Kalinga Seneviratne*
ORISSA, India, Oct 30 2007 (IPS) – When Gram Vikas, one of India s largest non-government organisations (NGOs), began work to uplift rural Adivasi (tribal) communities across this eastern Indian state, it started by building toilets.
In 1992, after a Gram Vikas study found that 80 percent of deaths in rural Orissa could be traced to water contaminated by faecal matter, the NGO launched a rural health and environment programme. This situation has arisen because of an abysmal attitude towards the disposal of human waste, said Gram Vikas executive director Joe Madiath.
We thought water and sanitation was where everyone can be united. So we got into water and sanitation on 100 percent basis for co-habitation, he said.
Adivasi communities make…
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Nov 29 2007 (IPS) – Thailand s reputation as a world leader in combating the spread of HIV and AIDS is being challenged by a new study which accuses Bangkok of ignoring those most vulnerable to the virus drug users.
Such marginalisation prevails despite the government being aware of the reality, adds the study released Thursday by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Bangkok-based Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group (TTAG). The Thai government estimates that 40 to 50 percent of injecting drug users are living with HIV in Thailand virtually unchanged over the past two decades.
The hostile reception that HIV-positive Thais who inject heroin receive at health clinics across the country typifies the prevailing atmosphere, says Kr…
Kwamboka Oyaro
KISII, Kenya, Jan 11 2008 (IPS) – A group of men who a couple of weeks ago were busy at work huddle together idle. They have grown tired of rehashing tales of their horrendous experiences at the hands of their hitherto neighbours and friends. Now they watch the entrance to the church here, in the hope that any visitor brings something to silence their rumbling stomachs.
I haven t eaten since yesterday. We gave the little food we received from well wishers to our children, says a man in his mid-40s. The other men around him nod in agreement.
A woman cuddling a baby is unable to talk. Tears trickle down her cheeks. IPS learns that her husband and older children may have been killed in the violence.
About 2,000 men, women, and children have been c…
Sandhya Srinivasan
MUMBAI, Feb 20 2008 (IPS) – The arrest of Doctor Kidney Amit Kumar for running a sizeable racket in live kidneys has highlighted the role that South Asia plays as the hub of an international trade in human organs.
Faqir Masih, a Pakistani who was cheated in a kidney deal, displaying his …
David Vargas
ASUNCION, Mar 25 2008 (IPS) – Now that the panic that broke out after the reappearance of yellow fever in Paraguay for the first time in 34 years has died down, health authorities are facing the challenge of expanding vaccination against the disease.
At least 1.5 million people have been vaccinated against yellow fever since the government declared a state of national emergency in mid-February, out of a population of six million.
The intensity of the vaccination campaign has eased considerably since early February, when people stood in long lines outside health centres and voices were raised angrily to complain about the shortage of vaccines.
But now that vaccines are abundant, thanks to donations from other countries in the region, the authoritie…
Steven Lang
GRAHAMSTOWN, May 2 2008 (IPS) – More people have died of cholera following recent floods in Mozambique than the number of those who perished in the rising floodwaters. Most rivers in central and northern Mozambique burst their banks after heavy rains in December, January and February, and as a result of Cyclone Jokwe which hit in early March.
Exact figures are not readily available, but it is believed that about dozen people lost their lives in the floods, while three were eaten by crocodiles that had escaped their usual habitats. However, the international relief organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, MSF), says that at least 72 people have died of cholera and an equal number because of other waterborne diseases such as dysentery.
…
Bernarda Claure* – Tierramérica
BAHÍA DE COHANA, Bolivia, Jun 7 2008 (IPS) – Nobody doubts that Lake Titicaca, a watershed and resource shared by Bolivia and Peru, is polluted. But a half-century after the two governments realised there was a problem there are still no detailed studies of the state of its waters.
Cattle drink from the Sewanka River, polluted with sewage from El Alto, Bolivia. Credit: Bernarda Claure
The six mo…
Peter Hirschberg
JERUSALEM, Jul 9 2008 (IPS) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has laid it out in the starkest possible terms for his fellow Israelis. If they do not relinquish control of the occupied territories, he has warned them, Israel will ultimately cease to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.
If Israel does not extract itself from the West Bank and a Palestinian state is not established alongside the Jewish state, he said in an interview late last year, Israel will find itself trapped in an apartheid-like reality. The day will come when the two-state solution collapses and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, he said. As soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.
Olmert s conviction is driven by what many Israelis…
Interview with Pedro Cahn, outgoing president of Int’l AIDS Society* – Tierramérica
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 6 2008 (IPS) – A greater commitment to universal access to anti-HIV therapies and to the defence of health workers in impoverished countries are two achievements noted by Argentine physician Pedro Cahn as president of the scientific society that organised the XVII International AIDS Conference.
Dr.…
Danstan Kaunda
LUSAKA, Sep 26 2008 (IPS) – Sometimes there is barely any food at home, so I only eat at school, at lunch, said Justin Banda, a 12 year old student, at Chikumboso school in Lusaka s Ngombe township.
The high price of food threatens a vital school feeding programme. Credit: Danstan Kaunda/IPS
The Chikumboso community school is an informal school run by the local community. It is also one of the 400 sites of a school feeding programme jointly run by th…