a luxury and once a stigma of whatever kind attaches to you, there is little scope available for leaving one area of the society and migrating to another to, as it were, make a fresh start, Barbados acting Prime Minister Freundel Stuart told delegates attending a two-day symposium on HIV/AIDS and human rights in the Caribbean this week.
As regional leaders get ready to attend the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in New York next week, health of…
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…