MANILA, Feb 19 2010 (IPS) – Rice and condoms do not usually land on the same list of household basics in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, but extremely poor couples here with huge families would choose rice if given the two options.
This is what Fe Nicodemus, head of KAKAMPI, a Philippine non-government organisation advocating reproductive rights, learned when her group distributed free condoms in an urban poor district of Manila recently as part of her group s advocacy.
When we were distributing condoms, there was this group that arrived and started distributing rice, she recalled. The people quickly moved to the other group, but we continued to give condoms to those lining up for rice, hoping that we could still put contraceptive use in their minds even if their s…
LUSAKA, Mar 24 2010 (IPS) – HIV-positive Bupe Mwamba, 22, lies next to her newborn baby girl at the rural clinic she just gave birth in and wonders if her baby is HIV-positive too.
She has been for counselling throughout her antenatal check-ups and knows there is a chance her baby girl may be HIV-negative. But it still does not eliminate her fears and anxieties.
It is a moment of reflection about the future of your child and how your child will cope being HIV-positive. It cannot go without (me feeling) some kind of fear as a human being, she said.
Here at the Chipulukuso rural health centre in Ndola, Zambia’s Copperbelt province, when an HIV test was done, blood samples were taken and then transported to a central regional hospital for analysis. The results were …
David Cronin
BRUSSELS, Apr 27 2010 (IPS) – Life-saving medicines could become too costly for the world s poor after a new trade agreement between the European Union and India comes into effect, public health activists have warned.
Brussels officials are seeking that robust rules on intellectual property be approved by India when talks aimed at finalising a free trade deal get under way this week.
At least three of the provisions in a leaked version of the agreement have been identified as a potential risk to India s status as the leading manufacturer and exporter of non-branded medicines.
One of these clauses would introduce a so-called data exclusivity regime, whereby an Indian company making generic drugs would be prohibited from availing of formulae used to…
Nastasya Tay
JOHANNESBURG , Jun 5 2010 (IPS) – Backtracking by international donors in funding the fight against HIV/AIDS risks widening the treatment gap in Africa, undermining years of positive achievements in the field, warns a new Medecins Sans Frontières report. And many more unnecessary HIV-related deaths will be caused by these shifts in international donor funding
Lynette Lee Corporal
PATHUM THANI, Thailand, Jul 7 2010 (IPS) – Teenage boys gape at a coloured photograph of a vagina, while girls give embarrassed smiles as they watch a cartoon that showed penises talking about masturbation. Young girls crowd around a display panel about love and relationships, as a boy embraces a female mannequin with all his might in order to measure the strength of his hug.
Milagros Salazar
LIMA, Jul 28 2010 (IPS) – Peruvian President Alan García confirmed Wednesday that the permit of the U.S. mining and metallurgical company Doe Run to operate a major smelter complex was being cancelled because the firm missed the deadline for proving that it had the necessary financing to restart operations and complete an environmental cleanup.
La Oroya, where the smelter operates in Peru s highlands region, is one of the most polluted cities in the world.
In a message to the nation delivered in Congress, García said the deadline had expired, the law was being enforced to the letter, and the permit for the Doe Run Peru multi-metal smelter had been cancelled.
A company cannot be allowed to abuse or blackmail our country, as Doe Run has been …
MBALE, Uganda, Aug 26 2010 (IPS) – Irene Wangolo was advised to undergo an HIV test during her antenatal visit and to return to the clinic with her husband so they could be counselled on preventing HIV transmission to their unborn baby. But her husband refused to accompany her saying it was not his business and Wangolo never returned to the clinic in Bungokho in eastern Uganda. So she missed all the services, including the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).
Salim Kato escorts his wife to all her an…
Analysis by Antoaneta Becker
LONDON, Sep 20 2010 (IPS) – As China basks in international praise for its spectacular economic transformation over the last 30 years, some shadow sides of this story of triumph have begun to emerge.
The world s second economic powerhouse has been accused of exploiting its status of a populous developing country to claim grants and aid that would have served Africa s poorest countries better. And as it continues to receive millions of euros in aid from the European Union, China has stepped up its own foreign aid activities in African and Latin American countries in order to bolster its long-term economic interests and secure energy and mineral resources.
China surpassed Japan as the world s second-largest economy last quarter, crowning the…
Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA CITY, Oct 11 2010 (IPS) – A high-level commission has been set up to look into appalling medical experiments carried out by U.S. researchers on hundreds of Guatemalans in the 1940s, and the government of this Central American country is debating alternative ways for the United States to make reparations.
These acts should be condemned and the case brought to trial, Amílcar Pop, an indigenous Guatemalan lawyer, told IPS. We need to repudiate what happened and condemn the attitudes that made it possible. Humanity has evolved and these actions cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. What the United States did was a crime against humanity.
In an Oct. 1 statement, the U.S. government acknowledged that between 1946 and 1948, U.S. medical …
Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Nov 12 2010 (IPS) – An emergency vaccination campaign against polio begins Nov. 12 in the Republic of Congo, where an epidemic centred on the southern city of Pointe-Noire has killed at least 100 people since the beginning of October.
Administering oral vaccine: a risk of polio epidemics remains as long as the disease exists anywhere in the world. Credit: IRIN
According to Congolese heal…