India Fights Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
One out of every four people with tuberculosis in the world live in India and for worse, the country is grappling with the disease burden of Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) tuberculosis.
During World TB Day, local health authorities confirmed that this nation is contending with a variant that is very resistant (MDR-TB) and the extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB).
This TB which manifests when a patient fails to take all the TB medicines exactly as prescribed and misses out some doses. The TB bacterium, which remains in the patient, mutates and cannot be treated with the first and second line of treatment, experts said.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), India is home to 73,000 patients with MDR-TB. The figure for XDR-TB is yet to be known.
The National Tuberculosis Control aims to achieve at least a 85 percent rate of cure among new patients.
Vietnam to Give More Support to Families with Only Daughters
Vietnam is analyzing today the application of measures to support families with daughters rather than sons, in an attempt to reduce gender inequalities in the country.
The General Office for Population and Family Planning from the Ministry of Health presented the central government with key measures in order to deal with the problem between 2013 and 2020.
In this country from 1,400,000 to 1,500,000 births are registered every year, in a proportion of 113 males to every 100 females, which is attributed to old beliefs that favor male descendants.
If this tendency persists, according to calculations Vietnam will show a loss of between two and four million women by 2050.
Even at the National Assembly the situation has been noted and recently, the Ministry of the sector instructed hospital centers to restrict ultrasound testing used for detecting fetus sex in pregnant women.
The proposed measures include a constant education to future parents about what is described here as gender chauvinism and solid support to parents that have only daughters.
Regarding this last category, additional financial support and preferential benefits in health care, education payments, better training, employment opportunities and access to bank credits are being considered.
Nguyen Van Tan, from the office in charge of family planning, said that the project may be more effective in rural and poor areas than in the cities where other policies will be needed to deal with the issue.
This requires an effort far beyond the entity itself, involving the entire political system and encouraging a massive movement to promote gender equity, he also said.
Lebanon: PM’s Followers Block Highways in Tripoli
Followers of the outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Miqati blocked the highways leading to the city of Tripoli, in southern Lebanon, in solidarity with the head of Government.
During the night and the morning, gunfights with medium-caliber weapons were reported between followers and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
Some days ago, the Syrian government warned that it was impossible to keep tolerating the infiltrations of armed elements into Syria from Lebanon.
Hours later, Lebansese authorities reported an attack from the Syrian air force on a building in which elements recruited abroad are supposed to concentrate to join the rebels.
Miqati submitted his resignation to Lebenese President Michel Suleiman on Friday, the second time since October 2012.
Via PL