Rosebell Kagumire
KAMPALA, Jul 29 2010 (IPS) – Uganda s National Drug Authority (NDA) says the failure rate among samples of medicines tested at their laboratories has fallen by 15 percent from the early 2000s. This serves as a possible indication of a drop in the availability of counterfeit medicines in the East African country.
According to the NDA registrar, Apollo Muhairwe, the work of the drug authority at border points has ensured that fewer counterfeit medicines make it into the Ugandan market.
We have put measures in place during the last 10 years that have worked. Now we have embarked upon raising awareness among Ugandans to only buy their drugs from accredited outlets, Muhairwe told IPS.
Counterfeit medicines can be both branded and generic medicine…
Miriam Gathigah
Better Aid Can Save Millions of Lives in Africa. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS
BUSAN, South Korea, Nov 29 2011 (IPS) – Although there has been considerable progress towards reducing maternal and infant mortality, millions of women and children in Africa are still in need of better health services, food and sanitation.
Better Aid C…
Pastor Demas Rodríguez shows a dry composting toilet in the town of Babiney, in the eastern Cuban province of Granma. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS
BABINEY, Cuba , Jan 31 2015 (IPS) – Most people in Cuba without toilets use the traditional outhouse. But an innovative, ecological alternative is catching on in remote rural communities.
So far 85 dry latrines have been installed in eastern Cuba – the poorest part of the country thanks to the support of the non-governmental ecumenical Bartolomé G. Lavastida Christian Centre for Service and Training (CCSC-Lavastida) based in Santiago de Cuba, 847 km from Havana, which carries out development projects in this region.
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A poster about stigma in a HIV testing lab in Uganda. Credit: Lyndal Rowlands / IPS.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 1 2016 (IPS) – Eighteen million people, just slightly under half of the people living with HIV and AIDS globally, are now taking life-saving medication, but global efforts to end the disease still largely depend on prevention.
While efforts to expand antiretroviral treatment have been relatively successfully, prevention efforts have been more mixed.
With the help of treatment, mother to baby transmission has dropped significantly. Transmission between adults aged 30 and over has also dropped.
However, transmission rates among adolescents hav…
Now is the time to take advantage of this opportunity to build a better world
Kristalina Georgieva is managing director of the IMF
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 2 2020 (IPS) – Looking back to the start of 2020, the world has changed almost beyond recognition. To protect public health, the global economy was put into stasis. Shops closed, factories were mothballed, and people’s freedom of movement was severely curtailed.
No country has escaped the health, economic, and social impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. Tragically, more than 260,000 people have died and millions have been infected. The IMF is projecting global economic activity to decline on a scale not seen since the Great Depression. It is truly a crisis like no other.