MOSCOW, May 21 2014 (IPS) – International bodies and local campaign groups have repeatedly criticised Russia for not doing anywhere near enough in terms of providing prevention services or access to medical treatment for HIV/AIDS sufferers. The fourth Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) HIV/AIDS Conference, which finished in Moscow last week, has not put a stop to that criticism.
Boycotted by many domestic and international organisations working with HIV/AIDS sufferers and those most at risk of contracting the disease, the conference – and the Russian authorities’ overall approach to HIV/AIDS – was accused of blatant hypocrisy.
The critics said that the hosting of the event in Russia, which has one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS incidence rates, is a slap in…
This is the third story in a three-part series on HIV and contraception in Africa
Contraception is a smart choice but HIV positive women have to jump through the hooks to get it. Credit: Amy Fallon/IPS
KAMPALA, Aug 18 2014 (IPS) – Barbara Kemigisa used to call herself an “HIV/AIDS campaigner”. These days she would rather be known as an “HIV/AIDS family planning campaigner”.
“We need to reduce unplanned pregnancies and the HIV infection rate in our country,” Kemigisa told IPS during Uganda’s first national family planning conference on July 28. “It’s about dual protection.”
Raped by two uncles from an early age, Kemigisa later bec…
There has been an increase in pregnancies among Zimbabwean adolescents aged 15-19 years, from 21 percent between 2005 and 2006 to 24 percent between 2010 and 2011. Credit: Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Oct 1 2014 (IPS) – Pregnant at 15, Samantha Yakubu* is in a fix. The 16-year-old boy she claims was responsible for her pregnancy has refused to accept her version of events, insisting that he was “not the only one who slept with her”.
Now Yakubu has dropped out of school and, like many sexually active youth in Zimbabwe, faces an uncertain future.
The issue of contraceptive use remains controversial and divisive in this country of 13.72 …
The brand-new kitchen that Estanisla Reyes and her husband built working 15 days from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. The new ecological stoves cook the food with which the Tolupan indigenous community of Pueblo Nuevo, in northern Honduras, put an end to child malnutrition in just two years. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS
PUEBLO NUEVO, Honduras , Nov 27 2014 (IPS) – In the heart of the Pijol mountains in the northern Honduran province of Yoro, the Tolupan indigenous community of Pueblo Nuevo has a lot to celebrate: famine is no longer a problem for them, and their youngest children were rescued from the grip of child malnutrition.
The Tolupan indigenous people in Pueblo Nuevo are no longer suf…
Filipinos march along the streets of the Makati Business District, demanding the immediate re-exportation of the 50 Canadian container vans filled with hazardous wastes currently festering in Manila’s port. Credit: Courtesy Diana Mendoza
MANILA, Mar 15 2015 (IPS) – Filipino Catholic priest and activist Reverend Father Robert Reyes, dubbed by media as the “running priest”, joined a protest of environmental and public health activists last week by running along the streets of the Makati Business District, the Philippines’ financial capital, to urge the government to immediately re-export the 50 Canadian containers filled with hazardous wastes that have been in the Po…
Women from the Gunduribadi tribal village in the eastern Indian state of Odisha patrol their forests with sticks to prevent illegal logging. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
NAYAGARH, India, Apr 30 2015 (IPS) – Kama Pradhan, a 35-year-old tribal woman, her eyes intent on the glowing screen of a hand-held GPS device, moves quickly between the trees. Ahead of her, a group of men hastens to clear away the brambles from stone pillars that stand at scattered intervals throughout this dense forest in the Nayagarh district of India’s eastern Odisha state.
The heavy stone markers, laid down by the British 150 years ago, demarcate the outer perimeter of an area claimed by the Ra…
The new General Hospital in Altamira, which has not yet opened, will be the most modern facility of its kind in this city in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, receiving the most serious cases from the 11 municipalities affected by the construction of the giant Belo Monte hydroelectric dam. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS
ALTAMIRA, Brazil, Jun 19 2015 (IPS) – Extensive public health i…
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 2015 (IPS) – The state of the world’s toilets reveals the good, the bad and the ugly – but not necessarily in that order.
As the UN commemorated its annual World Toilet Day on November 19, a new study says, contrary to popular belief, not everyone in the rich nations of the developed world has access to a toilet.
The study, released by the UK based WaterAid, points out that Canada, UK, Ireland and Sweden are among nations with measurable numbers still without safe, private household toilets.
Russia has the lowest percentage of household toilets of all developed nations, while India, the world’s second-most populous country, holds the record for the most people waiting for sanitation (774 million) and the most people per square kilomet…
, (Mrs), CBS is the Cabinet Secretary for Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs in the Government of Kenya. Siddharth Chatterjee is the UNFPA Representative to Kenya.
Sicily K. Kariuki. Photo Credit: @UNFPA
NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 13 2016 (IPS) – Last month, the Government of Kenya (GoK) in partnership with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) at the sidelines of the 60th Session of the UN Commission of Women in New York, launched the on the ‘Assessment of the UNFPA Campaign to End Preventable Maternal and New-born Mortality in support of the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa’
The assessment report by Deloitte Consulting …
Despite severe malnutrition among children, which erstwhile Indian PM Dr Manmohan Singh called a “national shame”, India has still not prioritised breastfeeding. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS
NEW DELHI, Jun 1 2016 (IPS) – The recent launch of Amaara, New Delhi s first human milk bank, has been greeted with much cheering. The initiative endorses the long-term goal of reducing infant mortality and addresses the critical issue of lack of mothers milk for physically fragile newborns in India s capital city…