Poor people in developing countries have little hope of overcoming poverty and deprivation unless urgent action is taken, according to the 2004 Global Monitoring report. The report, whose purpose is to assess progress towards internationally agreed objectives for reducing poverty, was the focus of discussions by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during a meeting in Washington, April 24-25. The report claims that most developing countries will not meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include halving the proportion of the population in extreme poverty, ensuring primary education for all children, and decreasing child and maternal deaths by 2015. (This article requires registration.)
Equity in Health
More aid is needed to halve world poverty, says report
Nutrition for Improved development outcomes
United Nations System - Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) report
The 5th Report on the World Nutrition Situation outlines how reducing malnutrition is central to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), citing evidence that links nutrition to a range of other development outcomes. It highlights how a nutrition perspective can strengthen key development mechanisms and instruments such as poverty reduction strategies, health sector reform, improving governance and human rights, and trade liberalization. The Report makes specific suggestions about how nutrition can be engaged in a practical programme and policy context. This contribution is timely, as progress towards the 2015 MDG targets has been slower than anticipated.
Resurgence of TB in Zimbabwe causes concern
Malnutrition due to the ongoing food crisis, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and overcrowded urban areas are all contributing to a rise in tuberculosis (TB) infections in Zimbabwe. Nicholas Siziba, the national coordinator of the Ministry of Health's special TB programme, sounded the alarm while visiting Matabeleland South province - one of the worst-affected in terms of TB rates.
Risking HIV to access grant in South Africa
The South African government expressed concern last month after a news report highlighted the story of a young woman who admitted she was thinking of contracting the HI virus to access a disability grant. The young woman, Thato, said she had ten 'boyfriends' with whom she slept for money. She was supporting two nieces, her own child and a grandmother suffering from diabetes on the money she made, by being what she described as a "prostitute in disguise".
TAC extends olive branch to health minister
South Africa's the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has welcomed the re-appointment of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, with whom the organisation has had a fraught relationship over the last four years. “The re-appointment of Health Minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang will be a disappointment for many of us, especially the range of actors in the health sector. However, we urge Minister Tshabalala-Msimang to re-establish a working relationship in the interest of fulfilling the mandate of our people,” said the TAC.
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Africa: Too little, too late for ARV treatment
The long-awaited rollout of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs through public health systems is at last becoming a reality in a growing number of African countries. But the initial excitement greeting the announcement of each new AIDS treatment programme is often tempered by a closer examination of the figures, and the realisation that only a fraction of those in need will initially be able to access therapy.
Global TB effort doomed without new drugs and tests
The international humanitarian medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said that the battle against tuberculosis (TB) is being lost because of reliance on archaic diagnostic tests and drugs. "The HIV/AIDS pandemic has magnified this problem as TB often coincides with, and is made harder to treat by, HIV/AIDS. MSF calls for an urgent increase in worldwide investment in TB research and development," the organisation said.
South Africa Makes AIDS Drugs Available Ahead of Polls
The world's biggest AIDS treatment plan gets a boost this week as five pilot hospitals in South Africa's richest province roll out life-saving anti-retroviral medication. Officials say the April 01 launch in Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg, shows the government fulfilling a pledge to make ARVs available in South Africa - the country most battered by HIV/AIDS with some 5.3 million of its 45 million people infected.
US firms try to block cheap Aids drugs
The US, under pressure from its giant pharmaceutical companies, is trying to undermine the use in poor countries of cheap, copycat Aids drugs, made by "pirate", generic companies but validated by the World Health Organisation, campaigners claim. US drug companies want the money promised for President George Bush's Aids plan to be spent on their products.
Bush's Aids plan slammed by activists
The Bush Administration's Global AIDS strategy is based on selective and misleading use of science, evidence and rhetoric in support of an ideological approach to AIDS prevention and treatment that fails to address the needs of women and girls, who now represent the majority of those infected with HIV worldwide, asserts the Centre for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), a U.S.-based organisation focused on the effects of U.S. international policies on women's rights and health worldwide. "This plan is all smoke and mirrors when it comes to responding to the spread of HIV among women and girls," asserted Jodi Jacobson, Executive Director of CHANGE. "On one hand, the strategy correctly cites critical factors, such as violence and sexual coercion, that put women and girls at high risk of infection," notes Jacobson. "Yet the plan fails to offer any concrete strategies for addressing these concerns." This posting also includes information from the latest issue of the Africa Focus Bulletin on the Aids plan, which was released in late February.
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