Tanzania

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A new Global Action Plan launched today by the WHO and UNICEF has the potential to save up to 2 million children every year from deaths caused by pneumonia and diarrhoea, some of the leading killers of children under five globally.

The Integrated Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea calls for closer integration of efforts to prevent and treat these two diseases and sets ambitious targets to reduce mortality rates and raise levels of children’s access to life-saving interventions.

Cataract surgery can improve the care of children orphaned by Aids dramatically and rapidly, a Swaziland study published in last month's South African Medical Journal has found.

At 26.3%, Swaziland has the highest percentage of adults infected with HIV in the world, which has resulted in thousands of orphans. In 2010, Swaziland health authorities estimated that almost a quarter of all children in the country had lost one or both parents to HIV.

Contents of Newsletter

Welcome to the 95th issue of HIV This Week ! In this issue, we cover the following topics:

1. Young people
• Sexual risk for HIV in South Africa and the USA: it is not at all what you think

Only one in three Mozambicans, Tanzanians and Zimbabweans who need antiretroviral medicine are getting it, according to new research.

The biggest barriers to effective HIV treatment were centralised service provision, which meant many primary health centres did not stock ARVs, and a shortage of health workers, according to the report from the Community based systems in HIV treatment (CoBaSys) programme.

Some health workers were also charging patients to have their CD4 counts taken or to get ARVs in some rural facilities although these were supposed to be free.

The programme conducted research at 12 sites in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana and Tanzania.

Many of the world’s women are moving closer to gender equality, but substantial gaps remain between men and women in health, education and, particularly, political and economic participation in a number of countries, including some of the most developed, according to a new global report.

Measuring against 2010 rankings, for example, the Sixth Annual World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2011 found that New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom showed slight declines in their overall gender equality rankings, while Brazil, Ethiopia, Qatar, Tanzania and Turkey posted gains.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 12, 2011 (IPS) - Cell phones and computer applications can help save the lives of thousands of mothers and children worldwide.

This is one of the main conclusions of "Innovating for Every Woman, Every Child", a report by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Innovation Working Group (IWG) published Monday.

ROME, 18 July 2011 (PlusNews) - Countries that have been quick to incorporate medical male circumcision into their HIV prevention programmes are already seeing good results compared with those t