The World Health Assembly, the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), wrapped-up its fifty-eighth session last month. More than 2200 people from WHO's 192 Member States, nongovernmental organizations and other observers attended the meeting which took place between 16-25 May. The Assembly reviewed progress made so far in polio eradication and identified what needs to be done to interrupt the final chains of wild-type poliovirus transmission worldwide by the end of this year. The Assembly also noted the progress made in scaling-up treatment and care within a coordinated and comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS and discussed smallpox vaccine reserves and research on the smallpox virus.
Equity in Health
World Health Assembly concludes: adopts key resolutions affecting global public health
Better-funded, More Equitable Health Care Could Save Millions of Women and Children, Experts Say
The lives of 7 million women, newborns and children could be saved each year if health programmes were refocused to overcome inequality and scaled up to provide wider access to proven, cost-effective measures, experts agreed at a recent conference. Health officials, medical professionals, and advocates from around the world took part in "Lives in the Balance: The Partnership Meeting on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health".
Fighting malaria in Africa by linking with other disease initiatives
The global community is committed to cutting by half the number of deaths worldwide from malaria by 2010. In Africa, progress has been slow towards achieving the objectives set by the continent's leaders in April 2000 to help reach this goal. Programmes to reduce malaria could be far more effective if they are linked to existing initiatives to prevent other diseases.
Kenya promises promises expansion of free ARVs
Kenya's government has promised to make antiretroviral (ARVs) drugs freely available to its HIV-positive citizens, many of whom cannot afford the current subsidised medication. Of the 200,000 people in need of treatment in the country, only 35,000 are receiving the life-prolonging drugs. With more than 60 percent of the population living on a dollar a day, HIV-positive Kenyans can expect to pay about KShs500 (US $6.5) per month for ARVs.
Mozambique: Unions Concentrate On HIV/Aids for May Day
Mozambique's main trade union federation, the OTM, launched a week of activities leading up to International Workers Day, 1 May, under the theme "Mozambican workers in the fight against HIV/AIDS." The OTM general secretary, Joaquim Fanheiro, said at a Maputo press conference that this theme was chosen taking into account the realisation that workers should be in the forefront of this fight, because it is workers who fall ill and die of AIDS, it is their children who become orphans, and it is their families who suffer.
Number of work-related accidents and illnesses continues to increase
Faced with a rising toll of occupational-related death, injury and sickness, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Office (ILO) marked the World Day for Safety and Health at Work by highlighting the need for a preventative safety culture worldwide. According to new estimates by the ILO, the number of job-related accidents and illnesses, which annually claim more than two million lives, appears to be rising because of rapid industrialization in some developing countries.
Seeking care for life threatening malaria in southern Tanzania
Prompt treatment with relatively cheap and effective drugs can prevent deaths from malaria. So why does this disease still cause more deaths than any other throughout Tanzania? The growth in the use of modern medicines has reduced the delaying impact of traditional remedies. The introduction of the 'integrated management of childhood illness' approach, which focuses on the overall wellbeing of a child, is crucial in reducing malaria deaths.
Blair report says donors not doing enough to fight HIV/AIDS
British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Commission for Africa released its report, which criticized international donors for "not paying what they promised" to fight HIV/AIDS, the Financial Times reports. The 460-page report calls for a doubling of international aid to Africa to $50 billion annually, the removal of trade barriers, debt forgiveness and increased efforts to address poor governance, corruption and war throughout the continent. The report also calls for annual funding for HIV/AIDS to be increased to $10 billion annually within the next five years.
Health and the Commission for Africa report
Improving health in Africa must be acknowledged as essential both for the continent's attainment of the MDGs and for effective development strategies both regional and national, says this article in The Lancet, which reviews the Commission for Africa report in the light of Africa's complex health crisis. "We must hope that the report can deliver so that the Commission and the UK Government do not perpetuate the "fatal indifference" to Africa's complex health and development needs that has for too long characterised the policies of many developed nations."
Health Ministers Pledge On Reproductive Health
Ministers of Health of the Southern Africa sub region have committed themselves to working with other sub regions on the continent to integrate sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHH) goals and targets into the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) framework. They also reaffirmed their commitment to taking the necessary action to speed up the development of relevant policies and to secure the resources for implementation.