Health e News
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Less than half the African countries that promised to remove taxes on bed nets have done so.
Seven years after it was first drafted, the National Health Bill ‘€“ intended to guide the transformation of health services ‘€“ is still with the state law advisors.
Up to 150 women out of 100 000 die annually whilst still pregnant, during labour or shortly after giving birth in South Africa. That is the finding of a report published recently by the national Department of Health and that follows three years of monitoring and collecting data on the patterns of maternal deaths. Khopotso Bodibe reports.
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Holo Muchangwe Hachonda IV of Zambia is a young man with a very huge mission. In 1997, while still a teenager, he formed an organisation with the express aim of working in the field of sexual and reproductive health rights and HIV prevention. He has worked extensively with churches, schools and NGOs in Zambia to promote young people’€™s rights to access sexual and reproductive health information and services. In recognition of his efforts to reach out to the new generation, he was recently awarded an AMANITARE award. This award is presented to an individual or organisation that has made a meaningful contribution to women’€™s health and rights in Africa. Khopotso Bodibe of Health-e News Service, spoke to this visionary young lad and discovered that issues he confronts daily in his work are the same problems South Africa is plagued with.
According to the World Health Organisation some 130 million women around the world have suffered due to female genital mutilation (FGM). Every year two million girls and young women are subjected to this practice that survives despite efforts taken in many of the countries involved to try to eradicate it. While the practice continues in sub-Saharan Africa, some of the Arab peninsula and parts of the Far East, these are not the only regions affected. Emigration to from these areas to Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is challenging these governments to find a solution to FGM as it is now practiced in these countries. Khopotso Bodibe of Health-e News Service, reports.
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Government is under increasing pressure to provide anti-retroviral drugs to people with HIV. In developed countries, the drugs have resulted in babies born with HIV now reaching university. But what about South African children with HIV?
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Over 40 000 people in some of the country’€™s poorest villages and towns have flocked to “grant registration jamborees” being run countrywide to help poor parents to get childcare grants. Kerry Cullinan reports.
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The Treatment Action Campaign’s Nonkosi Khumalo says the proposed 18-month delay before government begins to provide free anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) in the public health sector is outrageous and too long. Nonkosi added that thousands of people were dying and that in South Africa alone about 5 million people were already infected and desperately in need of ARVs. Thandeka Teyise spoke to Nonkosi about the government’s propsed ARV programme.
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Nkosi Johnson has become the most recognisable international face of AIDS. A year after his death Anso Thom of Health-e News, pays tribute to a little boy who not only enriched her life, but the lives of many others.
Andile Galashewe and Zola add their voices to the 16 Days of Activism on Violence Against Women campaign.
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lthough the majority of South Africans have never directly helped a child affected by HIV/AIDS most would if they knew how. This vast untapped reserve of goodwill will hopefully prompt South Africans to open their hearts and pockets and make a donation to the Pick ‘n Pay, Khomanani, Caring Together initiative to collect as much as possible for children affected by HIV/AIDS before November 24, 2002.
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Speaking on the fourth anniversary of the Partnership Against AIDS, Deputy President Jacob Zuma, announced the plans and theme around this year’s World AIDS Day commemoration.