The maternal mortality ratio is unacceptably high in Africa. Forty per cent of all pregnancy-related deaths worldwide occur in Africa. On average, over 7 women die per 1,000 live births. About 22,000 African women die each year from unsafe abortion, reflecting a high unmet need for contraception. Contraceptive use among women in union varies from 50 per cent in the southern sub-region to less than 10 per cent in middle and western Africa" UNFPA
Early and unwanted childbearing, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and pregnancy-related illnesses and deaths account for a significant proportion of the burden of illness experienced by women in Africa. Gender-based violence is an influential factor negatively impacting on the sexual and reproductive health of one in every three women. Many are unable to control decisions to have sex or to negotiate safer sexual practices, placing them at great risk of disease and health complications.
According to UNAIDS, there is an estimated of 22.2 million people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan African in 2009, which represents 68% of the global HIV burden. Women are at higher risk than men to be infected by HIV, their vulnerability remains particulary high in the Sub-Saharan Africa and 76% of all HIV women in the world live in this region.
In almost all countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, the majority of people living with HIV are women, especially girls and women aged between 15-24. Not only are women more likely to become infected, they are more severely affected. Their income is likely to fall if an adult man loses his job and dies. Since formal support to women are very limited, they may have to give up some income-genrating activities or sacrifice school to take care of the sick relatives.
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Nearly two-thirds of South African women aged 15-49 are making use of modern contraceptives - in line with the average level for developed countries, and three times the average for sub-Saharan Africa - according to the State of World Population 2012 report published by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on Wednesday.
Dr Angela El-Adas, the Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), has said 125,141 persons out of the estimated 225,000 Ghanaians living with HIV and AIDS are women.
Source: The Star
Police in Kuria West district are looking for a teacher who defiled 12 girls, infecting them with gonorrhoea and HIV. The 42-year-old husband of two worked at Nyamboge Primary School in Nyabohanse.
Source: The Observer
Eleven-year-old Juliet Akee wore a brave face as she watched the nurse fill the syringe with a vaccine.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
ONE in eight women in Tanzania develops breast cancer hence the need to take early preventive measures to save them.
In most developing countries, where a woman gives birth still determines whether she lives or dies, despite the availability of inexpensive new medication that is proven to save lives.
Source: ANGOP
The percentage of positive tests in pregnant women countrywide fell from 9.8 in 2007 to 4.8 per cent in 2011, due to the effort made by the Angolan government, through the Ministry of Health, in the fighting against pandemic disease.
Two South African women may have helped unlock the key to a vaccine to rid the world of one its deadliest epidemics, according to new research released by South African HIV experts.
Source: South African Government News Agency
Kenya's Minister of Gender, Children and Social Development Naomi Shaban has praised South Africa's success in tackling HIV and bringing down its mother-to-child infection rate.
At the ministerial meeting of the United Nations Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children, health ministers from seven African countries committed to speed-up access to and use of 13 life-saving commodities to all women and children in their countries by 2015.
Source: This Day
Systemic barriers, such as overarching health system, financial impediments, and severely under-resourced regulatory agencies in low-income countries, market failures, have been identified as the bane of women and children suffering and dying in many countries.