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