This Lancet article calls on the WHO to take the lead in championing the goal of “Universal access to essential health-care information by 2015” or “Health Information for All”. Published to coincide with the launch of the Global Review of Access to Health Information in Developing Countries, the paper argues that access to information is key to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While many initiatives have improved access over the past ten years, there is still much to be done.
Equity in Health
Can we achieve health information for all by 2015?
Humanitarian crisis crippling public health sector in Southern Africa
As a rising number of HIV/AIDS patients turn to already over-stretched public sector facilities, the ongoing humanitarian crisis is undermining the quality of care in Southern Africa's health system. Two years after committing themselves to respond to the humanitarian emergency, health ministers from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) are now faced with "vicious and destructive spirals" of rising HIV/AIDS deaths and deepening poverty, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa said in a statement.
New protocol for malnutrition management to save lives in Mozambique
Improved measures to tackle acute malnutrition in Mozambique are expected to save the lives of thousands of children and adults. During a five-day workshop supported by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) last week, about 100 health workers in the capital, Maputo, adopted a protocol outlining step-by-step guidelines for the management of acute malnutrition in children.
Poor Countries Footing Reproductive Health Bill
Developed countries are failing to live up to their commitments to fund sexual and reproductive health care leaving poorer countries to pick up the bill, says a new UN report. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report titled 'The Cairo Consensus at Ten: Population, Reproductive Health and the Global Effort to End Poverty' says poor countries themselves are providing around 40 percent of the money spent on reproductive health programmes and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.
Reviewing efforts to control TB
Global efforts to control rising levels of tuberculosis are not working and more needs to be done to reduce infections from the deadly airborne disease, public health experts said on Tuesday. The World Health Organization (WHO) introduced a strategy in 1993 aimed at halving deaths over the next decade from the contagious illness that kills about 2 million people each year. But researchers at Harvard University in the United States said a decade after the DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course) plan was introduced, the global burden of TB continues to rise.
Sambo nominated as WHO regional director
Dr Luis Gomes Sambo was nominated by the WHO Regional Committee for Africa for the post of WHO Regional Director for Africa. Dr Sambo, 52, of Angolan nationality, is currently the Director of Programme Management at the WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO), where he is responsible for the management and operation of the programmes of WHO in the African region.
The Challenge of Achieving Health Equity in Africa
What does equity in health and health care mean? Equality? A basic minimum standard of service? A system of entitlements?Global health professionals have struggled with a definition for some time. Dr Rene Loewenson, a Zimbabwean epidemiologist, presents a Southern African view: equity in health implies addressing differences in health status that are unnecessary, avoidable, and unfair, she says. This also means understanding and influencing, not only the way society allocates health resources, but the power relations involved.
Africa and the MDG's
This article, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), focuses on health as central to the achievement of all the millennium development goals (MDGs). Key challenges for health improvement include reversing the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and reducing child and maternal mortality. The authors acknowledge the need for more aid but argue that this is only part of the picture. To effectively absorb increases in aid, poor countries need strong, equitable health systems and institutions. They also need the capacity to deliver services, which includes having enough skilled staff.
Diagnosing TB in Africa: the quest for cheaper methods
The number of people infected with tuberculosis in sub-Saharan Africa has risen dramatically in the past 15 years, largely due to HIV infection. Bloodstream infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (mycobacteraemia) is a common cause of fever in sub-Saharan Africa, but diagnosis requires the help of specialists and a lengthy incubation period. Cheap and practical tests for eye disease such as the examination of the back of the eyeball (ophthalmoscopy) for choroidal granulomas could be an efficient alternative in the diagnosis of mycobacteraemia.
Meeting the MDG drinking-water and sanitation target
The combination of safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation facilities is a precondition for health and for success in the fight against poverty, hunger, child deaths and gender inequality. It is also central to the human rights and personal dignity of every woman, man and child on earth. Yet 2.6 billion people – half the developing world – lack even a simple ‘improved’ latrine. One person in six – more than 1 billion of our fellow human beings – has little choice but to use potentially harmful sources of water. The consequences of our collective failure to tackle this problem are dimmed prospects for the billions of people locked in a cycle of poverty and disease.