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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Source: Leadership
Gov. Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta, has urged pregnant women in rural areas to access the free modern maternal healthcare provided by the state government.
Source: Daily News Egypt
Physical or sexual violence is a serious public health problem that affects more than one-third of all women globally, as was established in a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the South African Medical Research Council.
Source: The Standard
More than half (60 per cent) of all pregnancies to women under the age of 25 ended in an abortion in Kisii since July this year, a study has revealed.
Source: The Guardian
Hundreds of pregnant women and girls are dying needlessly in South Africa, partly because of well-founded fears that their HIV status may be revealed during antenatal care, leading to discrimination in their communities and homes, according to Amnesty International.
In a report released on Thursday, Amnesty said that field research in the eastern provinces of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal showed women’s HIV status was sometimes revealed at antenatal clinics, with staff showing scant regard for patients’ right to confidentiality.
Something as simple as the queue women were asked to join could be enough to reveal a woman’s positive status, leaving her exposed to the stigma that persists around the virus that causes Aids.
More than a third of the 1,426 reported maternal deaths in 2012 were linked to HIV, the report said. Experts estimated that 60% of all the deaths were avoidable. A lack of information about sexual and reproductive health and poor roads also contributed to hundreds of maternal deaths by discouraging women from seeking adequate and timely antenatal care.
The report said that nearly a quarter of avoidable maternal deaths were linked to late or no access to antenatal care, which is free in South Africa’s public health system.
Amnesty’s secretary general, Salil Shetty, said: “It is unacceptable that pregnant women and girls are continuing to die in South Africa because they fear their HIV status will be revealed, or because of a lack of transport or basic health and sexuality education. This cannot continue.”
The report found that many women and girls do not attend clinics until the latter stages of pregnancy because they have been led to believe an HIV test is compulsory. In the report, some women who did attend clinics described how their HIV status could be revealed through negligence, inconsiderate processes and even workplace gossip.
“The nurses are talking about people and their status,” a woman from KwaZulu-Natal told the report’s authors.
In several clinics visited, the processing system identified pregnant women and girls living with HIV. Some used separate queues for antiretroviral medication, different-coloured antenatal files, and different days for appointments.
“[I]f I go for antiretroviral, my line is that side. All the people in this line, they know these people are HIV. That’s why people are afraid to come to the clinic,” a woman from Mpumalanga told Amnesty.
“During antenatal care, if women come out of the counsellor’s room with two files, then everyone knows they are HIV positive,” said another woman.
Women and girls told the report’s authors that they feared discrimination from partners and family members as a result of testing positive for HIV, and that stigma around the virus remained a problem in many communities.
Shetty said that HIV testing must be done in a manner that respects the rights of women and girls, without exposing them to additional harm.
She added that “it is vital that healthcare workers in South Africa receive additional training on providing quality care that is both free of judgment and stigma, and that women and girls accessing sexual and reproductive health services are able to trust that their confidentiality will be respected”. She called on the South African government to take urgent steps to ensure the privacy of pregnant women and girls is respected in health facilities.
In April, South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council found that the prevalence of HIV and Aids in South Africa was rising, partly because the country has the world’s fastest growth rate in new infections and partly because patients were surviving longer, due to an expanded antiretroviral treatment programme.
The report said an estimated 12.2% of South Africa’s population was infected with the HIV virus in 2012, compared with 10.6% in 2008, based on a survey of 38,000 people. The percentage rise was partly due to the discovery of 400,000 new cases in the year studied, bringing the total number of infected people to 6.4 million, it said.
“The HIV incidence rates among women are of particular concern,” the report stated. It noted that the rate among females aged between 15-24 years was more than four times higher than for males in this age group. Overall, knowledge about how HIV is transmitted and can be prevented fell to 26.8% in 2012, compared with 30.3% in 2008.
In its study, Amnesty said many women, especially adolescents, lacked sufficient knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights, increasing the risk of unplanned pregnancies and HIV transmission. Women and girls were also often unaware of how important it is to have early antenatal checks.
Even if women do want to attend clinics, the state of the roads and the lack of reliable public transport can be obstacles. Amnesty said that some of the roads were so poor that they became impassable during the rainy season, with ambulances also refusing to go beyond a certain point on some roads.
The report’s authors called on the South African government to ensure that all health system procedures uphold patient privacy, particularly for people living with HIV. They also urged it to improve knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights, and urgently address the lack of safe, convenient and adequate transport.
“The South African government must ensure all departments work together to urgently address all the barriers that place the health of pregnant women and girls at risk,” Shetty added.
Source: The Nation
Women's reproductive rights are at risk of being de-emphasized as UN member nations draft the Sustainable Development Goals.
Source: Ghana Web
Global leaders have called for the prioritization of sexual and reproductive health rights in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
Source: Lusaka Voice
Minister of Community Development, Mother and Child Health, Emerine Kabanshi says Zambia remains committed to strengthening the her health systems so as to provide universal access to sexual and reproductive health services in order to save lives.
Source: Sogi News
Address by South Africa’s Minister for Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini, MP, on the occasion of the United Nations General Assembly on the commission on population and development on harnessing the demographic dividend and ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health in Africa, at the UN Headquarters in New York.
Source: GhanaWeb
Despite progress that Africa has made in the past 20 years in the advancement of women, over 180,000 women on the continent still die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth each year.
Source: The Guardian
Those who design nutrition programmes can no longer ignore the evidence that success depends in part on women's power
Source: IPS
It is a long, 14-hour drive from Niger's capital city Niamey to the village of Bande. And the ride is a dreary one as the roadside is bare. The occasional, lone goat herder is spotted every few kilometres and the sightings become a cause of both confusion and excitement since there aren't any trees, or watering holes in sight.