Health
Rape in India Triggers More Awareness in the US
Talk of harassment and violence in India has prompted discussions among South Asian immigrants about how that violence is sometimes exported to the United States.
Beijing Residents Struggle to Cope with Off-the-Charts Air Pollution
Off-the-charts air pollution in Beijing has affected all residents of the Chinese capital in recent days, including The World’s Mary Kay Magistad. She speaks with anchor Jeb Sharp about what life in Beijing is like when the air becomes unbreathable.
Ethiopia’s Crowded Medical Schools
In Ethiopia, doctors are in short supply, so the country has devised an ambitious plan to scale up medical education. But this focus on the quantity of doctors may come at the expense of quality.
Pakistani Polio Workers Killed During Vaccination Campaign
Taliban militants have in the past accused polio vaccination workers of being US spies. Now the UN children’s agency UNICEF has suspended its vaccination campaign in Pakistan.
Study: People Living Longer, But Not Necessarily Healthier
People around the world are living longer than they did a few decades ago, but they aren’t necessarily healthier. Tobacco and alcohol-related problems are on the rise, as are diabetes, obesity and depression.
Q & A: Prioritizing Cancer
Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal The Lancet, criticizes governments and foundations for overlooking cancer as an important issue in the developing world. In an interview with reporter Joanne Silberner, Horton urges political leaders to take up the cause.
Part V: Dispensing Comfort
Modern cancer care involves more than the latest surgical techniques and chemotherapy drugs; it also offers freedom from pain. Yet basic palliative care, in the form of morphine, is almost nonexistent for many patients in developing countries. What is being done to bring them pain relief?
Part IV: The Infectious Connection
Cancer can be triggered by infectious diseases, especially in impoverished parts of the world. Scientists in the US and Africa are working to unravel how viruses and bacteria cause malignancies. By breaking that cycle, they hope to prevent tumors from forming in the first place.
Part III: An Ounce of Prevention
Cervical cancer is far more common – and more deadly – in the developing world than in the United States. One reason: women in the US receive routine screening that catches the disease in its earliest stages. A low-cost test being rolled out in India could save tens of thousands of lives there each year.
Part II: Pink Ribbons to Haiti
Haitian women know little about breast cancer, and those who contract it rarely receive treatment. An American charity and its local partners are trying to change that. But it’s not easy providing cancer care in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.
Part I: Cancer’s Lonely Soldier
Dr. Jackson Orem heads the Uganda Cancer Institute. Until recently, he was the only oncologist in a country of more than 30 million people. He argues that cancer deserves the same attention given to other afflictions in the developing world, such as AIDS and malaria.
Cancer’s Global Reach
Cancer kills more people in low- and middle-income countries than AIDS, malaria, and TB combined, but it remains a disproportionately underfunded disease. In this series, veteran health journalist Joanne Silberner examines cancer’s toll in the developing world.
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