At the World Health Assembly in May 2003, the People's Health Movement, together with GEGA and Medact discussed the need for civil society to produce its own alternative World Health Report. It was felt that the WHO reports were inadequate; that there was no report that monitored the performance of global health institutions; and, that the dominant neo-liberal discourse in public health policy also needed to be challenged by a more people-centred approach that highlights social justice. The idea of an alternative World Health Report since developed into an initiative called the 'Global Health Watch' the first of which was launched on July 20, 2005.
Equity in Health
Millions face food shortages in Southern Africa
More than 10 million people will need humanitarian assistance in six countries across southern Africa over the coming year following yet another year of poor agricultural production caused by erratic weather together with late, and in some cases unaffordable inputs, such as fertilizer and seeds, two UN agencies and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) have warned.
PHA calls for end to patent regime
Delegates attending the second people’s health assembly called for the total abolition of patents on essential medicines. “Patents are shortening the lives of people and is a curse for poor people,” said Dr. Eduardo Espinoza, the former dean of University of El Salvador. “There are two serious concerns about essential medicines. Firstly, it is about their availability. Secondly its affordability,” said Mr. Amitava Guha, a trade union leader from India. “The manifestations of the unfair patent regime are taking a heavy toll on poor people, especially those who are infected and affected with HIV / AIDS,” said Mr. Guha, who currently heads the Federation of Medical Representatives Association of India.
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2 billion more people need access to basic sanitation by 2015
Basic sanitation must reach 138 million more people every year through 2015 – close to 2 billion in total - to bring the world on track to halve the proportion of people living without safe water and basic sanitation, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF warn in a new report. Meeting this Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target would cost US $11.3 billion per year, a minimal investment compared with the potential to reduce human illnesses and death and invigorate economies.
Africans should not be silent about unethical trials
A quarter of all clinical trials are now done in the developing world, but often the research lacks a rigorous ethical framework. Western researchers or funders tend to shoulder the blame for trials that the international scientific community deems unethical, says Gilbert Dechambenoit in this editorial in the African Journal of Neurological Sciences. But, he argues, African scientists should bear just as much responsibility for unethical scientific practices.
Challenging stigma by living positively with HIV in South Africa
In the face of widespread stigma around HIV/AIDS, few people have the courage to go public about their status, but one such person is Mampho Leoma, 28, a mother of two from Mapetla, in the Johannesburg township of Soweto. Leoma recalled the day she found out she was HIV-positive: "It was the 26th of January last year; I was four months pregnant ... It was very sad - I didn't expect the result. At the time I was not going with anyone else but my husband, and I didn't think he was going out with other girls either."
Free ARVs for 100,000 by 2006, Tanzanian prime minister says
At least 100,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania will receive anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) free of charge by the end of 2006, Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye announced last month. "The target is to ensure at least 400,000 people are on free ARV treatment within the next five years," he said in a speech before parliament in Tanzania's administrative capital, Dodoma.
Kenya and Tanzania to start producing anti-malaria drug
A company involved in the production of artemisinine, an anti-malaria drug, is due to set up extraction plants in Kenya and Tanzania to make the drug easily and cheaply available to patients, an official for the company said. The factories would be established in East Africa because of the potential in the region for cultivating artemisia-annua, the plant from which the anti-malaria drug is extracted, the managing director of African Artemisia Limited, Geoff Burrell, said at a conference convened by the UN World Health Organization (WHO) in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha.
MDGs to be missed in Africa
The United Nations Human Development Report Office released preliminary figures from the 2005 human development report projecting that the UN’s millennium development goals will be missed by a wide margin in Africa, reports the British Medical Journal. The UN undertook in 2000 to halve the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, to cut infant mortality by two thirds, and to give every child primary education by 2015. Ten African countries have worse infant mortality rates now than in 2000.
Modern food biotechnology, human health and development
This report presents the potential benefits and risks associated with GM foods. It finds that GM foods can increase crop yield, food quality and the diversity of foods which can be grown in a given area. This in turn can lead to better health and nutrition, which can then help to raise health and living standards. The report also recommends that in future, evaluations of GM foods should be widened to include social, cultural and ethical considerations, to help ensure there is no "genetic divide" between groups of countries which do and do not allow the growth, cultivation and marketing of GM products.