Category Health & Science

New Infectious Diseases a Challenge to MDG Success

0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY, 11.06.2010 (IPS) – While successful immunisation programmes worldwide have saved millions of lives, the threat of new infectious diseases and drug-resistant strains of existing diseases are posing a major challenge to governments, especially in developing regions like Asia, in meeting their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

“We have two major problems in the context of emerging infectious diseases in the coming decade – outbreaks, which might develop into pandemics, and the continuing increase in anti-microbial resistance,” Professor Tanya Sorrell, director of the newly established Sydney Institute of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, based at University of Sydney, tells IPS.

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Healing touch for Congo’s women

0 Comments read Gender, Health & Science
Lyn Lusi, who passed away in 2012, was the co-founder and program director of HEAL Africa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, working to transform individuals and communities impacted by the atrocities and gender violence of war. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 27.01.2010 (Women’s Feature Service): Kamina Feza is one of the many women brutally raped and abandoned with serious injuries each day in the conflict ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where gender-based violence is systematically being used as a weapon of war by the military and militia.

Some 1,100 rapes are reported each month, with an average of 36 women and girls raped every day, noted United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, during her recent visit to Goma, a provincial capital in eastern DRC, where Lyn Lusi, a social activist, along with her husband, a Congolese orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Jo Lusi, have established HEAL Africa, a health service to treat and care for these women.

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Polio Fact Sheet

0 Comments read Disability, Health & Science, Poliomyelitis

The World Health Organisation recommended immunization schedule calls for four doses of Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) to be given at birth and at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age in polio-endemic countries like India. There should be an interval of at least four weeks between doses.

Routine immunization provides a basic level of immunity against polio. High routine immunization coverage also reduces the amount of circulating wild poliovirus, thus facilitating eradication.

As part of the supplementary immunization, two doses of OPV are administered to all children aged less than five years in the entire country on a national immunisation day. The two rounds are approximately a month apart. All children are immunized regardless of their prior immunization status.

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