Emmanuel Chaco

KINSHASA, May 18 2011 (IPS) – More than 3,000 cases of measles have been recorded in the past three months in two districts of Maniema Province, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Provincial statistics seen by IPS for the districts of Kibombo and Kindu, show that since mid-April, a measles epidemic has caused more than 15 deaths at health facilities, and three or four times as many have died at home, in cases where families did not take stricken children to medical centres.

The villages further upstream along the Congo River are the worst affected by measles, says Dr Théo Katako, interim head of the Provincial Inspectorate of the Ministry of Public Health. Meanwhile, the province was only able to organise a vaccination campaign a…

Wambi Michael

KAMPALA , Jun 15 2011 (IPS) – Just a week after a group of civil society organisations petitioned Uganda s constitutional court demanding that the government s non-provision of essential services for pregnant mothers was a violation of the right to life; Margaret Nabirye lost her baby in childbirth.

Rose Nakanjako, the chairperson of Mama Club, a group of …

WASHINGTON, Jun 28 2011 (IPS) – During the years when governments and the media were focused on preparations for the 2009 Copenhagen climate negotiations, a powerful climate movement was emerging in the United States: the movement opposing the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
Environmental groups, both national and local, are opposing coal plants because they are the primary driver of climate change. Emissions from coal plants are also responsible for a number that dwarfs the U.S. lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

What began as a few local ripples of resistance quickly evolved into a national tidal wave of grassroots opposition from environmental, health, farm, and community organisations. Despite a heavily funded industry campaign to promote clean c…

Inaki Borda

NEW YORK, Aug 3 2011 (IPS) – With Republican-led efforts to divert funding from the reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood stumbling in Washington, the battle has moved to the states, with mixed results.
In February, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would have stripped federal funding from , cutting money for contraceptives, HIV tests, breast cancer screenings and reproductive health services for predominantly low-income patients.

The main justification for this defunding was, according to Republicans, to prevent Planned Parenthood from using taxpayer money to carry out abortions.

Nobody is saying Planned Parenthood can t be the leading advocate of abortion on demand, but why do I have to pay for it? declared Rep. Mik…

Danilo Valladares and Amanda Wilson*

GUATEMALA CITY/WASHINGTON DC, Sep 9 2011 (IPS) – The appalling experiments carried out by U.S. doctors in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 using 1,300 human subjects who were infected with sexually transmitted diseases highlighted the inadequacy of controls and safeguards in clinical testing in this Central American country still a major problem today, according to experts.
The trained human resources are not in place for oversight of research, and the standards and regulations are either flawed or are not met, Dr. Luis López, a member of the , which was tasked by President Barack Obama to investigate the case, told IPS.

In Guatemala, medical research is regulated by a 2007 Health Ministry agreement on standards for the regulation of …

Paul Carlucci and Henrietta Abayie

ACCRA, Oct 26 2011 (IPS) – Mary Mingle thought she had a boil on her breast, so she bought some medication and tried to treat it at home. Two months later, bothered by persistent pain, she went to the doctor.

Mary Mingle has kept her double mastectomy secret for 20 years, due to fear of stigma. Credit: Paul Carlucci/IPS

There were eleven lumps in her breasts. She had first stage cancer, and her breasts,…

Danilo Valladares

GUATEMALA CITY, Dec 13 2011 (IPS) – At the clinic we were attended to by a woman who criticised us and only talked to us about religious questions, says Carlos Valdez of Proyecto Unidos, an NGO in Guatemala that fights for access to HIV/AIDS prevention services by homosexuals and sex workers.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people face discrimination in health centres due to homophobia and transphobia, and do not receive treatment tailored to our needs. That s why we still represent the largest number of cases of HIV, Valdez told IPS.

Among men who have sex with men in the country, 7.6 percent were HIV-positive in 2010, according to the study Intensificación de las acciones de prevención y atención integral en VIH y sida en grupos vulnerab…

MEXICO CITY, Feb 10 2012 (IPS) – Vaccines against drug addiction appear to be a better strategy than the repressive worldwide war on drugs , but first they must overcome resistance from pharmaceutical laboratories and secure financial backing, scientists say.
Experimental trials against cocaine and heroin addiction are under way in Mexico and the United States, but two or three more years of work are needed to prove that the treatment is viable. Ethical aspects must also be resolved, such as compulsory medication for addicts and permission for use in children.

Different delivery methods need to be designed. The pleasurable effect of drugs needs to be eliminated, which is feasible. But it will have to start being done in under-age children, and that raises a number of legal…

Kristin Palitza

ABIDJAN , Mar 15 2012 (IPS) – I would like to use contraception, but my husband is against it, says Bintou Moussa*. The 32-year-old mother has just given birth to her sixth child at the Abobo General Hospital in Cote d Ivoire s commercial capital Abidjan.

A health worker explains the sexual transmission of infections at the family planning clinic in Yopougon. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

S…