The Second Judicial Circuit’s Criminal Court has set a September date for the trial of four doctors from Costa Rica’s public health system and a man of Greek origin for allegedly contacting poor people to illegally extract their organs, reported national Costa Rican media today. The Public Security Ministry, who made the accusation against the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS) doctors a...

Work on the Calderón Guardia Hospital’s new East Tower will begin in mid-April and will last approximately three years, said officials from the CCSS, the Costa Rica Social Security Agency. The new infrastructure, measuring approximately 21,000 square meters and costing an estimated US$83 million, of which US$18 million will be for equipment, will bolster the country's public health care system....

Costa Rica’s state-owned Banco Nacional has taken steps to encourage employees to bicycle to work, reported the entity this week. The initiative, launched this year at the bank’s downtown main and La Uruca offices, includes a bike parking area, dressing rooms with showers, and lockers, said Carlos Abarca Rivera, deputy general manager of operations. This year 10 - 15 employees have been cycl...

Eleven year old Daniel León suffers from Diamond-Blackfan Anemia (DBA), a rare disorder of the bone marrow in which it fails to produce enough red blood cells and usually apparent during the first year of life. Daniel was diagnosed with this condition when he was 1 year and nine months old. Only four other children have this disease in Costa Rica right now, and only 35 per year occur in the United...

The Costa Rica Ministry of Health confirmed that the massive vaccination against the influenza virus will begin in May 22. Initially it had been announced that it was going to start in the first week of May, however, the Ministry explained the setback obeyed to a delay in the purchase process of the 1.3 million vaccines. Children under five years of age, and population at risk: pregnant wome...

The Minister of Environment and Energy (Minae) Edgar Gutiérrez testified last week before the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly about the presence of 150 illegal wells along the coast in the district of ​​Santa Cruz, Guanacaste in the county of Nicoya. “The wells could jeopardize the water resource of the canton, since they threaten to end or contaminate the underground aquifers, leaving the com...

The Costa Rica Public Health and Social Security Administration (C.C.S.S) is requesting parents to confirm that their children have the measles vaccinations up to date as established in the immunization schedule of the institution; this because of an outbreak of the virus in Europe which was caused due to the low coverage of the vaccination program. The measles vaccine should be applied at 15 m...

Costa Rica’s public health system continues to strengthen care for mothers and newborns. Last year, the 65,281 babies were born at Costa Rica’s public hospitals, reported the CCSS (the Costa Rican Social Security Agency, which runs the public health system). Of these, 588 were twins, and nine were triplets. The hospitals have recently introduced screening procedures ("tamizaje" in Spanish) tha...

Tooth loss is one of the main concerns of adults everywhere in the world, studies show that tooth loss has decreased from the early 70’s thanks to better education and new dental treatments, yet the problem is still prevalent specially among adults aged 65 and over. Periodontal disease is one of the most common causes of tooth loss, periodontal disease is basically a localized infection in the ...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced the creation of a commission to seek solutions to the increase in deaths from addiction to heroin and opiates, a situation he called a "total epidemic" and one of the "biggest problems" that the US has at present. "This is a total epidemic and I think it's probably, almost un-talked about compared to the severity that we're witnessing," said Trump a...

This week the legislature approved in a second and final debate a cooperation agreement between the Republic of Costa Rica and Palestine that supports technical, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation activities, as reported in various Costa Rican media. The original agreement was signed in 2013, but faced some legal hurdles in the legislature. One vocal detractor, National Liberation...

Despite persistent areas of concern, Costa Rica has consistently improved on its human development indicators since 1990. Over the past 25 years, the average years of schooling have increased by 44 percent and its income has doubled, according to the most recent United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report (UNDP) released last week. Likewise, life expectancy in Costa Rica has i...

The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC) have drafted a joint regulation to restrict the importation and sale of baby walkers in Costa Rica due to safety concerns, said the Health Ministry last week. Health Minister Fernando Llorca Castro said, “The initiative is driven by a large number of specialists at the National Children's Hospital … and is another ...

