BULAWAYO, September 25 2008 – As the cost of health services continues to soar in cities and towns, urbanites have now resorted to rural medical institutions because they are cheaper.
A survey carried out by Radio VOP this week revealed that despite the recent hike in medical fees in city hospitals and pharmacies, most rural health institutions, including mission hospitals and clinics had not increased their fees.
Most mission hospitals are charging less money for maternity bookings, which is far less than what most hospitals in towns are charging. Maternity fees at rural health institutions are very low compared to the ZW$3 000 consultation fee being charged by medical institutions in urban areas. The maternity costs being charged by rural health institutions cover regular visists to the ante-natal clinic to post-natal visits.
Consultation fees at most mission health institutions and clinics are currently pegged at ZW$ 100 as compared to the ZW$ 2 000 being asked for at most health institutions in urban areas.
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Fears of serious water borne diseases spreading across Zimbabwe’s urban areas have been sparked due to severe crises within the country’s water and sanitation services – that have already led to a cholera outbreak in Harare.
At least 12 people in the capital’s Chitungwiza township have died as a result of the disease but medical officials say this number is likely much higher and merely ‘the tip of the iceberg’. Health centres in Harare as well as in Bulawayo are reportedly burdened by numerous cases of diarrhea on a daily basis and more deaths as a result are expected.
The water and sanitation situation across the country has been rapidly deteriorating as the ongoing political crisis has seen the destruction of the economy and the equal destruction of the country’s infrastructure. The Zimbabwe National Water Authority has come under heavy criticism for failing to provide a proper service – a failure that has left most homes dry and dependent on unsafe, unhealthy water supplies.
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Pune, September 12 – It is the scarcity of drinking water resources that is causing people to migrate from rural parts of the state, especially the drought-prone regions, said Richard Mahapatra of Wateraid India on the sidelines of the first consultation meeting for preparation of the Citizens’ Report on Domestic Water and Sanitation.
“It is not so much the lack of water for irrigation. If people lose crops, they can still depend on public wage schemes like NREGS, but if they do not have drinking water, they cannot get a water bottle,” said Mahapatra.
Water Aid has been collaborating with over 220 citizens’ groups across the country and over 10 groups attended the first meeting today, where groups pointed to the existing network and lacunae in promoting equitable water accessibility. The Citizens’ Report, which is expected by December 2009, will highlight domestic water, sanitation and hygiene related issues from the citizens’ point of view.
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THE National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted in 2005-06 provides information on fertility, family planning, health, nutrition, health care, HIV/AIDS and women’s empowerment. This survey is the third in the series. The earlier two were conducted in 1992-93 and 1998-99. These were coordinated by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW). The preliminary findings of the National Family Health Survey 2005-06 were released in the form of fact sheets by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Based on these fact sheets, the present study focused on the current status of health in Punjab vis-a-vis the change in health parameters in the State since NFHS 1. An attempt has also been made to highlight the key health issues in the state of Punjab.
On the whole, 3169 households from 65 rural and 34 urban primary sampling units (PSUs) were selected for NFHS 3 in Punjab and interviews were conducted in 2968 households with a response rate of 98 per cent. It covered 3681 women and 1329 men in the age of 15-49 years. Unmarried women and men were covered for the first time. The survey was conducted through three types of questionnaires, that is, for Household, Women and Men.
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UNITED NATIONS – / MaximsNews Network / 10 September 2008 — The United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation’s Technology Partnership (Technology Partnership) announced today the expansion of its mobile health (mHealth) program in Africa. Working with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the non-profit DataDyne.org, the Technology Partnership will expand the use of EpiSurveyor, an open-source application that helps healthcare workers track health data, to 22 sub-Saharan countries by the end of 2008.
EpiSurveyor, which was developed by the non-profit DataDyne.org, can be downloaded to handheld devices and is easily adaptable by workers in the field. WHO, DataDyne.org and the Technology Partnership piloted EpiSurveyor in Kenya and Zambia . Its successful implementation has greatly improved the timeliness and availability of healthcare data, making it easier to strengthen district level healthcare programs involving immunizations against malaria and other preventative programs aimed at improving public health.
“EpiSurveyor allows health workers in urban as well as rural areas to easily collect, manage and share clean and timely program monitoring data,” said Dr. Balcha Girma Masresha, medical officer in the Immunization Program in the African Region of the WHO. “The introduction of this technology is enabling health workers to better understand and identify the strengths and shortcomings of their programs, so that they can actively work toward continuous improvement.”
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Most common in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, wastewater use is critical to farmers’ incomes, urban food security but raises health concerns.
As developing countries confront the first global food crisis since the 1970s as well as unprecedented water scarcity, a new 53-city survey conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) indicates that most of those studied (80 percent) are using untreated or partially treated wastewater for agriculture. In over 70 percent of the cities studied, more than half of urban agricultural land is irrigated with wastewater that is either raw or diluted in streams.
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Millions of people around the world live in informal urban communities where a lack of resources leads to degradation of the environment. Deteriorating environmental conditions, in turn, create more poverty. When participants from IDRC”s eight “Focus Cities” met to compare notes, they mapped out ways in which small practical gains could start to reverse that cycle — providing incomes for individuals and families while helping to create cleaner, healthier neighbourhoods.
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WORLD TOILET SUMMIT & EXPO 2008 FOCUSES ON SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS IN SUPPORT OF THE UN INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF SANITATION,
UNITED NATIONS – / MaximsNews Network / 10 September 2008 –According to United Nations (UN) estimates, 2.5 billion people are currently without access to basic sanitation.
Lack of organised sanitation means that an estimated 1.8 million children will die of diarrhea annually, whilst half of the population in developing countries suffers from health problems caused by the lack of access to water and sanitation.
To address this crisis, the UN, as p art of its Millennium Development Goals (MDG), has set a mandate to halve this figure by 2015.
“Given the magnitude of the problem, sanitation is an urgent global issue,” says Mr Jack Sim , Founder of WTO.
Mr Sim states that the objective of World Toilet Summit & Expo 2008 is to facilitate active discussions on evolving sanitation practices to help ensure UN objectives are achieved.
More than 70 industry leaders, sanitation experts and government officials from 40 countries will be congregating at The Venetian-Macao-Resort Hotel on the 4 – 6 November to p art icipate in the annual World Toilet Summit & Expo 2008.
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MANGALORE Sept 8: Health officials identified 830 cases of malaria infection within the city corporation limits in last month. In addition, 71 cases of affliction have been reported from rural areas. This is said to be the highest number of cases recorded in the district this year.District health officer H. Jagannath said that the rural-urban divide was a historical feature of the district.
“The urban centres are always ahead of rural areas in the prevalence of the disease because there are more sources for mosquito breeding in the city. The female Anopheles mosquito thrives on filthy conditions,” he said.
He said that 7,976 blood samples were collected from within the corporation limits, compared to over 18,000 collected in the rural areas. “It cannot be concluded that the cases reported from rural areas are less because our diagnostic machinery is lacking,” he said, in response to a query.
A majority of the malaria cases identified in the city had been caused by the less deadly parasite Plasmodium viviax (PV).
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