Zimbabwe state doctors went on strike for the third day running in the last week of June, adding to the woes of a struggling healthcare system and the government of President Robert Mugabe. Doctors started strike action in the second city, Bulawayo, complaining that a recent evaluation and pay review of public sector jobs had whittled away their monthly salaries.
Equity in Health
Zimbabwe state doctors' strike continues
'Hyper on SARS, silent on WARS' - Will the new WHO DG break the silence?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) would need to broaden its analysis to include the socio-economic and political determinants of people's health and identify and address the impact of global neo-liberal economic policies on the health of the poor, among other things, if it was to truly remain a 'world' body and address the real 'health' needs of ordinary people. This is accroding to a statement by the People's Health Movement congratulating Dr. Jong-Wook Lee as he assumed his position as the new Director-General of the World Health Organisation. Dr Lee, noted the PHM, was taking over the organisation at a time when its relevance to the public health needs of the world's poor and marginalized were at its lowest point in recent history.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29812
31% of African TB now due to HIV epidemic
A new WHO study of the burden of tuberculosis has found that most of the world's largest and fastest-growing epidemics of TB, in Africa, are increasingly attributable to the effects of HIV. The researchers, based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, use mathematical models to compile and assess information from published studies and a network of experts to estimate that 9% of the estimated 8.3 million new cases of TB in the year 2000 would not have happened, but for HIV.
ARV DRUG TREATMENT AFFORDABLE in south africa
Antiretroviral drugs are "affordable" and launching a program to deliver the medicines to HIV-positive people throughout South Africa is "feasible," according to a cost study completed by the country's national health and finance ministries.
Related Link:
* Health Minister cool to drug plan
http://allafrica.com/stories/200305140990.html
botswana's radical arv treatment becomes test case
The success of Botswana's "radical" antiretroviral drug program has made the country a "test case" for AIDS treatment in sub-Saharan Africa, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Botswana, which has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate - 38.5% of people between the ages of 14 and 49 are estimated to be HIV-positive - began offering treatment last year.
Chirac 'sacrifice' to get Bush approval
French President Jacques Chirac has sacrificed the health of Aids victims on the altar of mending relations with United States President George Bush which were broken over the war in Iraq, health NGOs charge. The NGO Health Gap said the G8 action plan on health had been weakened after interventions by the US to water down references to increasing access to essential medicines and strengthening the financing of the Global Fund to fight Aids, malaria and tuberculosis.
CHRONOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICAN HIV/AIDS TREATMENT ACCESS ROW
Following a meeting with South African Deputy-President Jacob Zuma in May, AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), announced it would suspend its civil disobedience action aimed at forcing the government to introduce a national HIV/AIDS treatment programme. A chronology of events during 2002 and 2003 over South Africa's controversial HIV/AIDS treatment access programme is available by clicking on the link below.
G8 charged with global inequalities
As yet another meeting of G8 heads of states started on June 1, the People's Health Movement called upon people around the world to peacefully protest against the policies of neo-liberal globalisation imposed on them by the G8 rich countries. "Over 90,000 children will die from preventable diseases during just the three days when G8 will be held. Poverty, non-access to health care and lack of basic sanitation are the key reasons for these deaths. The G 8 leaders should be doing a serious soul searching," said a PHM spokesperson.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29811
generic drugs talks deadlocked
Pharmaceutical industry officials said late last month that talks over access to generic drugs, including antiretrovirals, are "deadlocked," despite optimism from officials at the World Trade Organisation, Reuters reports. The talks have been stalled since members missed a December 31, 2002, deadline to reach an agreement. U.S. negotiators in February refused to sign a deal under the Doha declaration to allow developing nations to override patent protections to produce generic versions of drugs to combat public health epidemics such as AIDS unless wording was included to specify which diseases constitute a public health epidemic.
message for WHO member country delegations to 56th World Health Assembly
There is an urgent need for new vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments to address high mortality and morbidity associated with infectious disease. The current system of motivating research and development favours the needs of people in developed countries, while neglecting many diseases that primarily affect people in developing countries. This is according to a message from Medicines Sans Frontiers about access to medicines, made to the 56th World Health Assembly (WHA) to be held between May 19-28.