Health expert picked as World bank president

Kim has served as the president of Dartmouth College since 2009.He has worked extensively in HIV/AIDS and Tuberclosis in developing countries.Kim will take up the post in July for a five-year term.His selection extends the US hold on the top job at the 187 nation development agency.Kim's selection marks the first time that the head of the World Bank has been chosen through formal competition.His CV is marvellous,let us hope that he maintains his reputation in this new job.

Good health adds life to years

Today is the World Health day . As per the World Health Organization Official Website, World Health Day 2012 theme is Ageing and health – to which each and every one of us can relate. According to World Health organisation official report on world health day,population ageing is a global phenomenon that is now occurring fastest in low- and middle-income countries. While europe and Japan were among the first places to experience population ageing, the most dramatic change is now occurring
in countries such as Cuba, the islamic republic of iran and Mongolia.Population ageing is inextricably linked with socioeconomic development.Typically, as a country develops, more people survive childhood and childbirth, fertility falls, and people start to live longer. these changes in turn reinforce development. But they are also the drivers behind population ageing.
Unless societies adapt in ways that foster the health and participation of older people, this
inevitable demographic transition may slow down future socioeconomic advances.

Malawi president dies after heart attack

Bingu wa Mutharika, the president of Malawi has died after heart attack. His death followed a sudden fall at a meeting. He was send to a hospital in Lilongwe but could not recover. He died at the age of 78 years. He died at a local, poor hospital that have no enough drugs and has poor power supply. Malawians have mixed feelings with regard to the news of his death as it usual when a politician dies. Many Malawians blamed Mutharika personally for the economic woes, which stemmed ultimately from a diplomatic spat with former colonial power Britain a year ago.
"We know he is dead and unfortunately he died at a local, poor hospital which he never cared about - no drugs, no power," said Chimwemwe Phiri, a Lilongwe businessman waiting in a snaking line of cars for fuel at a petrol station.

No new HIV infections in next 20 years: Motlanthe

No new HIV infections in next 20 years: Motlanthe: The government plans to bring down new HIV infection rates to zero in the next 20 years, says Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.

World TB Day 2012 is 1 day away!

World TB Day, falling on March 24th each year, is designed to build public awareness that tuberculosis today remains an epidemic in much of the world, causing the deaths of several million people each year, mostly in developing countries. It commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. At the time of Koch's announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through Europe and the Americas, causing the death of one out of every seven people. Koch's discovery opened the way towards diagnosing and curing TB.

Stop TB Partnership | World TB Day message from Dr Lucica Ditiu, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership

Stop TB Partnership | World TB Day message from Dr Lucica Ditiu, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership

Shortage of TB drugs regrettable - minister

BY LYDIA SHEKIGHENDA

Health and Social Welfare minister Dr Hadji Mponda speaks on press briefing in Dar es Salaam yesterday on the status of TB in Tanzania. (Photo:Tryphone Mweji)

Health and Social Welfare minister Dr Hadji Mponda has expressed the government’s “deep and sincere” regrets over the acute shortage of essential TB drugs which hit Tanzania late last year.

The problem disrupted treatment schedules for some of the patients then admitted to Kibong’oto national Tuberculosis Hospital in Moshi, Kilimanjaro Region, who had to wait for weeks for the arrival of a new consignment.

However, speaking to this paper on the sidelines on a news conference on World Tuberculosis Day (tomorrow) in Dar es Salaam yesterday, the minister said the situation has since normalised following the arrival of the new consignment.

“The shortage was in relation to only two out of five essential drugs that are supposed to be administered daily to TB, but it did not affect the respective patients as widely thought,” he said, adding: “All did well throughout despite the hitch and most recovered after resuming treatment following the arrival of new supplies.”

He said the delay was beyond the country’s control “owing to the fact that there were only two companies worldwide that manufacture the drugs”, a situation further complicated by the high demand for the drugs from Tanzania and various other countries across the globe.

Dr Mponda was emphatic that the government was determined to ensure that enough TB drugs were available at all screening and treatment centres in the country and dispensed to the patients free of charge as per standing policy.

Kibong’oto Hospital ran out of the two drugs in mid-November last year, a development that threw patients admitted there into panic.

Reliable reports reaching this paper had it that some patients on multi-drug therapy fled the decades-old specialised hospital owing to the long-running non-availability of the relevant drugs and related services.

The Health ministry soon moved to allay public fears over the situation at the hospital, saying it was only some of the essential drugs that were out of stock. The drugs in question are supposed to be administered daily to patients for between 18 and 24 months.

According to the ministry, the treatment of MDR-TB patients was suspended on November 8 last year when the stock of two of the five essential drugs ran out.

“This was caused by delay in receiving the consignment of MDR-TB drugs from manufacturers, initially expected last month,” it said, days after The Guardian broke the story. Patients resumed medication in early December after the hospital received a new consignment of the two drugs.

Speaking at yesterday’s news conference, the minister said the theme for this year’s World TB Day is: ‘Stop TB in My Lifetime’. It focuses on the need to involve leaders, health workers, researchers and workers from both public and private sectors – “including journalists” – in the fight against the ages-old debilitating but curable disease.

He said over 9 million people in the world are diagnosed with TB each year, with the disease claiming the lives of over 2 million annually.

“The number of TB cases in Tanzania has been increasing on a daily basis. We had 11,000 in 1980, but the number had risen to 63,453 by 2010,” he noted.

The minister explained research conducted by the Health ministry in collaboration with World Health Organisation in 2003/2004 showed that HIV/AIDS contributed to the incidence and prevalence of TB in the country by 60 per cent.

Over 30 per cent of deaths among AIDS patients were due to TB infection, he added.

The minister said if the government had not taken appropriate steps to combat TB, the number of patients suffering from and succumbing to the disease would be much bigger.

“A total of 88 per cent of the people diagnosed with TB in 2010 were put under treatment, which beats the World Health Organisation-endorsed 85 per cent average,” he elaborated.

He said the incidence of deaths resulting from TB in Tanzania fell from 8 per cent in 2006 to 4.9 per cent in 2010, “which without doubt points to resounding success of the government’s efforts to fight the disease”.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN