February 2015 euractiv; Indonesia has invested heavily in vaccine development through its state-owned pharmaceutical company, Bio Farma. The country suffers growing rates of many infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS. The Southeastern Asian country benefited from EU development aid for its health sector from the 1980s to January 2014. …
Read More »RWANDA: Rwanda Plans Fund to Pay Mothers 100 Percent During Maternity Leave
February 2015 NewsofRwanda; The government of Rwanda has submitted a bill in parliament that sets up a national fund which will cover full monthly pay for working mothers during maternity leave. Every employee, either private or public will be required to surrender 0.6% of their salary to contribute to a …
Read More »TANZANIA: Public Hospital Renovation Very Good News Indeed
February 2015 DailyNews; IT was reported in a sister Kiswahili newspaper, HabariLeo Jumamosi, that plans are underway to refurbish and improve the services of 26 regional referral hospitals in the country. The project takes off next month. Apart from renovating the hospital blocks and offering them a new coat of …
Read More »UGANDA: Mulago CT Scanner Puzzle
February 2015 TheIndependent; Patients, doctors say machine broke down; hospital insists everything is OK As journalists, we often encounter situations that should be straight forward but become quite complicated for no clear reason. One such incident happened recently at the Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala. We got information that …
Read More »KENYA: Why Governors are opposed to Sh38m medical equipment
February 2015 TheStandardNewspaper; In fulfilment of Schedule IV of the Constitution, the 47 County Governments have over the last two years undertaken a phased but sustained strengthening of the six pillars (Leadership and Governance; Service Delivery; Human Resources for Health; Strategic Information; Commodity Security; and Financing) of the Health System …
Read More »Attitude and the 21st century doctor
February 2015 TheLancet; The irrepressibly global nature of health care in the 21st century is more apparent than ever, manifesting not just through outbreaks of infectious diseases and spread of antibiotic resistance, but also through the flourishing of non-communicable diseases and growing planetary problems such as climate change.1 Much attention …
Read More »The TB situation Room
February 2015 TheGlobalFundNews; In the West Wing of the White House in Washington D.C., the Situation Room is a nerve center for intelligence and security matters, fitted with high-tech communications. Created during the presidency of John F. Kennedy in the 1960s, the Situation Room provides decision-makers with a central place …
Read More »PEPFAR requires its programs to seek, use, document civil society input in planning
February 2015 ScienceSpeaksblog; Citing this year’s UNAIDS 90-90-90 recommendations to end AIDS as a global pandemic by 2030, and its own 2012 Blueprint: Creating an AIDS-free Generation, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief released its 2015 guidelines for country and regional PEPFAR-funded programs Thursday, with an unprecedented formal requirement …
Read More »WHO urges governments to increase investment to tackle neglected tropical diseases
February 2015 WHONews; WHO urges affected countries to scale up their investment in tackling 17 neglected tropical diseases in order to improve the health and well-being of more than 1.5 billion people. This investment would represent as little as 0.1% of current domestic expenditure on health in affected low- and …
Read More »Universal Health debate – The trap of history will catch us all
February 2015 TheLancet; “I think the principle that healthcare must not be free at the point of use was established right from the start.” Mr Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore, was delivering the opening speech at a Ministerial Meeting on Universal Health Coverage, held last week during the …
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