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.
For more information on HIV/AIDS and Reproductive health, please visit the following websites:
Source: Times Live
Legal abortion has been available in South Africa since 1997, but backstreet abortionists still advertise widely, with some desperate women using over-the-counter herbal products to induce labour.
Research by University of Cape Town Women's Reproductive Health Unit director Professor Jane Harries and colleague Deborah Constant found that 17% of mothers admitted to trying to terminate their pregnancies at home or by approaching a backstreet abortionist.
Source: Daily Observer
The First Lady of the Republic has reaffirmed that the Organisation of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA) remains committed to the global vision of getting to zero discrimination, zero new HIV infection and AIDS related diseases. She noted that their campaign to prevent the transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies is at a particularly crucial moment.
Source: The New Times
Rwandans will no longer have to travel abroad to get fertility-related care following the opening of a fertility clinic in Kigali.
Source: The Analyst
Monrovia — The mother of a fifteen year old girl who gave birth to a triplex in Camp 4 in Nimba County is calling on the government and philanthropic organizations to help provide support for the children.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
THE government envisages building medical operation theatres and maternity waiting rooms in all district health centres, in a quest to improve reproductive health services which, at the moment, are bleak.
Source: Daily News
Women's health is one of the issues that were discussed by Constituent Assembly (CA) women members, when they convened at Saint Gasper Hotel in Dodoma recently.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
IN the course of my duty at Muheza in Tanga Region, I just returned from a burial of an eight months old baby which passed on due to, largely what villagers view, as a result of child neglect.
Source: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
"He fondled my breasts and had sex with me." It is a statement a 15 year old girl should not be making. But faced with growing hunger, from the moment of waking in the morning until laying down to sleep at night, Melody (not her real name) felt she had no other option but to give herself to a man more than four times her age.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
AIRTEL Tanzania is extending its partnership with M-Health Tanzania after a one year successful pilot in the 'Wazazi Nipendeni' campaign.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
Statistics that a total of 5,157 girls dropped out of primary schools due to pregnancies last calendar year, mean so much to little Glades Mtiro.
Being a daughter of subsistence farmers, she grew up at Kange in Tanga, a flat and sparsely populated area. At 15, she met a man twice her age and cultivated a relationship. She then got pregnant.
Source: IRIN NEWS
One-third of all pregnancies in Burkina Faso are unintended and a third of them end in abortion, according to a study published this month by the University of Ouagadougou and the reproductive health think tank Guttmacher Institute, which also found that more than 100,000 abortions were carried out in the country in 2012, most of them performed in unsafe