global health

lBy Aliza Amlani Forget about oil, occupation, terrorism or even al-Qaeda. The real hazard for Iraqis these days is cancer. As the Iraq War officially ends,...

By Jasen Mphepo In Zimbabwe, a campaign initiated by the government and other development players for male circumcision has taken center stage in developing a mechanism to support the already existing strategies such as promoting condom use, promoting voluntary counseling and testing, abstinence and being faithful to one faithful partner. Male circumcision is not only good for HIV prevention but it also prevents from many other bacteria transmitting into women, experts say.

By Winston Mwale The Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) and four other human rights organisations, concerned with the coerced and forced sterilisation of women living with HIV/AIDS in Namibia, have requested the UN Human Rights Committee to raise this with the government of Namibia.

Efforts to stem the impact of COVID-19 in low to middle-income countries could be creating a health time bomb in their slum communities by deepening existing inequalities, according to an international team of health researchers led by the University of Warwick.

In recent years, the field of mobile health, or mHealth, has exploded. The power of cell phones and other mobile devices is being harnessed to improve health delivery systems worldwide. For instance, in Malawi, community health workers (CHWs) have been using text messages to improve drug adherence among HIV positive patients. And in India, a potentially disastrous cholera outbreak was avoided during a religious festival in 2001with the help of mobile tools.

While this pandemic may have created new forms of exclusion, strategies and tools exist to address health promotion, whilst continuing to communicate for peace in conflict-affected contexts. The design of an integrated peacebuilding and technical health response, which is sensitive to individual conflicts’ dynamics and keeps in mind communication challenges such as misinformation, mistrust and reduced interpersonal contact, is crucial.

Several Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) were constructed across the country and these have in turn been used in the COVID-19 response. Although these centers have not been used to accommodate confirmed COVID-19 patients, they have however been used as quarantine centers for people under observations.

The Duterte administration has assigned former military generals to deal with Covid-19 and has sent police Special Forces to contain communities.

When I make it back into the swirling cacophony of the street, I can’t help but think that this initiative is truly saving lives.

The latest estimates are that a staggering 3 billion people or more cannot afford a healthy diet. In sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, this is the case for 57 percent of the population – though no region, including North America and Europe, is spared.