Sexual and Reproductive Health with Isaac Eranga

News December 8th, 2014 By: Sara Pellegrom, Women Deliver When Sizwe Nzima was a high school student in Cape Town, South Africa, he would pick up his grandparents’ HIV medications because they had difficulty getting to the clinic themselves. There were long lines and Mzima usually had to wait several hours and make multiple trips to the clinic to get the medicine. He even tried to bride the pharmacists to speed up the process, but it didn’t work. This sparked an idea: an HIV medication delivery service . Nzima did some research on the topic. He found that although some companies were delivering medicine to people’s homes, no one was servicing the city’s low-income neighborhoods – where unemployment is high and most people in makeshift homes. Nzima contacted the companies to find out why and was told that it wasn’t because the companies were not interested in working in these townships, but because they could not find the houses. "You punch [an address]

December 9th, 2014 Originally posted by Family Planning 2020   Five new commitments to Family Planning 2020 will improve health and drive economic development in the world’s poorest countries. Family Planning 2020 also announces Rights and Empowerment Principles for Family Planning. Washington, DC – December 9, 2014: Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), the global partnership dedicated to improving access to family planning information, services and supplies, today announced three additional African nations – Burundi, Cameroon and Togo – made commitments that will enable more women to decide, freely and for themselves, whether and when to have children. The new additions increased the total number of focus countries making pledges to FP2020 to 32. Further commitments to support the achievement of FP2020’s goal through funding and programming were made by The Brush Foundation and EngenderHealth. FP2020 worked with a

A new study reports that antibiotic use during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk for obesity in the child. Researchers studied 436 mothers and their children from birth until age seven, gathering data on antibiotic use from interviews. After controlling for gestational age, birth weight, breast-feeding, maternal body mass index and socioeconomic status, among other variables, they found that antibiotic use during the second and third trimesters was associated with an 84 per cent increased risk for obesity in the child. The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, also found that cesarean section was associated with a 46 per cent increased risk for obesity in the offspring, confirming previous studies. The authors acknowledge that they had no data on which antibiotics were administered or for what infections, factors that could have affected their results. The mechanism is unclear, and the study shows only an association, but the le

Posted by Eranga Isaac Reductions in government healthcare spending in the European Union are associated with increased maternal mortality rates, suggests a new article. However, if skilled birth attendants are in place, the association disappears, highlighting the potential importance of maternal care, finds the research. An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG). However, if skilled birth attendants are in place, the association disappears, highlighting the potential importance of maternal care, finds the research. The study looks at the association between reductions in government healthcare spending (GHS) and maternal mortality across the European Union (EU) over a 30 year period from 1981 to 2010. Maternal mortality is defined as the death of a woman during pregnancy, childbirth, or within 42 days of delivery from direct obstetric causes. GHS is the total expenditure on health care by a government measured as a percentage of gross domestic

Late last night, we got information from a very reliable source that President Goodluck Jonathan had signed the National Health Bill into law. This morning, presidential spokesman Dr Reuben Abati confirmed this on Twitter. This is a fantastic end of year present to Nigeria, given that the bill was running the risk of expiry for the second time, having made its way through both Houses of Assembly twice. The “National Health Bill” is now the Act to provide 'A Framework for the Regulation, Development and Management of a National Health System and set Standards for Rendering Health Services in the Federation, and Other Matters Connected there with, 2014' , We told the tale of the bill’s history in a blog post a few weeks ago, and our friends at Education as a Vaccine wrote this petition, which outlines some of the benefits of the Bill . At Nigeria Health Watch, we believe in celebrating the positive as well as holding people and institutions accountable on the

  Engaging Women In Reproductive Health Advocacy By ERANGA ISAAC-08059233001     The role of women in Maternal Newborn and Child Health Advocacy and Services cannot be over-emphasized. Below are six steps suggested by Alice Welbourn, Founding Director of Salamander Trust. 1 - The first suggested step is that we keep things simple. We all have really complex lives and simplicity is always welcome! Here are some examples of how to keep things simple. Firstly, language. As I have explained elsewhere, we know now from recent scientific research that use of positive language actually makes us feel good because of increased oxytocin and serotonin levels in our bodies. It also enables us to

October 9 2014 Africa Health, Human & Social Development Information Service (Afri-Dev.Info) Media / Public Statement on: Africa's Governance Preparedness for - New Global Post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals; Implementation of ICPD Beyond 2014 Review; & The Evolving AU Africa 2063 Development Agenda - Coming up at the January 2015 Summit. In the Aftermath of the recent UN General Assembly Debates on Sustainable Development - Afri-Dev Publishes 3 Innovative Governance Scorecards on: Population, Health, Gender, Governance & Development : (Focusing on - Reproductive & Sexual Health; Total Fertility Rates; Underage/Child 'Marriage'; Maternal & Child Health; HIV, Malaria & Immunization)  Governance Capacity & Outreach : (Focusing on - Adult Literacy; Civil Registration & Vital Statistics; Households With Television; Access to Electricity; & Local Government). Governance Services & Disease Prevention : (Focusing on

 Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin BIOGRAPHY On 1 January 2011, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, a physician and public health expert, became only the fourth Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. He holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Before this appointment, Dr. Osotimehin was Nigeria’s Minister of Health. Prior to that, he was Director-General of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Control of AIDS, which coordinates HIV and AIDS work in a country of more than 160 million people. Dr. Osotimehin qualified as a doctor from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1972, and went to the University of Birmingham, England, where he got a doctorate in medicine in 1979. He was appointed Professor at the University of Ibadan in 1980 and headed the Department of Clinical Pathology before being elected Provost of the College of Medicine in 1990. Years later, he served in several organizations, including as Chair of the National Act

Notagain Campaign NPHCDA SET TO ENHANCE MATERNAL, CHILD HEALTH –SURE The National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, has set up a steering committee in Ekiti State towards ensuring the successful implementation of its SUREP Maternal and Child Health, MCH, Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT programme. Its Executive Director/ CEO, Dr. Ado Muhammad, said the project targeted improvement of maternal and child health through properly equipped facilities with workers capable of providing s ervice delivery. Muhammad, who spoke during the inauguration of the committee in Ado- Ekiti at the weekend, said “the CCT project is not only designed to encourage pregnant women to go through the full continuum of maternal, neonatal and child health services, it is also meant to improve the welfare of beneficiaries through cash support in order to reduce the impact of economic barriers to access health services.” Maternal Child Mortality Drops In Nigeria – Project Direct

Notagain Campaign About 150,000 women suffering from obstetrics fistula are awaiting surgical operations, the Engender Health, a nongovern-mental organization, has disclosed. The country programme manager, Fistula Care Plus project, Dr Habib Sadauki disclosed this yesterday in Abuja during the launch of the project. Fistula is the occurrence of an abnormal hole between the bladder or rectum and the vagina characterized by continuous and uncontrollable leakage of urine and/or faeces following childbirth. “We are at a critical time in Nigeria where we can make even greater impact so that more women living with fistula can be treated. We have an estimated number of 150,000 cases of fistula in the country still waiting to be repaired and on annual basis, we see about 12,000 new cases in the country. “We also want to encourage mothers to prepare for their birth and deliver in health facilities where a professional will take their delivery and they will not go int

A call to rethink the aid effectiveness debate By Anna Patricia Valerio 29 August 2014 Food aid distribution in Pakistan, where 12.5 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance following heavy floods in August 2010. Does aid work? A new working paper suggests that the aid effectiveness debate could benefit from asking slightly different questions. Photo by: Rob Holden / Department for International Development  / CC BY-NC-ND The debate surrounding foreign aid effectiveness is often framed around whether or not aid works, but that, according to a new working paper  on the issue released this week, may just be the tip of the iceberg. Nancy Qian, associate professor of economics at Yale University and author of the paper, which will be published  in the Annual Review of Economics next year, suggests that the often polarizing discussion on aid effectiveness could very well benefit from asking slightly different questions. Qian starts out by laying out some figu

Magnetic Bacteria Could Help Destroy Tumors and Fight Cancer By Samantha Olson / August 18, 2014 1:54 PM EDT Gold nanoparticles. David McCarthy/Science Source Surgery. Radiotherapy. Chemotherapy. Those are the cancer treatments most of us are familiar with, and in many cases, even all three combined are not enough to provide a complete cure. But a new and innovative approach may enable oncologists to add another option to the list. An artificial magnetic bacterium was recently created in a Spanish laboratory that, when ingested, can work as a magnetically charged compass that targets tumors and destroys them by spinning so fast the tumors heat up and melt. It’s based on an experimental treatment methodology called “magnetic hyperthermia” that exposes tumors filled with magnetic nanoparticles to a

Introducing the CCGHR’s Stories of Mentorship by the CCGHR Mentorship Project Team With funding support from the Global Health Research Initiative, the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research (CCGHR) has identified a number of exciting mentorship initiatives from Canada, Africa, Latin America, and the UK/Europe to strengthen global health research capacity. One or more key actors associated with each initiative were invited to join the CCGHR Mentorship Project Team and contribute a story about their program. Our Approach to Assembling and Telling the Mentorship Stories The team’s aim was to assemble a collection of stories, each with a different central theme. When read together, these stories would reveal a rich and detailed understanding about the practice of mentorship and about the particularities of mentorship in the context of global health research. We likened this collection of stories to an exhibit of paintings in an art gallery — an exhibit in which t