Global Health Plan Aims to End a Third of Childhood Deaths

The United Nations has unveiled a major framework aimed at, for the first time, coordinating worldwide efforts to work simultaneously to end childhood pneumonia- and diarrhoea-related deaths by 2025.

Urban Youth Go Back to the Land

Down the main road in Munda, a coastal town on the North Georgia Island of the Solomon Islands, past the wharf, the market and a small collection of shops, Patrick Arathe’s farm is reached by walking first across the runway of the local airport and finally along a dirt track that winds between residential buildings until it opens into a large clearing.

Youth Find a Future in Food Production

With little more than a bush knife and an axe between them, a group of young boys between the ages of nine and 18 years have taken food security into their own hands. In Kindu, a community of 5,000 people in the coastal urban area of Munda in the Solomon Islands, these boys, who have been abandoned by their parents, have transformed their lives by establishing a cooperatively run farm.

New Brazilian Research Centre Focuses on Health Risks of Smoking

Brazil has taken another step to combat the harmful habit of smoking with the creation of the Centre for Studies on Tobacco and Health (CETAB).

Obesity and Hypertension – Signs of Inequality in Chile

The prevalence of obesity and hypertension among the poor in Chile is a factor that aggravates inequality, requiring public policies for prevention and mitigation of the high cost of a healthy diet.

Treating Malnutrition Moves From the Hospital to the Home

When nine-month-old Borsha was admitted to the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh last January, she was on the verge of death.

Cigarette Companies Mock Tobacco Control Laws in Latin America

Despite the great strides made in Latin America with tobacco control legislation, the industry deploys a range of strategies to circumvent the restrictions imposed on cigarette advertising, social organisations and experts complain.

Q&A: “There is Nothing Worse Than Holding a Dying Woman in Your Arms”

Despite staggering advances in medical science and technology over the years, women around the world continue to suffer gravely as a result of inadequate access to basic reproductive health services.

Unregulated Drug Market Has Deadly Impact in Pakistan

When 26-year-old Muhammad Qasim, a rickshaw driver from Lahore’s low-income Shahadra settlement, died last month, his family was shocked to learn that the cause of death was an overdose – of cough syrup.

Q&A: How Innovative Funding Combats HIV/AIDS

On World AIDS Day, the fact that the number of children newly infected with HIV continues to decline is welcome news to UNITAID, the International Drug Purchase Facility hosted by the World Health Organisation.  But UNITAID is also well aware of how much more remains to be done for  children already living with the disease.

Will There Finally Be a Cure for Diseases that Affect the Poor?

Innovation in the pharmaceutical industry has declined drastically in the last ten years despite the high profitability of the so-called "research-based" industry, and the availability of better and more powerful science and technological tools. Not only has productivity in terms of research fallen, but the vast majority of new molecules introduced to the market do not provide new therapeutic solutions since other treatments already exist, normally at a lower cost.

Farming Among the Waste in Cameroon

Cameroonian urban famer Juliana Numfor has six plots of land where she grows maize, cassava, sweet potatoes and leafy vegetables, including cabbages, wild okra and greens.

Operating in Rural Tanzania “To Save a Life”

At the Kakonko Health Centre, about 250 kilometres from the nearest hospital in Kigoma Region, Western Tanzania, assistant medical officer Abdu Mapinduzi prepares to operate on Joanitha, a young pregnant mother.

Punish Those Carrying Out FGM, Say Côte d’Ivoire Campaigners

Nine women in the northern Côte d'Ivoire town of Katiola have been convicted for carrying out female genital mutilation – the first time that a 1998 law banning FGM has been applied.

South Africa’s National Health Insurance Sites Underfunded

Experts say that underfunded pilot universal healthcare sites to be set up by South Africa as part of its proposed national health insurance may be doomed to fail as debate rages about how the move to more equitable healthcare will be funded.

The Resurgence of Polio in Nigeria

Twelve-year-old Sunday Oderinde sits by the side of the road with both legs folded under him and watches his friends play a game of soccer on the streets of Iwaya, a suburb in Lagos, Nigeria. It is a game that he would love to join in but cannot.

Anti-Tobacco Battle Pits Corporations Against Public Health

Lawsuits from major tobacco corporations challenging anti-tobacco policies all over the world underscore the ever greater need for a global crackdown on tobacco use, for the sake of both public health and global development goals.