LA PAZ, Mar 2 2010 (IPS) – A social programme in Bolivia that prevents the deaths of two mothers a day from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth is making headway despite administrative difficulties, and has the potential to cut the alarmingly high maternal mortality rate in this country by up to 80 percent in just five years.
Dr. Walter Soria examines a 10-month-old baby girl. Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS
In Bolivia, the risk of dying from causes related to pregnancy, childbirth or the postnatal period …
Mitch Moxley
BEIJING, Apr 5 2010 (IPS) – Shortly after Liu Yan s four-year-old son, Liu Yi, was bitten by a dog, he did what any responsible parent would do: took his child to the hospital for a vaccination. Two weeks later, after the fourth injection, Liu Yi became violently ill.
The next morning, on Aug. 27, 2008, the boy was taken to First People s Hospital in Yangquan city in central China s Shanxi province, where he was diagnosed with viral meningitis. Liu Yi s condition quickly deteriorated and he died later that afternoon.
Liu Yan blamed the rabies vaccination for his son s death, and according to a searing media report last month, he might not be alone.
My son was in good health before he got the rabies vaccine, Liu Yan told IPS. Nobody could clarify …
Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, May 6 2010 (IPS) – The Ugandan government s controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Bill has been amended after civil society organisations campaigned against provisions in the bill that may restrict access to generic medicines, which form the bulk of medicines used in the East African country.
Organisations such as Health Action International Africa (HAI Africa) and the Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development (HEPS Uganda) pointed out that the definition of counterfeit goods in the first version of the bill was so wide as to criminalise the production and importation of legitimate, effective generic medication.
IPS has obtained the latest version of the bill in which the definition of counterfeiting and counterfeit goods is restricted t…
Irwin Loy
PHNOM PENH, Jun 18 2010 (IPS) – For Chan Theary, a remote, mountainous stretch of land in western Cambodia encapsulates the uphill struggle this South-east Asian nation faces in reducing the alarming number of women who die during pregnancy.
Chan Theary, executive director of the Reproductive and Child Health Alliance, an NGO that supports a remote hea…
Esther Banales
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 2010 (IPS) – The fragile health system in the cash-strapped Democratic People s Republic of Korea (DPRK), long described as one of the world s most secretive countries, is on the verge of collapsing, Amnesty International (AI) warned Thursday.
In a report released here, the London-based human rights organisation said the situation was so dire that amputations and other major surgeries were being done without anaesthesia.
The hospitals and clinics in the country are rundown and operate with frequent power cuts and no heat and, even though free health care is guaranteed by law, doctors don t receive salaries and have to charge their patients, sometimes in cigarettes or clothes.
Medicines are supposed to be provided in hospit…
Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Aug 6 2010 (IPS) – Thousands of Kenyan urban dwellers, rich and poor, live in fear that their homes or building investments could soon be demolished as the country struggles to keep up with the rapid urbanisation of cities.
Lack of space has forced people in Korogocho slum, situated near Nairobi s Dandora dump site, to trade above open sewers. Credit: Isai…
Thalif Deen
STOCKHOLM, Sep 6 2010 (IPS) – A major weeklong international water conference opened in the Swedish capital Monday with an ominous warning: time is running out faster than fresh water.
Anders Berntell of SIWI speaks at the opening session of World Water Week. Credit: worldwaterweek
If the massive and complex challenges facing one of the world s most finite natural resources are not resolved soon, the future looks grimly devastating: scarcities, pollution, droughts…
NAIROBI, Sep 28 2010 (IPS) – The number of pregnant women being tested for HIV and accessing treatment in Sub-Saharan Africa has shown significant progress – indicating that virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission of the virus by 2015 is possible.
According to a new report Towards Universal Access, the proportion of pregnant women in Sub-Saharan Africa who received an HIV test increased from 43 percent in 2008 to 51 percent in 2009. The report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS assessed HIV/AIDS progress in 144 low- and middle-income countries.
It found an estimated 24 percent of the approximately 125 million pregnant women in these countries received an HIV t…
Aprille Muscara and Daniela Estrada*
NEW YORK/SANTIAGO, Oct 22 2010 (IPS) – When Francisca arrived at the historic Curicó Hospital a staple in the Chilean central valley for nearly one and a half centuries for the birth of her first child, she didn t know it would be her only one.
I was in the recovery room at the hospital of Curicó when [the nurse] entered and, after asking me how I was feeling, told me that I was sterilised and that I would not be able to have any more children, she recalls in a joint report by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and the Chilean NGO Vivo Positivo released Thursday.
It was 2002. Francisca (not her real name) was 20 years old and she and her husband foresaw a future in which their visit to the maternity ward wou…
Collins Mtika
GEZAMGOMO, Malawi , Nov 23 2010 (IPS) – Cecilia Tomoka s birthing centre stood unused for three years before the 2009 earthquake flattened it. Now she s rebuilding the house and her practice as Malawi s government lifts a ban on traditional birth attendants.
Tomoka lives in Gezamgomo village, about a kilometre outside Malawi s third largest city, Mzuzu. She started assisting with births in 1989, after her grandmother renowned for communing with the spirits told her it was her calling.
United Nations agencies project Malawi s maternal mortality rate is presently 510 deaths per 100,000 live births; down from the 2005 estimate of over 1,100 per 100,000. In 2007, traditional birth attendants were banned in an effort to push more women to give birth with qu…