HONDURAS DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY FOR HEALTHCARE SECTOR

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has declared a state of emergency for the country's healthcare system, which is suffering from a shortage of drugs available in hospitals. In a statement released recently by Zelaya's office, the president cited faulty administrative practices and a gross lack of healthcare funding as the factors that have contributed to the dearth of medication.

As an immediate measure, the statement noted, the Honduran government will purchase $8 million worth of medicine from foreign sources, and set up a regulatory body to oversee the spending, by an April 30 deadline. Specific terms of the plan were not reported.

The statement comes in the wake of media reports that a fourteen-year-old boy with hemophilia, injured during a soccer game, died at a hospital in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa that had run out of "factor eight" anti-clotting medication.