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A demonstrator holds up an anti-U.N. poster during an October 2010 protest outside a MINUSTAH base in Port-au-Prince. Credit: Ansel Herz/IPS

UNITED NATIONS/PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 31 2013 (IPS) – Some 2,400 kilometres from New York City, where victims of Haiti s cholera epidemic are suing the United Nations in a U.S. federal court, the disease continues to burn through the populace with no end in sight.

In a single week between Oct. 19 and Oct. 26, the Pan-American Health Organisation reported 1,512 new cases and 31 deaths. New cases are reported in all 10 departments.”It is clear that damage has been caused, the negligence of the U.N. is proven and it must assume its responsibilities.” — Mario Joseph of BAI

At the Cholera Treatment Centre run by Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders in Delmas 33, a commune in Port-au-Prince Arrondis…

Patented drugs limit patients’ access to public health care. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Dec 12 2013 (IPS) – Paul Anley, chief executive officer of Pharma Dynamics, one of South Africa’s leading generic drug companies, wants to sell a cheaper version of popular birth control pill Yasmin. But he legally cannot because German multinational Bayer has patent protection on the drug in South Africa, even though its initial patent expired in 2010.

Generic versions of the contraceptive are available in the United States and Europe, where Bayer’s patent has been revoked.

Anley says South Africa’s patent system …

The Jangwani slum in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was flooded during the heavy rain at the end of 2013 and early this year. Credit: Muhidin Issa Michuzi/IPS

DAR ES SALAAM, Feb 18 2014 (IPS) – Residents in low-lying areas in Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, are potentially at risk of contracting waterborne diseases as heavy rains, which started last week, continue to pound the city.

Early this month, the announced that Dar es Salaam was among the areas in northern and southern Tanzania that would receive above-average rainfall and strong winds in the coming weeks, and urged residents to take precautions.

Tanzania’s eastern Morogoro Region was also affected in January as flash floods displaced over 10,000 people and damaged infrastructure such as roads and houses.
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In Jangwani and  Kigogo, administrative areas in Dar es…

In this column, Martin Khor, executive director of the South Centre, warns that humanity is looking at a future in which antibiotics will no longer work, unless an effective global action plan is launched to address the crisis.

GENEVA, Apr 10 2014 (IPS) – The growing crisis of antibiotic resistance is catching the attention of policy-makers, but not at a fast enough rate to tackle it. More diseases are affected by resistance, meaning the bacteria cannot be killed even if different drugs are used on some patients, who then succumb.

We are staring at a future in which antibiotics don t work, and many of us or our children will not be saved from TB, cholera, deadly forms of dysentery, and germs contracted during surgery.

Martin Khor

The World Health Organisation (WHO) will discuss, at its annual assembly of health ministers in May, a resolution on micr…

The Umgeni River system supplies drinking water to about five million people in the city of Durban, South Africa. But demand for water has outstripped supply for the past seven years. Pictured here is Howick Falls, which lies on the Umgeni River. Credit: Brendon Bosworth/IPS

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jun 3 2014 (IPS) – South Africa’s eThekwini municipality may have come under fire from residents from proposing to purify wastewater so it can be used for drinking, but this municipality’s pragmatic approach to water management has made it one of the most progressive in Africa. 

Neil Macleod, head of water and sanitation at eThekwini municipality, which encompasses the port city of Durban, has reason to be proud of his colleagues.

The eThekwini municipality, which was created through joining smaller municipalities within Durban, the prov…

MOSCOW, Jul 14 2014 (IPS) – When Veronika Sintsova was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2009, she spent six months in hospital before being discharged and allowed to continue treatment as an outpatient.

Today clear of the disease, the 35-year-old former drug user from Kaliningrad says the fact that she beat tuberculosis (TB) is not because of, but rather in spite of, the way many people with tuberculosis are treated in Russia.

“I think it would be fair to say that Russian authorities don’t take the problem of tuberculosis seriously,” she told IPS.

Tuberculosis is a major health threat in Russia, where it is the leading infectious disease killer.The country has the highest rates of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extremely drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis in Europe and the third highest in the world. And those rates are climbing.Tuberculosis exploded in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union as health care infrastructure crumbled, the country was th…

About 518,000 primary school students have sat idle over the last decade as a result of the Taliban’s campaign against secular education. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

PESHAWAR, Pakistan , Aug 26 2014 (IPS) – Between government efforts to wipe out insurgents from Pakistan’s northern, mountainous regions, and the Taliban’s own campaign to exercise power over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the real victims of this conflict are often invisible.

Walking among the rubble of their old homes, or sitting outside makeshift shelters in refugee camps, thousands of children here are growing up without an education, as schools are either bombed by militants or turned into temporary housing for the displaced.

Schools have been under attack since 2001, when members of the Taliban fleeing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan took refuge across the border in ne…

When isolated by floodwaters, families have no choice but to use boats for transportation; even children must learn the survival skill of rowing. Here in India’s Morigaon district, one week of rains in August affected 27,000 hectares of land. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

MORIGAON, India, Oct 7 2014 (IPS) – The northeastern Indian state of Assam is no stranger to devastating floods. Located just south of the eastern Himalayas, the lush, 30,000-square-km region comprises the Brahmaputra and Barak river valleys, and is accustomed to annual bouts of rain that swell the mighty rivers and spill over into villages and towns, inundating agricultural lands and washing homes, possessions and livestock away.

Now, the long-term impacts of such natural disasters are proving to be a thorn in the side of a government that is racing against time to meet its commitments under the Mill…

Pakistani fishermen perform multiple tasks on their boat. This man makes fresh rotis (flat bread) from whole-meal flour, which the men eat with the fish they catch. Critics are demanding far stronger proposals to address extreme economic inequality and climate change from the U.N. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 2014 (IPS) – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has refused to jettison any of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by an Open Working Group of member states: goals aimed at launching the U.N. s new post-2015 development agenda through 2030.

In a new report synthesising the 17 goals, Ban said he was rearranging them in a focused and concise manner that enables us to communicate them to our partners and the global public .

The report, titled , presents an integrated set of six essential elements: dignity, people, prosperi…