U.N. Malnutrition on the rise in Darfur
Sat, 01 Sep 2007 08:25:06 GMTBy EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS - Malnutrition is increasing in Sudan's violence-wracked Darfur region along with lawlessness and the number of people fleeing their homes, a senior U.N. official said Friday.
"The humanitarian situation in the last few months has become more critical in many parts of Darfur," Assistant Secretary-General Margareta Wahlstrom, the U.N.'s deputy humanitarian chief, told a news conference.
Wahlstrom said she expects Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to raise the worsening humanitarian situation in Darfur with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when he visits Sudan next week.
More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted since ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in 2003, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan's government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed — a charge it denies.
The humanitarian operation in Darfur remains the largest in the world — as it has been for the past three years — with 4 million people now dependent on humanitarian assistance as a consequence of the protracted conflict, rising tension and increasing lawlessness, she said.
She said 18 spot surveys by U.N. agencies and nongovernmental organizations in the three Darfur provinces all found that for the first time in three years the number of malnutrition cases has increased beyond the emergency threshold of 15 percent to "well over 17 percent being detected in some areas."
Since 2004 when a huge humanitarian effort was launched to help civilians caught in the four-year Darfur conflict, Wahlstron said, "the situation stabilized from a health and nutritional perspective."
While there is still a question of whether the increasing malnutrition represents a permanent deterioration, or whether it is the result of the lean season between harvests, Wahlstrom emphasized that in past years "we have never seen a decline."
Report Tainted liquor kills 15 in Nepal
Sat, 01 Sep 2007 11:23:27 GMTKATMANDU, Nepal - Tainted liquor has killed at least 15 people and sickened several others in a town in southern Nepal, state-run Radio Nepal said Saturday.
The deaths occurred Thursday and Friday on the outskirts of Janakpur, a town about 180 miles south of the capital, Katmandu, it said.
The victims bought the liquor from a local distillery that illegally produced it from rice and millet, the National News Agency reported.
Police arrested five people working at the distillery, said Ram Sharan Chimoria, the chief government administrator.
Laboratory tests were being carried out to determine what caused the deaths, he told The Associated Press.
Deaths from tainted alcohol are frequent in Nepalese villages, where locally made liquor is often mixed with banned methyl alcohol to make it stronger.
Feds try to scale back Medicaid payments
Fri, 31 Aug 2007 22:05:30 GMTWASHINGTON - The Bush administration issued proposed rules Friday to trim Medicaid payments to schools.
Medicaid is the federal-state health insurance program for poor people.
Schools are currently billing Medicaid for administrative and overhead costs that aren't related to delivering health services to poor people, said Dennis Smith, director for the Center for Medicaid and State Operations.
He said examples have included costs associated with school construction projects and transporting poor students to school.
"They are essentially administrative costs of the education system and should not be billed to the Medicaid program," Smith said.
He said schools would still get reimbursed for transporting Medicaid recipients to offsite health care appointments.
The Bush administration estimates tightening the Medicaid reimbursement rules would save the government $3.6 billion over five years.
___
On the Net:
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/
FDA New Merck HIVfighting drug is safe
Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:42:25 GMTBy MATTHEW PERRONE, AP Business Writer
WASHINGTON - A new HIV-fighting drug from Merck & Co. appears superior to options for patients who have stopped responding to available drugs, federal regulators said Friday.
The Food and Drug Administration said Merck's studies of Isentress show the drug is safe and effective to treat HIV patients who have developed a resistance to other medications.
Roughly 1 million people in the U.S. are HIV positive, according to the Centers for Disease Control. FDA has cleared 30 different HIV treatments since 1987, and they are typically prescribed in combination to suppress the virus, which cripples the immune system and causes death if not treated.
The agency posted its review of the drug to the FDA Web site ahead of a Wednesday meeting, where outside experts are scheduled to vote on the drug's safety and effectiveness. FDA is not required to follow the experts' recommendations, though it usually does.
The agency granted the drug priority review status earlier this year, meaning staffers would finish the review in six months, four months earlier than usual. A decision is expected mid-October.
If approved, Isentress would be the first in a new class of HIV treatments called integrase inhibitors that block the virus from infecting cells and reproducing.
Government scientists said Isentress has a favorable safety profile, with rash and elevated levels of creatine in the blood reported as the most common side effects.
Merck reported 13 deaths among 900 patients who took Isentress in a clinical study although the FDA said the deaths were not related to the drug.
Isentress would compete with Pfizer's Selzentry, another novel HIV treatment the FDA approved last month for drug-resistant HIV patients. Merck's drug could be more attractive to doctors and patients because it appears to have fewer side effects.
Selzentry's label carries a warning that the drug can cause liver damage and advises patients to see a doctor immediately if they develop an allergic reaction. FDA cleared the drug on the condition that the company conduct follow-up studies to look at the effects of long-term use.
On Wednesday, the FDA will ask its outside experts whether Merck should be required to conduct post-marketing studies on Isentress.
Merck shares rose 51 cents, or 1 percent, to $50.17 Friday.
