Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Nov 25 2007 (IPS) – Public health and HIV/AIDS activists from the developing world are seeking to break the monopoly over drugs held by pharmaceutical giants through a new global campaign designed to influence international debate over the issue.
Formulated at the end of a three-day meeting, last week, which brought some 200 participants from 20 countries to the Thai capital, the campaign seeks a new way out of the current patent system; one that will encourage innovation of new drugs and access for all, says Kannikar Kijtiwatchakul, an organiser of the International Conference on Compulsory Licensing: Innovation and Access for All. What we have now is innovation controlled by the pharmaceutical industry that lets them have a monopoly on drugs. <…

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Jan 7 2008 (IPS) – China s booming medical biotechnology industry is producing controversial drugs and gene therapy treatment programmes for domestic use, as well as to treat critically ill foreigners seeking potential cures unavailable elsewhere.
China s Beike Biotechnologies harvests stem cells from the umbilical cord or amniotic membrane and injects them into patient s spinal region. More than 1,000 patients, including 60 foreigners, have been treated for a variety of conditions including Alzheimer s disease, autism, brain trauma, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injury, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

We met foreigners there who were happy with Beike s treatments, said Peter Singer of the Mc…

Sharon Davis

ABUJA, Feb 8 2008 (IPS) – HIV/AIDS policies and programmes disregard the sexual needs of people living with the virus, claim a number of HIV-positive women who attended the third Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights held this week in Nigeria.
The initiatives focus on prevention and treatment, they add, ignoring the fact that people living with HIV/AIDS who are conducting normal lives still want to experience sexual pleasure, and have children.

The epidemic has evolved. HIV-infected people are not dying; we are living and we are having sex, noted Beatrice Were, an activist in Uganda for the Global AIDS Alliance, a non-profit based in Washington.

She said health care providers and others are shocked when they discover that a person living …

Mohammed Omer

GAZA CITY, Mar 7 2008 (IPS) – Mahasen Darduna suffers in ways the world recognises; her suffering comes at the hands of the Israelis. But there are many Palestinian women whose suffering the world does not see, because their hell is inflicted on them by Palestinians.

A woman who has seen too much Credit: Mohammed Omer

One way and another, no day is a woman #39s day in Gaza.

For all of a week, Mahasen Darduna, 30, has sat day and night by her son #39s bedside in hospital. The boy, Yahiya, 9, was among the group hit by an Israeli missile while playing foo…

Aaron Glantz

SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 22 2008 (IPS) – The United States government does such a bad job of caring for wounded war veterans, advocates told a federal judge here Monday, that 18 veterans commit suicide every week.
The suicide problem is out of control, said Gordon Erspamer, an attorney representing the groups Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth in a class action lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Our veterans deserve better.

Erspamer s comments came in opening arguments for what is expected to be a week-long trial, the first class action brought on behalf of 1.7 million Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

Early arguments were punctuated by allegations top government officials deliberately deceived the U.S. publ…

Tran Dinh Thanh Lam – Newsmekong*

HO CHI MINH CITY, Jun 3 2008 (IPS) – Vietnamese researchers have announced significant progress in their effort to develop a prototype vaccine for the H5N1 avian influenza, despite criticism from some scientists that their methods are unorthodox .
Vietnam is hoping to develop a vaccine that could prevent humans from contracting bird flu and have it available on the local market at a reasonable price by late 2009.

Researchers from the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) began a trial of the H5N1 influenza vaccine on 10 volunteers in March this year.

Encouraged by good results, researchers from the Vaccine and Bio-Technology Products Company (Vabiotech), affiliated to the NIHE, obtained permission in early Apri…

Analysis by Steven Lang

GRAHAMSTOWN, Jun 30 2008 (IPS) – Earlier this month, a private pilot reported to a Johannesburg radio station that while flying over the Kruger National Park, in the far eastern reaches of the country, he had spotted the carcasses of several large crocodiles floating in the Olifants River. This was unusual because the crocodiles within the country s largest game reserve are protected from hunting.
Game rangers soon confirmed that at least 30 fully grown crocodiles had died in the river apparently from a disease known as pansteatitis. This condition causes an inflammation of body fats which then harden resulting in a drawn out death for the animal.

Pansteatitis is usually associated with the consumption of rotten or rancid fish. However, there h…

Claudia Ciobanu

BUCHAREST, Jul 31 2008 (IPS) – Poverty and social displacement, increased availability of drugs, and chaos in the healthcare systems that accompanied transition from state socialism to the market economy have contributed to the spread of HIV in Eastern Europe.
Russia and the Central Asian countries that were once a part of the Soviet Union are today the worst hit by large numbers of new HIV infections. According to UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS), between 2001-2007 the number of people living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia increased by 150 percent, from 630,000 to 1.6 million. More than half of the new cases were diagnosed in Russia, and over 20 percent in Ukraine.

In most other countries in Eastern Europe, the HIV …

Ida Karlsson

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16 2008 (IPS) – What if HIV/AIDS was just another chronic disease instead of a widespread epidemic? This could be the case if the world community takes serious action, according to Human Rights Watch and other activists. But today, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on HIV/AIDS is nowhere near being realised.
Halfway to the target date of 2015, it is clear that we are not on track to meet the goals, especially in Africa, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed when a MDG review was launched here last week.

The U.N. Millennium Development Goals are eight targets to be achieved by 2015. The goals adopted by 189 nations have set worldwide objectives for reducing extreme poverty and deprivation, empowering women and ensuring enviro…

Stephanie Nieuwoudt interviews South African health minister BARBARA HOGAN

CAPE TOWN, Nov 12 2008 (IPS) – When Barbara Hogan replaced South African health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in September, her appointment was praised from all quarters. Hogan, who previously chaired Parliament s finance portfolio committee, is known as an intellectual who stands up for what she believes in and finding hands-on approaches to solving difficult political issues.
IPS: You have acknowledged HIV/Aids as one of the most pressing health problems on the continent. You also expressed concern about its nasty twin, tuberculosis (TB), an opportunistic infection to which HIV-positive persons are particularly vulnerable. How will you tackle this problem? Barbara Hogan: South Africa has always h…