 LUANDA, 16 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - The Angolan government is boosting its efforts to slash the country's high child mortality statistics with a week-long campaign to encourage three million children to access basic health care.
Supported by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the 'health days' are taking place across the country in a bid to immunise newborns and children under five against some of the biggest child-killers.
Angola has one of the world's worst child mortality rates, with one in four failing to live beyond their fifth birthday, according to UNICEF.
Malaria is one of the biggest causes of death, but diarrhoeal diseases, acute respiratory infections, measles and neonatal tetanus - all of which can be prevented by immunisation or an improvement in health and hygiene practices - also claim many lives. |
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 DAKAR, 16 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Senegal plans to switch to more expensive but more effective artemisinin-based anti-malaria drugs before the rainy season kicks off this year, with the help of funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a senior health official said on Wednesday.
Moussa Thior, who heads the country’s National Programme to Fight Malaria (PNLP), told IRIN that the Global Fund had approved Senegal’s request for US $33 million to fight malaria and that the West African country was now waiting for the five-year grant to be signed.
Earlier this month, Global Fund experts admonished Senegal for the poor performance of its 2003 anti-malaria programme. The project had been set to run for five years but funding was discontinued following a two-year progress report.
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ATLANTA 2005/03/14 -A new review finds similarities between the clinical presentation and course of breast cancer in Africans and African-Americans, suggesting that genetic factors may play a significant role in the racial differences encountered in the epidemiology of breast cancer in America. The article, published in the April 15, 2005 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, also observes that Africa faces potential increases in breast cancer rates as African women adopt Western reproductive and dietary behaviors that have been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer.
Population studies show while African American women have lower rates of breast cancer than white women in the United States, they have poorer outcomes. African American women are also more likely to get breast cancer at a younger age, and among women in the U.S. under the age of 45, African Americans have the highest incidence rates. African Americans are also more likely to be diagnosed with higher stage disease – i.e., estrogen receptor-negative, high-grade tumors that are node-positive.
This clinical pattern is similar to that identified in the Ashkenazi populations that led to the discovery of BRCA-1 and -2 gene mutations, prompting many scientists to speculate that there may also be a genetic component contributing to breast cancer in African Americans.
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