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Current Feed ContentWEST AFRICA: A life-changing highwayIf you live along the main highway linking Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire's economic hub, with Lagos in Nigeria, it is almost impossible to ignore the many AIDS awareness messages along the route, travelled by 47 million people each year. "A few years ago I would never have believed it was so easy to get tested [for HIV], since it's so difficult to talk about AIDS in our communities," said Madeleine Abboh, a hairdresser in Hillacondji, a town in Benin near the border with Togo. Abboh was attending the...Training on Power Tiller Installation UnderwayA three-day training exercise on the installation, testing and use of power tillers opened yesterday at the National Agricultural Development Agency (NADA) Headquarters in Yundum. Organised by the Agricultural Engineering Unit of the National Agricultural Development Agency, the three-day exercise aims to equip participants with knowledge and skills on the installation, testing and use of 12 new power tillers recently donated to The Gambia by the government of Indonesia. The training is being...CHAD: HIV/AIDS is not the only threat to lifeIf someone living with HIV in the southern Danamadji regionof Chad needs to go to hospital, and they are not too weak, the best way ofgetting there is usually by ox-cart, but it can take up to a day and a half toget there - unless they are attacked by elephants on the way. Decentralised HIV/AIDS services are slowly being rolledout with the backing of donors and the government, but in many remote areas ofthis huge country (nearly 1.3 million square kilometres, with a population ofless than 10...CHAD: Refugees waiting for HIV servicesMost of the roughly 50,000 people in the Amboko and Dosseye refugee camps near Goré, in the tropical forest of southern Chad, have fled across the border from neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR), but efforts to prevent and treat HIV among the camp residents are still in their infancy. The CAR has an HIV prevalence rate of 10.7 percent, the highest in central Africa, but southern Chad is not far behind. In 2005, official figures put HIV infection at 9.8 percent in Eastern Logone Region,...SOUTH AFRICA: A day in the life of a condom testerBefore you wrap it up, meet the people who check it out. IRIN/PlusNews went inside the condom testing facilities of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) to see what it takes to ensure condoms really are the frontline of HIV/AIDS prevention. The SABS tests everything from disposable nappies (diapers) to sardines at its facility in the country's capital, Pretoria. The building itself is a maze of hallways and laboratories, decked out with all the trappings of science - white coats, glass...SUDAN: HIV status a closely guarded secret for mostFadia Awad offers us sweets, a traditional Sudanese gesture of hospitality, and then asks if we are going to refuse them, as all her neighbours do. She belongs to the Rashaida tribe, a traditionally nomadic people who migrated to eastern Sudan from the Arabian Peninsula in the nineteenth century. She and her son, Hamid, 8, live alone in a spotless, one-room hut in a desert settlement outside Kassala, in eastern Sudan. "Three years ago this house was full of women cooking, talking and...MALAWI: Government proposes mandatory HIV test for pregnant womenMalawi's government is planning to table a controversial bill in Parliament which would require pregnant women to undergo HIV testing. The move is aimed at reducing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, but opponents of the proposed bill argue it would violate women's rights. Malawi's current policy is to routinely test the approximately 500,000 pregnant women who attend antenatal clinics annually, unless they specifically ask not to be. However, according to Dr Mary Shawa, principal secretary...Why Hair Alcohol Testing is Better Than Urine Alcohol TestingFor parents trying to prove their innocence in child custody battles, defendants needing a resource that shows they were not drinking at the time of an accident a month ago or employers looking to hire sober employees, hair alcohol testing is the new alcohol and drug screening technology that is proving the sobriety of parents, convicting the guilty of high alcohol abuse during the moment of a crime and giving confidence to employers to hire safe pilots, surgeons and child care workers. How is...GUINEA-BISSAU: Testing without treatment: an island's dilemmaSaico Djau is a very frustrated laboratory technician and HIV counsellor. After testing people for HIV and informing them of their status there is nothing else he can do for them if they are HIV-positive, because there is no antiretroviral (ARV) treatment available on Guinea Bissau's Bijagos Islands. He has to give them the bad news and then send them back to their villages. In the case of pregnant women, they go with the likelihood that they will pass the virus to their babies. "I feel bad...Top ten most underreported humanitarian stories of 2007 - Drug-resistant tuberculosis spreads as new drugs go untestedEvery year, tuberculosis (TB) kills an estimated two million people and another nine million develop the disease. In spite of the rising human toll, there have been no advances in treatment since the 1960s and the most commonly used diagnostic test—sputum smear microscopy—was developed in 1882 and only detects TB in half of the cases. An estimated $900 million is needed annually for research and development for TB, but only $206 million is invested worldwide. Existing treatments and diagnostics... |