Costa Rica is known to have excellent weather conditions, but particularly during the months of March and April the temperatures tend to go up and the radiation is higher. Experts from the National Meteorological Institute (IMN) warned that starting this week and through the second week of April Costa Rica will be exposed to dangerous levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation as the sun rays hit per...

Let’s begin by clarifying that opiates do not refer exclusively to the use of illegal drugs like opium and heroin, opiates actually include some legal drugs such as morphine, oxycodone fentanyl, and codeine, often prescribed to treat pain. In the United States, it is estimated that almost 2 million Americans use prescription opiates and more than half a million are addicted to heroin; this numb...

Bloomberg Global Health Index evaluated 163 countries based on variables like life expectancy, health risks related to behavioral/endogenous factors such as high incidences of population with cholesterol, high blood pressure, overweight, children malnutrition etc., or environmental/exogenous factors such a polluted environment, availability of clean water, among others; also mortality by communica...

Costa Rica shows steady overall improvement in human development, with increasing educational opportunities and income rates, but with nagging concerns over gender equity and growing economic inequality. This was revealed in the latest Human Development Index (HDI) published this week by the United Nations Development Program. Costa Rica is currently situated in 9th place in human developmen...

21-year-old Canadian Kayla Reid has decided to return to Newfoundland to avoid causing any problems for Natureboy and his community in Costa Rica. She described being stunned at the immense amount of negative media coverage of her move to Costa Rica earlier this month which she says was to be closer to nature. The CBC quoted from the Facebook she posted today in which she explained her decis...

One of Costa Rica’s cornerstone programs for addressing hunger and poverty may not sound glitzy, but it does seem to get the job done. There’s no catchy slogan or matching corporate funder, but the country’s 616 Centers for Education, Nutrition and Comprehensive Child Care (CEN-CINAI) have been recognized by the region’s foremost nutrition agency for their work. The pioneering regional leade...

Costa Rica's "México" Hospital announced this week they successful conducted a state-of-the art heart valve replacement therapy called "valve in valve." This is the first time the procedure has been conducted in the country, and the first in all of Central America, said the hospital's press office. The patient, referred to as "Elizabeth" felt immediate improvements when on Wednesday she beca...

Who should cover women’s maternity leave? Private companies, the state, or both? In Costa Rica, maternity leave has traditionally been a shared responsibility, but has often been criticized as harming women’s employment prospects, as employers can be reluctant to take on the extra costs in the event a woman gets pregnant. And firing a pregnant woman in Costa Rica is against the law, precisely t...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Democrats across the board are hoping to remove President Trump from office within his first nine months with help from mainstream media who are churning out as many negative news stories about President Trump, his staff and his appointees as they can pr...

Costa Rica now has its first national policy on wastewater sanitation and a funding plan that includes $520 million in infrastructure to provide long-awaited, significant improvements to the country’s public and environmental health. This policy is the result of priorities established in the National Development Plan (PND) created under the current administration. These include strengthening in...

Costa Rica’s National Ombud’s Office reiterated the state’s obligation to provide full prenatal and maternal health services to all women irrespective of their migratory status in the country or their ability to pay for basic coverage. The office’s statement was in response to their recent investigation which found, among other things, that the state public health care provider (CCSS, its initi...

By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Public Health System this week became the first institution in the Latin America and Caribbean region, and the seventh in the world to be internationally certified for its emergency and disaster relief services. The World Health Organization granted the emergency medical team of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), which runs the country’s universal pu...

Mexico City, Mar 7 — "Damaris," with lush black hair and inquisitive dark eyes, is a single mom who for the past four years has been a sex worker in Mexico City, fighting day by day against discrimination and police harassment. "We ask people not to judge us," she said. "Police persecution is horrible. They say you're a whore and almost treat you like an animal. They tell you 'If you want to n...

Contamination and a dirty, unhealthy, environment are making children sick and causing their death worldwide; in Costa Rica, close to one thousand children under 5 years of age die as a consequence of this, the majority are due to respiratory infections. Yet, Costa Rica has better conditions than most countries in the world. According to a report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) ...

