Archives: Morning Breakouts

"Health authorities say 207 cases of typhoid are being treated in Zimbabwe's capital after a prolonged spell of unusually hot weather amid acute water shortages," the Associated Press/Seattle Times reports. Prosper Chonzi, Harare city council health director, "said Tuesday the disease will be difficult to contain in impoverished townships relying on water from shallow, makeshift wells and marshlands," and that "humanitarian agencies have been asked to help provide clean water," the news service writes.

The study, released Tuesday, was done by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Supreme Court has never allowed its arguments to be televised, but the not-for-profit network made the request in a letter sent Tuesday. Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, also has asked that the arguments be on TV.

"In 2010, for the first time in more than 20 years, 140 midwives graduated in Laos but specialists say their skills may go untapped because the country's women are not used to visiting health workers," IRIN reports. "Only 34 percent of women in Laos seek the advice of medical professionals; even fewer see one when they are pregnant, according to government data from 2009-2010," the news service writes.

"Austerity measures brought in to tackle Europe's economic crisis may cause a rise in drug-related HIV infections as stretched health services struggle to cope, the E.U.'s narcotics agency said on Tuesday," Reuters reports. "Greece, which is facing huge cutbacks, reported a large outbreak of HIV infections among drug users in July, the Lisbon-based agency said in its yearly report," the news agency writes, noting, "New infections were also reported in Bulgaria, Estonia and Lithuania, it added."

PlusNews examines Swaziland's national shortages of antiretroviral (ARV) stocks, HIV tests, and lab tests necessary to initiate and manage HIV patients on treatment, and the country's efforts to find funding to prevent stock-outs of these supplies. "Despite several bail-outs this year by international donors, neighboring countries and international NGOs, Swaziland remains in the grips of a months-long shortage of lab reagents needed for CD4 count testing, which measures the immune system's strength and is needed to start patients on ARVs, as well as toxicity testing important in monitoring patients' responses to treatment," the news service writes, noting that funding received in April from PEPFAR will help supply first-line ARVs through April 2012 (11/15). According to BBC News, about 65,000 of the country's 230,000 people living with HIV relies on state hospitals for ARVs (Simelane, 11/15).

Inter Press Service interviews Maria Guadalupe Guzman, head of the Pedro Kouri Institute (IPK) Department of Virology and director of the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for the Study of Dengue and its Vector, who is leading of a team of Cuban researchers working to develop a vaccine against dengue. In the interview, Guzman discusses Cuba's contributions to the field of dengue research, the influence of climate change on the transmission of dengue, and differences in the four strains of the virus (Grogg, 11/15).

"Cholera has broken out in the world's largest refugee camp in Kenya, home to nearly 500,000 Somali refugees, the United Nations said on Tuesday," Reuters reports (Nebehay, 11/15). "There are now 60 cases of cholera in [Kenya's Dadaab complex], including 10 laboratory-confirmed cases and one refugee death, according to Andrej Mahecic, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)," the U.N. News Centre writes.

As international donors "remain reluctant to release aid meant for the health sector" in Malawi "amid allegations of pilfering and corruption in the procurement of drugs," "patients seeking medical treatment at government-run medical facilities are unable to access medication such as antiretrovirals (ARVs), anti-malarial drugs and even painkillers," Inter Press Service reports, adding, "Health facilities are also experiencing a shortage of medical equipment such as gloves, and malaria and HIV/AIDS testing kits."

As part of its "CNN Heroes" series, CNN examines the Global Soap Project, started by Derreck Kayongo, a Ugandan war refugee and one of the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2011. The organization works with more than 300 hotels in the U.S. to collect used bars of soap, clean them and reprocess them to be distributed in countries such as Haiti, Kenya, Swaziland and Uganda, CNN reports. "Across the globe, 2.4 billion people do not have access to clean sanitation, according to the World Health Organization," and "[a]n estimated 1.5 million children die every year because their immune systems are not mature enough to battle diarrheal and respiratory diseases spread in contaminated environments," the news service writes (Fantz, 11/15).