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…
WASHINGTON, Jun 15 2011 (IPS) – The first-ever official meeting of Ministers of Agriculture from G20 countries, to be held in Paris Jun. 22-23, presents an extraordinary opportunity. Tasked with developing an action plan to address price volatility in food and agricultural markets and its impact on the poor, the ministers are uniquely positioned to not only tackle the immediate price volatility problems, but also to take on a more fundamental and long-term challenge extreme poverty and hunger.
As experts in agriculture, the ministers no doubt know what extensive research confirms: Investing in agriculture and rural development, with a focus on smallholder farmers, is the best bet for achieving global food security, alleviating poverty, and improving human wellbeing in developing co…
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2011 (IPS) – As the 193-member General Assembly commemorates the first anniversary of its landmark resolution pronouncing water and sanitation to be a basic human right, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon triggered a political controversy last week when he implicitly declared that even human rights have a market price.
Let us be clear, he asserted, a right to water and sanitation does not mean that water should be free.
Rather, he said, it means that water and sanitation services should be affordable and available for all, and that member states must do everything in their power to make this happen.
But what if member states transfer their obligations to the private sector, known to extract a heavy price even from those who canno…
Peru is carrying out a strategy to eliminate mother-to-child-transmission of hepatitis B. The most important preventative intervention is the universal vaccination, which can prevent infection in 95 per cent of cases. Photo credit: PAHO
ROME, Jul 26 2016 (IPS) – With some 400 million people around the world infected with hepatitis B or C, mostly without being aware, the United Nations top health agency encourages countries to boost testing and access to services and medicines for people in need to combat the ignored perils of this disease.
A staggering 95 per cent of people infected with B or C do not know they are infected, often living without symptoms f…
Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait
Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Jun 16 2021 (IPS) – The climate crisis is amplifying the effects of instability and violence in the world’s poorest countries. Nowhere is this more visible than in Africa’s Central Sahel region, where increasing temperature, floods, droughts and other climate change-induced disasters are triggering conflicts, displacement, and pushing girls and boys into the shadows.
The Africa Region Climate Week Virtual Thematic Sessions are taking place this week and soon world leaders will come together for Africa Climate Week, in the lead up to this year’s climate talks in the UK, they…
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 2021 (IPS) – The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is adversely impacting most developing countries disproportionately, especially the United Nations’ least developed countries (LDCs) and the World Bank’s low-income countries (LICs).
Years of implementing neoliberal policy conditionalities and advice have made most developing countries much more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic by undermining their health systems and fiscal capacities to respond adequately.
Anis Chowdhury
Less taxes
Four decades of ‘neoliberal’ policy influence has resulted in a ‘’ to cut direct taxes, particularly , ostensibly to promote investmen…