Surgeons have performed an operation to remove a brain tumor from former Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, his daughter, Sandra, said on Tuesday without providing details on her father's condition. "It's over, but we don't know anything yet about his condition," Sandra Noriega Sieiro said. The 83-year-old Noriega is in "stable condition" after the nearly four-hour operation a...

An annual human rights report found the main problem areas in Costa Rica to be “overcrowded prisons, discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and infringement on the rights of indigenous people,” said the 2016 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices published by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Other human rights conce...

11 children from Costa Rica that suffer severe spinal cord problems will undergo surgery this week thanks to the cooperation of four U.S. Orthopedic Surgeons who are part of the Spine Hope Foundation. The chief of orthopedics of the Costa Rica Children Hospital, Jorge Alpízar, explained that the visit of the surgeons obeys to a cooperation agreement through which the specialists perform complex...

Rehabilitation is understood as the restoration of good health through therapy and training; however, this definition falls short in explaining all the elements that must converge in order to have a successful recovery. Experts understand that patients dealing with different types of addictions require of a rehab center that offers a comprehensive approach and provides the best possible conditions...

Costa Rican health authorities estimate needing 2,750 people to donate blood in March. “Why March?” you might ask. The public health system, run by the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS) always does an extra push for blood donations to shore up stocks in advance of April’s Holy (Easter) Week. Holy Week, known in Spanish as Semana Santa, is, for less strict Catholics (meaning most o...

Amidst increasing traffic accidents and road-related fatalities, Costa Rican police are calling on drivers to always, and correctly, use safety seats for children. A safety device is required for all children in a private vehicle under the age of twelve in Costa Rica, said the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT, in Spanish), who said in January this year 69 drivers were fined for...

Technology plays an important role in our everyday life, there is no escaping this reality, things have changed considerably in the last two decades and sometimes it is hard to keep up; yet, the majority of these advances have come to make our life easier and better, for instance if we consider the health industry. The advances in the different health care areas are undeniable and help improve ou...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s Ombudsman's Office has given the Ministry of Public Education (MEP) a timeline to insure their compliance with across-the-board road safety educational programs in all of the country’s schools, from pre-school on up, said the Defensoría de Los Habitantes this week (The Defender of the Inhabitants or National Ombudsman’s Office). The country’s traffic and road saf...

By Wendy Anders Last week, after a year of preparing for their first kidney transplant surgery, the public hospital in Cartago, Costa Rica successfully helped a man receive the much-needed procedure. Maria Eugenia Villalta Bonilla, medical manager of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS, in Spanish) hailed this as a milestone for the Max Peralta Hospital which can now offer a whole new...

Yesterday, February 15, was the International Childhood Cancer Day, a day that reminds us of all those strong children that are battling this sickness and whose lives have changed completely since their diagnose. In Costa Rica, the Association Against Childhood Cancer confirmed that 140 new cases are diagnosed every year. These children are cared for at the National Children Hospital, where the...

  By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican public health system offers smoking cessation clinics through 28 of its 29 hospitals, making the program available to much of the country’s population, said the CCSS (Costa Rican Social Security Agency). The Heredia Hospital was the most recent to offer the interdisciplinary program to aid in quitting smoking. They are offering an evening class sched...

About a 65% of the Costa Rican population are either inactive or sedentary, according to the data provided by the 2016 Current Affairs Poll: Intensity of Physical Activity in Costa Rica, situation that can generate cases of obesity, stress and cause other ailments such as depression, diabetes, high blood pressure among others. According to the poll, women are more sedentary than men, a 71.8% of...

Rio de Janeiro, Jan. 17 — Brazilian health authorities are on alert after the outbreak of yellow fever, with 47 cases detected in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais and given the risk that it could spread to nearby areas where possible cases are starting to be detected.The Health Ministry confirmed Tuesday that 152 suspected cases of the disease have been detected in 26 municipalities in rural...