SA has a weighty problem
South Africa is sitting on a malnutrition time bomb '€“ which has seen people either being severely over- or underweight, top nutrition expert Professor Demetre Labadarios has warned.
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Determinants Of Health
Progress in access to safe drinking-water: Sanitation needs greater efforts
With 87% of the world'€™s population or approximately 5.9 billion people using safe drinking-water sources, the world is on track to meet or even exceed the drinking-water target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to the new WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report titled: "Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water '€“2010 Update Report," released today.
Read More » Progress in access to safe drinking-water: Sanitation needs greater efforts
Tracking the MDGs
While South Africa has made some progress towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), mental health and poverty remain major challenges, according to public hearings on the MDGs hosted by the SA Human Rights Commission.
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Governments need graphic warnings on tobacco packets – WHO
The World Health Organisation has called for governments to require all tobacco packets to have pictures showing the dangers of tobacco use.
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Swine flu not in SA yet
There are still no reports of the A/H1N1 swine influenza (swine flu) that has allegedly killed people in Mexico of reaching South African shores. The flu is believed to have claimed 152 lives in Mexico including 20 which have been confirmed to have resulted from the flu with over 50 cases now reported in the US.
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Survival in the time of cholera
Pia Engebrigtsen worked for 2 months as a nurse in Zimbabwe's Masvingo province during the country's cholera outbreak, in which MSF has so far treated more than 45,000 people. Here she shares her story of death, heartbreak, survival and saving lives against all odds.
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Hidden Suffering on Private Land
It's been almost 15 years since we voted for all South Africans to have equal access to government services...to have dignity and a better life. To have treatment for life-threatening illnesses. But every now and then, as journalists, we step into corners of the country where apartheid and its indignities remains alive and well. Where the services that government has designed to improve our lives just CAN'T reach.
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One Doctor’€™s Discoveries about Infection Control
Would you believe that world-wide, 2 in 5 people don't have access to safe sanitation!? Today in our series on EVERYDAY HEROES '€“ people who make a difference in their part of the world '€“ we visit a doctor and a nursery school principal who are playing their part to promote good hygiene.
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Sex in the slums
NIGERIA,(PlusNews) - Ijora Badia in Lagos, Nigeria's former capital city and the country's economic hub is a community virtually without government services.
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Zimbabwe health system collapses, cholera crosses border to SA
Zimbabwe'€™s doctors have sketched a picture of a health system that has collapsed with hundreds of people dying from a cholera epidemic which has now crossed the border into South Africa.
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Global health inequity is growing
A staggering 854-million people were undernourished between 2001 and 2003 while at the other end of the scale 700-million people are likely to be obese by 2015, according to the Global Health Watch (GHW) 2.
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140 baby deaths due to poor health services
Poor health care at several Eastern Cape hospitals left more than 140 underprivileged children dead in one of South Africa'€™s poorest districts within the first three months of this year.
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Billions still at risk because of poor sanitation
Every day, over 2,5-billion people suffer from a lack of access to improved sanitation and half of these practise open defecation, the riskiest sanitary practice of all, according to a report issued by the WHO/UNICEF.
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‘No smoking’ pays off
Smoke-free policies are reducing heart disease related to smoke exposure, the prevalence of smoking in adults and the exposure of both adults and children to second-hand smoke.
Read More » ‘No smoking’ pays offAsthma still a big killer
Under-treatment, inappropriate treatment and lack of education for asthma patients in South Africa are contributing to still unacceptably high morbidity rates.
Read More » Asthma still a big killer