News (Updated
May 16, 2010)
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May 10 2010
By Kate Kelland
In its annual health
report for 2010, the U.N. body said some countries had made impressive gains,
although others may struggle to meet some of the 2015 targets.
"With five years
remaining to the MDG deadline in 2015 there are some striking
improvements," said the report, which is based on data collected from WHO's
193 member states.
However the group said
global results mask inequalities between countries, and some nations' progress
had been slowed by conflict, poor governance or humanitarian and economic
crises.
The Millennium Development
Goals were set in 2000 by 189 heads of state seeking to drive global policy to
tackle poverty, hunger, ill-health and lack of access to clean water, among
other things.
The key findings of WHO's
report were that:
* Fewer children are
dying, with annual global deaths of children under five falling to 8.8 million
in 2008 - down by 30 percent since 1990;
* The estimated percentage
of underweight children under five has dropped from 25 percent in 1990 to 16
percent in 2010;
* The proportion of births
attended by a skilled health worker has increased globally, but in the
* New HIV infections have
declined by 16 percent globally from 2001 to 2008. In 2008, 2.7 million people
contracted the human immunodeficiency virus which causes AIDS, and there were 2
million HIV/AIDS-related deaths;
* Existing cases of
tuberculosis are declining, along with deaths among HIV-negative tuberculosis
cases;
* The world is on track to
achieve the MDG target on access to safe drinking water, but more needs to be
done to achieve the sanitation target.
The water and sanitation
goals call for the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe
drinking water and basic sanitation to be halved by 2015 from levels in 2000.
The WHO report found that
the percentage of the world's population with access to safe drinking water had
increased from 77 percent to 87 percent, a rate of improvement it said would hit
the MDG target if it keeps up.
"In low-income
countries, however, the annual rate of increase needs to double in order to
reach the target and a gap persists between urban and rural areas in many
countries," the report said.
On sanitation, the
progress was less good: in 2008, 2.6 billion people had no access to a hygienic
toilet and 1.1 billion were still defecating in the open, it said.
Poor sewerage can spread
dangerous infections such as viral hepatitis and cholera.
The slowest improvement
has been in
May 11, 2010
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Low
condom use, needle sharing and a rise in casual sex and prostitution may unleash
an HIV epidemic in the
The report, published in
the Journal of the International AIDS Society, said young adults, gay and
bisexual men, prostitutes, injecting drug users, overseas Filipino workers and
sex partners of all these groups were vulnerable to contracting the virus.
"There is no
guarantee that a large HIV epidemic will be avoided in the near future. Indeed,
an expanding HIV epidemic is likely to be only a matter of time as the
components for such an epidemic are already present in the
Unlike other countries in
the region, the spread of HIV in the
But the authors said an
HIV epidemic was possible because of the presence of many conditions "for a
large, increasing and generalized epidemic."
"These include: a low
rate of condom use; unsafe practices among intravenous drug users; large
migration rates; increasing trends in extramarital and premarital sex; a lack of
education and common misconceptions about HIV/AIDS; and cultural factors that
inhibit public discussion of issues of a sexual nature," they wrote.
The report also focused on
the 7.5 million Filipinos working abroad in 170 countries.
"By participating in
casual unprotected sex or other risky behavior while overseas in higher
prevalence settings, overseas Filipino workers become a substantial source of
new HIV cases in the
Overseas Filipino workers
make up 30 to 35 percent of all HIV cases reported in the country, the report
said.
The
"A common perception
is that condoms are only for birth control and not for protection against HIV
and other sexually-transmitted illnesses," the authors wrote.
"This perception is
reinforced by the view that condoms are discouraged by the Roman Catholic
Church. Government family planning programs have policies against supplying
condoms to unmarried people."
Monthly HIV diagnoses
among homosexual men jumped to 704 by 2008 from 328 in 2003, while the figure
among bisexual men shot to 289 from 92 within the same period. The average age
of diagnosis has also fallen significantly, from 36 before 2005 to 29 years
recently, the authors wrote.
(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn;
Editing by Kazunori Takada)
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10
May 2010
China-based campaigner Wan
Yanhai has fled to the
One of
Wan Yanhai's departure
comes less than a year after another Aids campaigner moved to
"As an organisation
and personally, the attacks from the government had become very serious. I had
concerns about my personal safety and was under a lot of stress," Wan told
the Associated Press.
"When I am in
Wan, founder of
He founded Aizhixing in
1994 to raise awareness and fight discrimination. But while he praised the
government for strides it made on the issue in recent years – such as
increasing funding and attempting to address the stigma of having the virus in
Wan had been detained and
questioned several times, but said he felt increasing pressure in recent months
– following checks by tax, education and propaganda officials, and the state
administration for industry and commerce. Police recently interrupted a lecture
he gave at a university. Tightened regulations on foreign donations to Chinese
NGOs have also caused funding problems, he said.
"Even if I hadn't
left, I wouldn't be able to carry on working normally," he told the South
China Morning Post. "I kept getting phone calls from the police and five,
six government departments are after me – I just could not concentrate on my
work."
He added: "I'm not
sure but it looks like they might be forcing me to leave … the aim of the
harassment is probably to give you pressure so you'll leave of your own
accord."
A staff member at
Aizhixing said they were continuing work as usual.
But Wan's decision means
that those with HIV have lost another champion. Dr Gao Yaojie, a high-profile
campaigner who blew the whistle on
Wang Songlian, research
co-ordinator at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, warned of a wider attempt by the
authorities to tighten controls over NGOs.
"All the indications
suggest that NGOs are suffering from a heightened level of pressure and we feel
that too … People have felt it from the middle of last year," she said,
citing the closure of the Gongmeng legal aid centre and the three-week detention
of one of its founders as a moment that shocked many.
"I think its because
NGOs have been more successful and more vocal … [The authorities] maybe want
to put a lid on their development – not cracking down completely because that
is impossible, but maybe picking the most outspoken ones to send a message to
the rest," said Wang.
In March,
Of the 49 new cases detected last year, 19 were in
Only 121 HIV-infected individuals opted to seek treatment in the UAE.
The UN report noted that the main risk factors among UAE nationals were likely
to be extramarital heterosexual relations and intravenous drug use for men, and
infection from the spouse for women.
All expatriates moving to the UAE are required by law to be tested for HIV,
according to the newspaper.
They face deportation if the result is positive.