‘Gamifying' health: A new approach to HIV treatment in Africa
The United Nations says the HIV/AIDS epidemic could be ended by 2030. But patients need to follow their treatment plans to keep the virus in check. Games could help, as Zaheer Cassim reports from Johannesburg.
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Voice of America
07-03-2025
- Voice of America
Some US cuts to global health programs reversed, groups say
Some global health projects whose U.S.-funded contracts were suddenly canceled last week have received letters reversing those decisions, according to media reports. The reversal came after the Trump administration ended about 90% of contracts funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. State Department. Democratic lawmakers, along with some Republicans and rights groups, have sharply criticized administration efforts to shut down federally funded humanitarian efforts around the world. Michael Adekunle Charles, chief executive of the RBM Partnership to End Malaria, said his organization's letter reversing the cutoff of its funds arrived late Wednesday. 'I think it's good news. We need to wait in the coming days to get additional guidance,' he told Reuters. 'Our priority is saving lives, so the earlier we can get started to continue saving lives, the better.' Other programs that receive some U.S. funding to respond to tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS also had their cuts reversed. Still, uncertainty remains. "It sounds good, but we cannot draw down money,' Dr. Lucica Ditiu, executive director of Stop TB Partnership, told Reuters. 'We have no clarity.' A U.S. State Department spokesperson said the Trump administration had been working to review every dollar spent 'to ensure taxpayer resources are being used to make America safer, stronger and more prosperous.' Trump ordered a 90-day pause on all U.S. foreign aid on his first day back in the White House. Subsequent stop-work orders have drawn USAID operations around the world to a standstill. Most USAID staff have also been placed on leave or fired. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court's emergency order for the administration to quickly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from USAID and the State Department. The funding would cover nearly $2 billion for work already performed by the organizations. Meanwhile, contractors and grant recipients suing the government are asking U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to set a new Monday deadline to release much of the funding for their completed work. The deadline would not apply to the entire $2 billion. The contractors and grant recipients are also asking for the restoration of most of the foreign aid contracts and grants, which the Trump administration ended last month, while the lawsuit continues. The administration said that 'all legitimate payments' owed to the plaintiffs would be made 'within days,' and not more than 10 days, but that foreign payments to other parties not in the lawsuit could take much longer. Some plaintiffs say that if they are not paid immediately, they are in danger of shuttering. Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
Voice of America
06-03-2025
- Voice of America
Racked by violence, Haiti faces 'humanitarian catastrophe,' aid group says
Haiti is facing a "humanitarian catastrophe" as it reels from a surge in violence that is forcing people from their homes and pushing overstretched health facilities to the brink, Doctors Without Borders said Thursday. The crisis-torn Caribbean nation has seen new unrest in recent weeks as gangs battle police for territory, leading United Nations agencies and humanitarian groups to warn last month of a "wave of extreme brutality" sweeping the country. The fighting has left civilians trapped in the crossfire, overwhelmed hospitals and raised fears of a new cholera epidemic in a nation devastated by the disease in the 2010s, said Doctors Without Borders, which is also known by its French initialism, RSF. Last week, the medical aid group's teams treated 90 victims of violence — double the usual number — at its emergency center in the Turgeau neighborhood of the capital, Port-au-Prince, it said. Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas, was plunged into fresh unrest last year when gangs launched coordinated attacks in Port-au-Prince to force then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign. The interim government and a Kenya-led U.N. force have struggled to restore order. Armed groups control 85% of the capital, according to UNICEF. With an estimated 1 million people forced from their homes by violence, there are fears of disease outbreaks in makeshift camps for the displaced. "The scale of this crisis far exceeds what MSF can respond to alone," the group's mission chief in Haiti, Christophe Garnier, said in a statement. With the rainy season approaching, sanitation conditions are worsening, MSF said. "Without urgent action, the situation will turn into a humanitarian catastrophe," said Garnier.
Voice of America
03-03-2025
- Voice of America
East Congo rebels abduct at least 130 hospital patients, UN says
M23 rebels launching an offensive in east Congo abducted at least 130 sick and wounded men from two hospitals in the city of Goma last week, the United Nations said Monday. M23 fighters raided CBCA Ndosho Hospital and Heal Africa Hospital during the night of Feb. 28, taking 116 and 15 patients respectively, U.N. Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement. The abducted men were suspected of being Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers or members of a pro-government militia known as Wazalendo. "It is deeply distressing that M23 is snatching patients from hospital beds in coordinated raids and holding them incommunicado in undisclosed locations," Shamdasani said, calling for their immediate release. M23 spokespersons Willy Ngoma and Lawrence Kanyuka Kingston did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Tutsi-led M23 marched into the city of Goma at the end of January and have since made an unprecedented advance into east Congo, seizing territory and gaining access to valuable minerals. Their ongoing advance, which started in late December, is already the gravest escalation a long-running conflict rooted in the spill over into Congo of Rwanda's 1994 genocide and the struggle for control of Congo's vast mineral resources. Congo, U.N. experts and Western powers accuse Rwanda of backing the group. Rwanda denies this and says it is defending itself against ethnic Hutu-led militias bent on slaughtering Tutsis in Congo and threatening Rwanda. About 7,000 people have been killed in east Congo since January and almost half a million people were left without shelter after 90 displacement camps were destroyed in the fighting, according to the government. International sanctions, renewed investigations by the International Criminal Court and Africa-led peace negotiations have failed to halt the advance by the rebels, who have captured east Congo's two major cities, Goma and Bukavu.
