Though India has seen a dramatic fall in maternal mortality rate (MMR) by 59% between 1990 and 2008, the country is still home to the highest number of women dying during childbirth across the world. India's MMR stood at 570 in 1990, which fell to 470 per 100,000 live births in 1995, 390 in 2000, 280 in 2005 and 230 in 2008. India, which has seen an annual decrease of...
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Greater progress needed despite recent drop in maternal deaths, say UN agencies
While the number of maternal deaths has recently dropped by one third, United Nations agencies today stressed that more must be done to save the lives of women given that 1,000 of them still die every day due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth. According to a new report released by the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank, the...
More »Naco's new AIDS strategy to focus on would-be migrants by Kounteya Sinha
Come October, migrants, believed to be fuelling India's HIV epidemic, will get a quick crash course on safe sex and dangers of risky sexual behaviour, just before they board their train to large towns and cities in search of work. In what will be one of the most ambitious interventions to combat HIV, the National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) has identified 68 main railway stations in districts across 11 states...
More »UN health agency cautions on drug-resistant disease-causing germs
The ability of illness-causing germs to resist drugs has become a challenge to efforts against infectious diseases, the United Nations health agency said today, urging countries to implement infection control measures to limit the spread of multi-drug resistant strains of micro-organisms. “Some bacteria have developed mechanisms which render them resistant to many of the antibiotics normally used for their treatment, so pose particular difficulties, as there may be few or no...
More »AIDS stigma drives HIV in India: World Bank study
HIV prevalence in India and South Asia is growing among sex workers and other high risk groups due to widespread failure to prevent stigmatising of people living with AIDS, according to a new report. Despite prevention and other efforts to reduce high-risk behaviours such as unprotected sex, buying and selling of sex, and injecting drug use, HIV vulnerability and risk remain high, says the report by a team from the...
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