POLITICS AND POLICY
Human Rights Watch has urged the Bahraini authorities to halt what it said was a “systematic campaign” to intimidate doctors and other medical staff suspected of sympathising with recent anti-government protests.
PROGRAMS
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The GlobalPost has been doing an excellent series of stories examining President Barack Obama’s Global Health Initiative (GHI) is focusing on in Guatemala. Slow in its implementation and hampered by little new money, GHI was supposed to be an example of Obama’s new, innovative commitment to global health.
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The King of Swaziland has called for all of the men in the South African nation to get circumcised in order to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
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Results from a pilot program in Philippines have shown that deaths from rabies can be dramatically reduced when taking a community driven bottom up approach.
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A child in Khartoum, Sudan is the first to receive a rotavirus vaccine, kicking off a campaign to vaccinate children in 40 low and middle-income countries.
RESEARCH
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A recent report from UNAIDS cites data from a recently released South African study that shows the effectiveness of male circumcision reducing HIV prevalence in men.
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A campaign to encourage African men to get circumcised to prevent infection by HIV gained a powerful boost on Wednesday by three new studies unveiled at an international AIDS forum in Rome.
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A new study has found that women in conflict areas want to utilize
contraceptives, but only 4 to 16 percent are able to gain access. -
At the International AIDS Society, one of the big stories is a CDC study showing the drug Truvada prevented HIV transmissions in more than 60 percent of heterosexuals. The study’s author Dr. Michael Thigpen discusses how much Truvada costs, why HIV is so pervasive among women in Botswana, and how much people must take the drug for it to be effective.
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Researchers have discovered that chloroquine, often used to treat malaria, may be effective in treating other autoimmune diseases.
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An antiviral drug to combat HIV/AIDS synthesised by genetically modified plants is being tested on a small number of women in the UK to establish its safety, reports the Guardian.
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A recent study has shown that stress experienced by a pregnant mother can have a negative impact on the development of the child in the womb.
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Researchers presenting at the 6th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogens, Treatment, and Prevention in Rome, say that they have inched closer to a vaccine by leveraging a genetically altered version of SIV.
DISEASES AND DISASTERS
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The World Health Organization is sounding the alarm on hospital safety and infections acquired while patients are in a health care facility, saying that a hospital stay is riskier than air travel.
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Researchers have determined that Hepatitis C can be transmitted sexually, after performing a 5 year study on HIV positive MSM.
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Famine in parts of southern Somalia has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly children, the UN said Wednesday in an official declaration of what aid officials describe as the worst humanitarian crisis in the troubled country in two decades.
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A new study warns that Pakistan “risks becoming the last global outpost of [polio], this vicious disease.” The disease has also resurfaced in four other countries.
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Even in developing countries where child mortality is falling, the poorest under-fives are at high risk of dying from entirely preventable diseases because they do not receive basic immunization and have no treatment for diarrhea.
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Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, says new studies indicate a parasitic infection, schistosomiasis, may be one of the most important — and least recognized — co-infections increasing the risk of HIV transmission.
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An All Africa editorial examines how the price of drugs leads to deaths that could be otherwise averted.
IH CONNECT 