Peter Ischyrion
PORT OF SPAIN, Aug 30 2007 (IPS) – Among the frequently asked questions on the website of the National AIDS Coordinating Committee (NACC) in Trinidad and Tobago is one dealing with the use of condoms in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Can a condom protect me from getting HIV the AIDS virus? YES, used correctly and consistently, condoms are the only available barrier to reduce the risk of HIV transmission. Abstaining from sex is safest, but if one chooses to be sexually active, use a condom each and every time.
Now, having reported significant progress in addressing the rates of HIV/AIDS over the last five years, the Trinidad and Tobago government says it will purchase condom vending machines as one of several initiatives to deal with the virus.
F…
Alexandra Stahl
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 2 2007 (IPS) – A global coalition of governments and organisations has launched a new campaign to drastically improve pre- and post-natal healthcare in places like India, which alone accounts for a staggering 25 percent of the world #39s child deaths and 20 percent of maternal deaths.
Called Deliver Now a reference to the pledge made by 189 world leaders meeting at the United Nations seven years ago to reduce child deaths by two-thirds and maternal deaths by three-quarters by 2015, among other goals it brings together local government agencies, civil society, media and others to allocate existing health resources more effectively.
Halfway toward the deadline to achieve the so-called Millennium Development Goals, more than 10 million…
Interview with Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA
LONDON, Oct 22 2007 (IPS) – The Women Deliver conference held in London last week has reminded a lot of people in the world of healthcare how much more they need to deliver to make pregnancy and childbirth safer for women.
Thoraya Obaid Credit:
More than 1,800 delegates from 109 countries, among them 70 ministers and parliamentarians, met in London Oct. 18-20 to work out new ways of improving maternal health. Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) since January 2001, will inevitably be a leading figure in taking the new m…
Interview with Dr. Seth Berkley, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
NEW YORK, Nov 27 2007 (IPS) – When one of the world #39s most promising large-scale HIV vaccine trials was shut down in September after it became clear that not only did the drug fail to block the virus, but may have even increased the vulnerability of some test volunteers to contracting HIV, it was a profoundly disappointing moment in the more than 20-year quest for a vaccine.
Dr. Seth Berkley Credit: IAVI
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), headquartered in New York, is an important player in conducting and promoting va…
Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Jan 8 2008 (IPS) – At the Integrated Health Centre of Bissita, located in the Bacongo area of Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, pregnant women seated on a long bench wait to have prenatal examinations.
A member of this talkative group, Sylvie Bakani*, wears a concerned expression. Due to deliver in a few weeks, she is also HIV positive.
The doctor wanted her to take the test when she arrived for the first time at the centre, three months pregnant. When the test was positive, her husband threw her out, accusing her of being a prostitute. With time, she regained her courage, and (now) comes daily to be weighed, Eugénie Mbondji, Sylvie s mother, explained to IPS.
This situation encapsulates the problems facing thos…
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 2008 (IPS) – After nearly 30 years of intense campaigning against female genital mutilation (FGM), the United Nations says that several countries, including Canada, Belgium, Spain and Italy, have passed legislation criminalising the practice, prevalent mostly among immigrant communities.
There is a greater understanding of the practice as a violation of human rights, as well as its harmful health impacts, says a new U.N. report to be discussed at the upcoming two-week session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), scheduled to take place Feb. 25 through Mar. 7.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated between 100 and 140 million girls and women have undergone some form of FGM in more than 28 countries, mostly in Af…
Dahr Jamail and Ahmed Ali*
BAQUBA, Mar 10 2008 (IPS) – Iraq #39s children have been more gravely affected by the U.S. occupation than any other segment of the population.
The United Nations estimated that half a million Iraqi children died during more than 12 years of economic sanctions that preceded the U.S. invasion of March 2003, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease.
But childhood malnutrition in Iraq has increased 9 percent since then, according to an Oxfam International report released last July.
A report from the non-governmental relief organisation Save the Children shows Iraq continues to have the highest mortality for children under five. Since the first Gulf War, this has increased 150 percent. It is estimated that one in eight children …
Michael Deibert
KINSHASA, Apr 24 2008 (IPS) – The rain falls in battering sheets, rolling eastward along the Congo River through Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is midday, but the sky turns black and soon the potholed streets of this decrepit yet vibrant metropolis are filled with pond-sized puddles, many of them larger than the cars that traverse them.
The DRC's Congo River – one of many water sources in the Ce…
Nitin Jugran
TONK, Rajasthan, Jun 3 2008 (IPS) – Children should be seen, not heard an adage that remains in practice in most parts of rural India even today where the orthodox patriarchal traditions continue to hold sway in tightly-knit local communities.
Child reporter Suman (extreme right) discussing development issues with villagers. Credit: Nitin Jugran/IPS
It is nothing short of revolutionary then that children in some villages of Rajasthan, the largest s…
Tarjei Kidd Olsen
OSLO, Jul 2 2008 (IPS) – Environmental damage, diseases or workers rights abuses are common at fish farms in Chile and Canada operated by the world s largest salmon company, according to activists.
Fish lice-infected salmon at a Canadian salmon farm. Credit: Pure Salmon Campaign
A group of Chilean and Canadian scientists and activists visited Oslo to press home the accusations at the company s annual general meeting last month.
The Norwegian-run company, Marine Harvest, denies many of the…