Journalist
By Neena Bhandari
Sasan Gir (India), 22.03.2008 (The Sunday Age): A lion’s thunderous roar penetrates the quiet, sending me into a spin. The red numerals on the bedside clock are fuzzy at 0400 as I fumble for the torch. A second roar reverberates through the lodge and I try to muffle the sound with a pillow, but all vestiges of sleep have vanished. Fear and excitement grip me at the thought of my first date with the king of the jungle.
By Neena Bhandari
Sydney, 29.02.2008 (IPS): International health experts and activists are calling for immediate global action to avert the looming epidemic of preventable chronic diseases which will kill 388 million people in the next decade, threatening economies in the developed and developing worlds.
Poor diet, physical inactivity and tobacco use are said to be contributing to preventable chronic diseases including heart disease/stroke, diabetes, cancers and chronic lung disease responsible for nearly 60 percent of the world’s
deaths.
By Neena Bhandari
Sydney, 26.02.2008 (Women’s Feature Service): After a routine Pap smear test, Susan Tailford was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 41. Each year in Australia, about 1,000 cases of cervical cancer result in the deaths of over 200 women.
“The shock of being diagnosed with any form of cancer is quite devastating. You want to blame someone, especially for a wart virus that was contracted through sexual intercourse. As there had been very few men in my life, my anger went from my ex-husband to my current partner. My ex-husband wasn’t around so my current partner had to cope with my anger and mood swings,” says Susan, a mother of two daughters.
Unlike some other cancers, cervical cancer is not hereditary. Almost all cases of cervical cancer are associated with some strains of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a sexually-transmitted virus.
