Malnutrition

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A new report estimates that 2.5 million people have died as a result of almost three years of fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which would make the central African conflict one of the deadliest in recent history. The study, to be released in full tomorrow by the New York-based relief group International Rescue Committee, says the majority of the Congo war's victims have been killed not by bullets but by rampant disease and malnutrition in the remote, rebel-held jungles of the nation's interior.

SAN ILDEFONSO, Mexico -- At just 1 month old, Maria Isabel Esquivel is chubby, smiling and alert, and her older brother and sisters now run with bounding strides through the family's tiny cornfield in this dirt-poor Indian village.The vigor of the Esquivel children brings to life the startling statistics that are emerging from several ambitious nutrition projects in the Mexican countryside.The goal is nothing short of transforming the humble tortilla, Mexico's corn-based staple food, into a protein-fortified "supertortilla" that would give a nutritional boost to the nearly 20 million Mexicans who live in extreme poverty.

In Maryland, an orthopedic practice agreed to pay $2.5 million to the federal government to settle allegations that it had billed for patients' visits that never took place and had double-charged for X-ray work to get higher reimbursements. In Connecticut, a health care facility paid nearly a half-million dollars to the federal government in a similar settlement over allegations that it had exaggerated costs associated with a prostate cancer treatment. Those allegations, and another leveled recently at a Baltimore-area hospital, have highlighted an arcane record-keeping practice called "upcoding.

ROME -- The U.N. World Food Program said today a growing number of Rwandan children were going hungry in Zaire's refugee camps because food distribution was controlled by corrupt Rwandan leaders.The agency said the situation is especially bad in the Mugunga camp in Goma on Zaire's border with Rwanda, home to 200,000 refugees.The WFP blamed the rise in malnutrition on those who distribute the rations."The more vulnerable groups do not receive enough food because of corruption and food leakages at the distribution level," the WFP said.

Six of 75 cats discovered in a Columbia townhouse remained alive yesterday after police responded to complaints of a "foul odor" coming from the home late last week, said Pfc. Jennifer Reidy, a spokeswoman for Howard County authorities. When animal control officers arrived at the house in the 7300 block of Swan Point Way, 17 cats were dead and 58 were taken to a local veterinarian, who determined that 50 of them were so ill that they needed to be euthanized. Two more died Sunday night.

A federal court has dismissed a case against a rehabilitation hospital owned by the University of Maryland Medical System that was accused of diagnosing patients with a rare malnutrition-related disorder to collect bigger Medicare and Medicaid payments. The federal government filed a $8.1 million lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Kernan Hospital last year, saying the West Baltimore facility manipulated its computer system to show that patients suffered from kwashiorkor, a disease most typically found in impoverished regions.

Good Samaritan Hospital agreed to pay $793,548 to settle allegations that it submitted false claims to federal health benefit programs for four years ending in December 2008, federal Department of Justice officials reported Wednesday. The hospital denied any wrongdoing, but federal officials say the MedStar Health System hospital listed some patients admitted to the hospital as suffering from malnutrition when they were not diagnosed or treated for that condition. It was marked as a secondary condition in each case.

This is the time of year when Donald Savoy Jr., one of Baltimore's last a-rabs, might have had two or three of his horse-drawn wagons parked on inner-city corners, loaded with tangerines and oranges and late-season greens. But Mr. Savoy and other men who sold produce from his wagons are idle in this Christmas week 2009. A heavy-handed move by the city last month – after breaking promises to help the a-rabs maintain their livelihoods -- led to the confiscation of Mr. Savoy's seven horses and eight belonging to his nephew and niece, James and Shawnta Chase.

Pneumonia is now the biggest killer of children in the modern world, resulting in 3.6 million deaths annually, but in most cases the cure is a five-day course of antibiotics that costs only 25 cents, according to a U.N. report released yesterday.The means of stopping pneumonia and dozens of other childhood diseases are now "available and affordable," the report said, but countries are not making the necessary investments in basic medical care, sanitation and education."The present neglect," the report said, "is a scandal of which the public is largely unaware."

As U.S. troops move into Somalia to help bring relief t masses of emaciated people, health and social experts say the famine has wiped out so many children that the African nation may never fully recover.They question how much good can be done now in a country where an important segment of society -- children under age 5 -- has been decimated by the lack of food.A report due to be released tomorrow by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta says that in the Somalia town of Baidoa, which has been particularly hard hit by the famine, a survey last month found only 9 percent of the population was children under age 5. Normally, in a developing country, that age group makes up 20 to 25 percent of the population.