Latin-America
Hunger
Fourteen percent of the region's population does not have enough
income to obtain the minimum amount of food to maintain health,
experts are telling the leaders gathered for the World Food Summit this
week in Rome.
SAN JOSE - Sixty-two million people, 14 percent of the 516 million Latin
American and Caribbean people, live in extreme poverty and suffer the
consequences of hunger, reports the World Food Program (WFP).
Undernourishment affects 54 million, in rural and urban areas alike. Haiti,
in the Caribbean, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua in
Central America, and Argentina, Colombia and Peru, in South America,
are the countries confronting acute situations today.
Inequalities, economic decline in some countries, failed harvests, falling
prices for certain export products like coffee and sugar, and natural
disasters have worsened the food crisis in recent years.
"We drink máte (an infusion based on the máte leaf) and we endure the
hunger, but the children cry themselves to sleep and in the morning they
wake up, desperate for their milk," says Gladys Silva, 28, an Argentine
mother of six and resident of the Buenos Aires district of La Matanza.
In Venezuela, 90 percent of households are unable to obtain what is
considered the "basic food basket" of products, because the minimum
monthly salary is 150 to 170 dollars a month, according to a study
conducted in April by the Social Analysis Center of the Venezuelan
Teachers' Federation.
"It is impossible for a family with only that income to afford the basic
food basket".
Health
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Bolivia latest to confirm flu cases in Latin America
LA PAZ: Bolivia has reported its first two cases of swine flu, becoming
the latest Latin American country to establish the A(H1N1) virus'
presence since the outbreak was first confirmed in Mexico in late April.
“The National Centre of Tropical Diseases (Cenetrop) in Santa Cruz
confirmed the presence of the A(H1N1) virus'' in a 39-year-old woman
and her son who arrived earlier this week in the eastern city of Santa
Cruz, Health Minister Ramiro Tapia told reporters yesterday.
Panama's confirmed cases meanwhile jumped to 107 late Thursday,
from 87 a day earlier, after the analysis of samples that had been
pending due to a failure to diagnose the presence of the virus.
Health Agencies Warn Of Depleting Stockpiles Of Yellow Fever
Vaccines
International health organizations warn stockpiles of yellow fever
vaccines are running out and this is putting millions of the world's most
vulnerable people under threat. The organizations, which include the
World Health Organization and UN Children's Fund, say they need more
money to carry out life-saving immunization campaigns in Africa and
Latin America next year.
The health organizations say the current stockpile of Yellow Fever
vaccines is scheduled to run out in 2010.
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