Inés Benítez
GUATEMALA CITY, May 7 2007 (IPS) – Guatemala is making slow, uneven progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with maternal mortality and illiteracy remaining the most persistent problems, mid-way to the 2015 deadline.
One of the hardest goals for us to fulfil is to reduce maternal mortality (by two-thirds), the under-secretary of the planning and programming secretariat of the Guatemalan president s office (SEGEPLAN), María Castro, said at a forum organised by Fundación Solar and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Guatemala City.
In Guatemala, the maternal mortality rate fell from 248 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1989 to 121 per 100,000 in 2005. However, the target of 62 maternal deaths per 100,000 in 201…
Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW, Jun 10 2007 (IPS) – Although the Group of Eight industrialised nations agreed at their summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, to allocate 60 billion dollars to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa, health activists say the treatment targets are much lower than originally pledged, which is devastating news , especially for the millions of people with HIV/AIDS.
In a joint declaration on growth and responsibility in Africa, the G8 Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States also invited other donors to join the initiative, proposed by the United States, which pledged 30 billion dollars of the total.
We will continue our efforts towards these goals (fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis on a sustain…
Moyiga Nduru
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 10 2007 (IPS) – What is a common factor in ensuring that women do not marry too young, do not have more children than they can cope with, do not die giving birth and contract HIV in smaller numbers? Men.
A large family at a Uganda refugee camp. Credit: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN
That is the message for World Population Day 2007, which is being marked Wednesday under the theme #39Men as Partners in Maternal Health #39.
Experience shows that men #39s involvement and particip…
Abderrahim El Ouali
CASABLANCA, Aug 12 2007 (IPS) – Despite an annual health budget of half a billion euros, large numbers of people in this nation of 30 million still have no access to essential medical care.
Reform of the public health system began in 1995, with changes introduced that were intended to be in line with international standards. But some of the changes were, quite literally, in name only.
The hospitals division came to be known as the hospitals directorate, and the medicines division came since then to be called the medical directorate. But there is still a shortage of both hospitals and medicine.
According to the ministry of health Morocco has 42 general hospitals and 11 specialised ones. The country has a population of 32 million, which means…
Diógenes Pina
SANTO DOMINGO, Sep 10 2007 (IPS) – A proposal by a coalition of civil society groups to make therapeutic abortion legal in the Dominican Republic has prompted heavy pressure on Congress from the Catholic Church.
The penal code in this staunchly Catholic country makes abortion illegal under any circumstance, and provides for prison sentences of between six months and two years for those found guilty of using food, potions, medicines, treatments or any other method to cause an abortion.
The coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and associations of health professionals propose modifying the penal code to make abortion legal in cases in which a woman has become pregnant as a result of rape or incest, the fetus is deformed, or the pregnant woman…
Cécile Walschaerts
BRUSSELS, Oct 4 2007 (IPS) – It s a first for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): a Congolese filmmaker directing a television series in Lingala the most widely spoken language in the country about HIV/AIDS.
The idea for this television series came to me by chance while I was looking at a programme on Congolese television, says Djo Tunda Wa Munga, who trained at INSAS, a film school in the Belgian capital, Brussels. I was very surprised to see AIDS patients come openly and with uncovered faces to speak of the illness on television. I thus wanted to go and see more.
At the end of 2006 he tracked down the people from this programme and was inspired by the accounts of their lives to write a fictional television series called My Story .
F…
José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Oct 31 2007 (IPS) – Nearly 90 women have died in Nicaragua as a direct or indirect result of the repeal, one year ago, of the legislation permitting abortion in cases of risk to the mother s health, according to women s and human rights groups.
Ana María Pizarro, the head of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Sí Mujer, and Latin American coordinator of the 28th September Campaign for the Decriminalisation of Therapeutic Abortion, told IPS that the reform of the abortion law has driven up the number of fatalities reported in this impoverished Central American country.
Studies by Sí Mujer indicate that 12 young pregnant women died from lack of care in health centres where personnel were afraid of the penalties of up to eight years in j…
Rajiv Fernando
NEW YORK, Nov 30 2007 (IPS) – As millions of people plan to show solidarity with the struggle against HIV/AIDS on Saturday, a new multi-nation poll released in Washington by the group Catholics for Choice shows that a majority of Catholics around the world believe that contrary to the edicts coming from Rome good Catholics can use condoms .
The poll asked Catholics living in Ghana, Ireland, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States if using condoms is pro-life because it helps save lives by preventing the spread of AIDS. It found an overwhelmingly positive response, with agreement expressed by 90 percent of Catholics in Mexico, 86 percent in Ireland, 79 percent in the United States, 77 percent in the Philippines and 59 percent in Ghana.
The Vatican …
Aaron Glantz
SAN FRANCISCO, California, Jan 15 2008 (IPS) – Last year, the United States woke up to the reality of hundreds of thousands of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and began to grapple with what to do about it.
Wounded Iraq war veteran at a protest in Washington, DC on Sep. 15, 2007. Credit: SusanAstray
On Feb. 18, 2007, a headline titled Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army s Top Medical Facility splashed across the front page of one of the nation s premier…
Analysis by Aileen Kwa*
GENEVA, Feb 21 2008 (IPS) – Uganda s major trade partners are not only looking for food markets but also for seed markets. This has happened in a push that has been packaged as the new green revolution by corporations involved in biotechnology and chemicals. They have been supported by philanthropic organizations, notably the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Another such organisation is the Yara Foundation which was established in 2005 by Yara International, the world s leading supplier of mineral fertilizers. This Norwegian company is the only international fertilizer producer which has had a significant presence in Africa over the past 25 years.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) al…