Costa Rica collected 120 votes from the United Nations General Assembly of the 129 minimum required to maintain its seat on the 47-member body. Human rights have been a banner issue for Costa Rica’s foreign policy, and President Luis Guillermo Solís urged U.N. member states to consider re-electing Costa Rica to the council during his General Assembly address in September.
Over the weekend, the Health Ministry confirmed the first local case of the chikungunya virus in the Pacific town of Parrita, Costa Rica. This marks the first time the mosquito-borne virus has been locally transmitted in Costa Rica, according to Dr. Daniel Salas with the ministry’s health surveillance department.
Recently, Patricia Mora, legislator for the Broad Font Party, stated in the Costa Rican daily La Naciόn – as a way of deflecting criticism – that members of her party “aren’t autistic.” She doesn’t understand that people with autism and their families have to fight each and every day to be included in our society. She doesn’t understand that autistic people are incredible human beings, who, unlike most other people, don’t even know what evil and hypocrisy are.
The cruise ship carrying a Texas health-care worker who "may have" handled lab specimens from Dallas Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan is headed back to the United States after Mexican authorities failed to grant permission for the ship to dock off the coast of Cozumel, according to a Carnival spokeswoman.
The board of directors of Costa Rica’s Social Security System, or Caja, has approved a series of amendments to the public health care agency’s regulations that, among other benefits, will grant same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples in public health care services as soon as next month.
Edgardo Araya, a legislator for the Broad Front Party from Alajuela, and a number of community representatives from pineapple-producing zones, on Monday urged the executive branch to pass a decree that would place a moratorium on pineapple production for five years. They argued that pineapple producers have not been held accountable for the environmental impact of their activities.
An attorney representing 22 couples involved in a legal dispute with the Costa Rican government regarding its failure to legalize in vitro fertilization has turned to the country's new ombudswoman, Monserrat Solano Carboni, for help.
"Ebola is not a terribly infectious disease," said Joel Selanikio, a former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) epidemiologist. "It's quite difficult to get."
Amid news of the first case of Ebola in the United States and a recent jump in the number of migrants entering Costa Rica illegally, National Police have activated an infectious illness protocol at the country’s borders, according to National Police Director Juan José Andrade.
Costa Rica has agreed to pay the medical bills and other compensation for some 12,000 banana workers and their relatives suffering lingering effects of exposure to pesticides in the 1960s and '70s.
