Christi van der Westhuizen
CAPE TOWN, Aug 18 2009 (IPS) – A study on men having sex with men (MSM) in Malawi shows that, as elsewhere in the developing world, this vulnerable group is at greater risk of contracting HIV and AIDS than the general population. Moreover, their risk status is exacerbated as governments fail to target them for health services or information to stem HIV transmission.
Fanja Saholiarisoa
ANTANANARIVO, Sep 22 2009 (IPS) – Poverty has increased dramatically in Madagascar since January, when a national protest movement to end the regime of former president Marc Ravalomanana plunged the country into a socio-economic crisis. Since then, the number of child labourers has risen by a whopping 25 percent.
This teenage boy spends his days cutting stones in a quarry. Credit: Fanja Saholiarisoa/IPS
Two million children under the age of 15 go to work e…
Miriam Mannak
CAPE TOWN, Oct 5 2009 (IPS) – Maternal mortality rates in Africa constitute a monumental tragedy that requires urgent attention by African governments, health experts say.
More than 250,000 women die in childbirth in Afric…
Helen Clark
HANOI, Nov 11 2009 (IPS) – Vietnam will be one of five nations most affected by climate change. Worst-case scenarios see large parts of the low-lying and flood-prone Mekong Delta area, which produces much of the nation s rice crop, flooded.
A one-metre rise in sea level, predicted by 2100 will affect 10 percent of Vietnam s population (which now stands at 86 million) and 10 percent of GDP lost.
The government could not have been more right when it released these scenarios in August. Many international organisations concur.
As millions are displaced and the potential for vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue to spread grows, health and human rights have become concerns closely related to climate change.
The links between health, h…
Vusumuzi Sifile
HARARE, Dec 2 2009 (IPS) – Martha* knows that her two young sisters and her need medicine. She also knows where to get it a clinic a few yards away from her home in Glen Norah, a high-density suburb in the Zimbabwean capital.
But she cannot get the life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). At 15, the law prevents her from doing so. She can only access the drugs in the company of an adult.
When my mother died in 2007, my aunt used to collect the drugs for us. She has since relocated to South Africa, and our other relatives say they are too embarrassed to be seen collecting the drugs, people will think they are now sick, said Martha.
Martha is among the estimated 158,798 children who are infected with HIV in Zimbabwe.
On November 24,…
Marguerite A. Suozzi
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 14 2010 (IPS) – The enormous relief effort being mounted in Haiti since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled most of Port-au-Prince is facing a host of difficulties, including bottlenecks at the main airport and lack of heavy equipment to clear debris from streets and roads, aid officials say.
Port-au-Prince reside…
Pavol Stracansky
VIENNA, Feb 16 2010 (IPS) – With hundreds of thousands of girls and women believed to be at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Europe, rights groups have mounted a campaign to get EU leaders to stop what they see as a barbaric and dangerous procedure.
FGM an umbrella term for procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons has been condemned by governments, rights groups and health organisations across the world.
But while many European governments have introduced laws to ban the practice, campaigners have warned that far from dying out it continues in communities across the continent and those same governments must do more to stamp it out.
…
Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Mar 22 2010 (IPS) – When there are water cuts in Bulawayo, the plants in 59-year-old Ntombizodwa Makati s vegetable garden are still watered but she and her family go thirsty.
Small scale farmers in Bulawayo are able to use recycled waste water for their crops as lack of adequate rainfall affects the region, thanks to the local city council s programme. But there are no programmes in place to provide drinking water for households in the area. Makati is one of many urban residents living in poor suburbs, in a city of two million people, who face constant and prolonged water shortages.
World Water Day is on Mar. 22, which United Nations-Water has given the theme of water quality Clean Water for a Healthy World . But water quality still remains a…
Safeeyah Kharsany interviews Dr ALAN BERNSTEIN, executive director, Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise.
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 26 2010 (IPS) – An HIV vaccine is possible if the world works together as a global community with the objective of finding one, but it will take some years to develop.
Dr Alan Bernstein believes that a HIV prevention vaccine will be found. Credit: Safeeyah Kharsany/IPS
This is according to Dr Alan Bernstein of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise.<…
Kristin Palitza
DURBAN, Jun 4 2010 (IPS) – African medical experts have realised they need to make a much bigger effort to educate rural communities if they want to effectively contain the continent s tuberculosis (TB) epidemic.
TB patient in a Kenyan hospital: community-based care and treatment is extending the reach of limited facilities and personnel. Credit: Siegfried/IRI…