Sorghum is has nutritional and health benefits. Small scale farmer, Catherine Sibanda examines her sorghum crop in field, in Jambezi District, Zimbabwe, March 2015. Credit: Busani Bafana / IPS
BULAWAYO, Dec 2 2020 (IPS) – COVID-19 has magnified global food insecurity and is driving unhealthy eating and worsening malnutrition, food experts say. They have called for deliberate global investment in food as medicine on the back of growing diet-related illnesses.
Famed Greek physician, Hippocrates, foretold the future of food. He is attributed to have said: ‘Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food’. COVID-19 has pushed the conversation about food as med…
A TB patient at the Srinagar-based Chest Diseases Hospital in the Indian state of Kashmir. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
Jan 15 2021 (IPS) – In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is the same one still used today.
This first dose of BCG was the culmination of 13 years of research and development.
BCG remains the only licensed vaccine against TB and 2021 marks its .
Today, all eyes are on the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. But while the number of people …
Vulnerable people need support, not stricter laws
APIA, Samoa, Feb 25 2021 (IPS) – Earlier this month, and in December 2020 the Government of Samoa conducted operations that resulted in the confiscation of a total of 1,400 grams of methamphetamine at the border, smuggled from the US.
The law enforcement officials (from the Ministry of Customs and Revenue and the Ministry of Police and Prisons) that intercepted these drugs deserve congratulations for their professionalism and skill. Meth is destructive and harmful and it is good to see this potential threat removed from the community.
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 23 2021 (IPS) – have significant access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023. Unfortunately, a year’s delay will cause an estimated 2.5 million avoidable deaths in low and lower-middle income countries. As the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General has put it, the world is at the brink of a .
Anis Chowdhury
Vaccine apartheid
The EU, US, UK, Switzerland, Canada and their allies continue to the developing country proposal to temporarily suspend the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to enable greatly increased, affordable supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, d…
Credit: SHE Investments Cambodia
BANGKOK, Thailand, May 7 2021 (IPS) – We are living through a decisive moment. The COVID-19 pandemic’s devasting impact is reaching every corner of the world. As we look back at this period, we will see history divided into a pre-COVID and a post-COVID world.
And a defining feature of the post-COVID world will be the digital transformation that has permeated every aspect of our lives. Chief Technology Officers can say that the pandemic has done their job for them, accelerating the digitalization of economies and societies at an unimaginable pace.
The digital transformation has gone hand in hand with the rise …
Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait
Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Jun 16 2021 (IPS) – The climate crisis is amplifying the effects of instability and violence in the world’s poorest countries. Nowhere is this more visible than in Africa’s Central Sahel region, where increasing temperature, floods, droughts and other climate change-induced disasters are triggering conflicts, displacement, and pushing girls and boys into the shadows.
The Africa Region Climate Week Virtual Thematic Sessions are taking place this week and soon world leaders will come together for Africa Climate Week, in the lead up to this year’s climate talks in the UK, they…
A Somali resident sells meat at a market in Hudur, where food shortages continue to cause suffering. Meanwhile, between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 – some 161 million more than for 2019 – the UN Secretary-General said July 12; “new, tragic data”, which indicates the world is “tremendously off track” to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals () by 2030. Credit: UN Photo/Tobin Jones
BRUSSELS, Belgium / JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Jul 30 2021 (IPS) – A short answer to this question is yes, but it is obvious and predictable failure was visible for some time. This debate started before 2015, the year in which the Sustainable Develop…
Combines harvesting durum wheat in Enchant, Alberta, Canada. GPS-programmed, they are already driverless except for going around corners, August 2021. Credit: Trevor Page
OTTAWA, Canada, Sep 23 2021 (IPS) – Current food systems are no longer fit for the 21st century. Inequitable distribution, poor nutritional habits, and climate change are three issues breaking down our global food systems today, forcing us to look for solutions to transform them. Food aid – very much part of our global food systems – needs to be responsive to the challenges that lie ahead.
The World Bank estimates that the global food system is worth roughly $8 trillion – about one tenth of the …
Female Genital Mutilation is a ‘violent act’ that, among other dramatic consequences, causes infection, disease, childbirth complications and death. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS
MADRID, Nov 5 2021 (IPS) – While male circumcision is spread mainly among Muslim and other religious communities, and it is apparently accepted by some medical spheres, more than 200 million girls have already fallen prey to a dangerous, abhorrent practice, which is carried out in the name of social and …
BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 20 2021 (IPS) – Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are trying their best to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly rolling out vaccination programmes and putting in place public health interventions to reduce its impact. At the end of November, there were 262 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 5.2 million deaths globally. About 60 per cent of all COVID-19 cases and half of all COVID-19 related deaths were in Asia and the Pacific. About 7.8 billion vaccines have been administered globally, and vaccine supply is generally improving.
Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
However, the pandemic has exacerbated inequities between and within …