Health e News
International health experts and government representatives converge in Cape Town today for a three-day conference looking at improving maternal and child health care. But is Africa doing enough to save mothers and children from the risk of death?
The achievement of Millenium Development Goal 4 – that is, to prevent babies and children from dying ‘ is not possible if the other seven goals in the Millenium Declaration are not adequately addressed. Dr Phetsile Dlamini is the co-ordinator of the African Union programme in the national Department of Health.
Leading global health experts, policy makers and parliamentarians meet in Cape Town today for the Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn & Child Survival conference. Daisy Mafubelu, Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organisation’s Family and Community Health Division, reports on the state of the world’s maternal and child mortality.
South Africa is one of the 10 worst performing countries in reducing child deaths thus making progress towards reaching the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG), which aims to reduce by two-thirds the death rate of children by 2015.
Last week, we reported on how people’s ability to change their behaviour can help reduce the spread of HIV in the face of scientific setbacks to devise vaccines or microbicides to protect against the virus. In this report, we look at some of the social factors that could enhance behaviour change to prevent more infections.
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In just less than two months after the registration of Glaxo-Smith-Kline’s cervical cancer vaccine by the Medicines Control Council, the regulatory body has registered yet another vaccine aimed at preventing the cancer.
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A string of disappointing scientific research results on the HIV prevention front suggests that alternative methods of prevention, besides the condom and femidom, are not on the immediate horizon. What are the implications of this?
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Cape Town’s executive director of health Dr Ivan Toms died of meningococcal meningitis.
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With a poor control programme, the development of drug-resistant bacilli, no new drugs to treat it and an increasing HIV case load, South Africa is facing the worst TB epidemic in decades.
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The outbreak of Extensively Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR TB) in Tugela Ferry in the Msinga area of KwaZulu-Natal in 2006, marked a turning point in the fight against TB.
Stunned friends have remembered Ivan Toms as a a larger than life character who had tremendous energy and huge passion for the country he loved and served.
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The tall man in the wheelchair folds the nursing sister’s hand in his and shakes it enthusiastically. ‘Thank you my little sister, thank you. God bless you, my sister. Thank you for everything you have done.’