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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South Africa has charted a significant decline in mother-to-child HIV transmission for the second consecutive year, with new data showing that just 2.7 percent of babies born to HIV-positive mums contracted the virus by six weeks of age, compared to 8 percent in 2008.
Source:RH Reality Check
A new report by the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, an independent body of former world leaders and top legal, human rights and HIV experts, released on the eve of the London Summit on Family Planning, has labeled the global response to the AIDS epidemic as "stifled."
Globally, young women between the ages of 15 and 24 years are twice as likely as their male counterparts to contract HIV. HIV is the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age. Women and girls make up 60 percent of the people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the world’s HIV cases.
Melinda Gates wants you to know this: if women in poor countries can get the contraceptives they want, millions of lives will be saved.
Source: IRIN
Decades of conflict and marginalization have left South Sudan the most dangerous country on earth in which to give birth.
Source: AllAfrica
A slightly higher proportion of babies was saved from HIV infection in 2011 than in the previous year, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said on Thursday.
Source: IRIN News
"More women die in child birth, per capita, in South Sudan, than in any country in the world," says Caroline Delany, a health specialist with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in South Sudan which is funding a raft of maternal health programmes.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has selected Asha-Rose Migiro of Tanzania, former United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, as his Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa – one of several appointments announced today.
Improving family planning to avoid unwanted pregnancies in developing countries, as well as assuring girls’ access to education, and women’s participation in the economy, are essential components of a sound development policy, according to Western experts and African activists.
Source: The Southern Times
In Africa, the two major routes through which the HIV virus that causes AIDS is transmitted are unprotected sex and mother-to-child HIV transmission during pregnancy, labour and breastfeeding.
At the London Summit on Family Planning, IPPF - the world's foremost sexual and reproductive health and rights organization - has made an unprecedented commitment to treble the number of women's and girls' lives saved each year by 2020.