Dalia Acosta

PINAR DEL RÍO, Cuba, Mar 26 2008 (IPS) – Prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, the AIDS virus, has become the centre of the lives of a small group of women in the province of Pinar del Río, in the west of Cuba.
Coordinated by the Women s Project in the Provincial Centre for Prevention of STIs and HIV/AIDS, they design educational strategies for villages and towns in the province, and advise the activists who promote responsible sexual behaviour among the local population.

Our work is to explain all the problems related to AIDS and STI prevention, and also how women can become health promoters in their homes and neighbourhoods, Martha Bermúdez, one of the 10 women making up the team of experts, tells IPS.

One of …

Marwaan Macan-Markar

Bangkok, Jul 15 2010 (IPS) – In a western corner of Cambodia known for battles waged by the genocidal Khmer Rouge decades ago, a new war is being fought. Its target, this time, is the lethal malaria parasite that is resistant to the most effective drugs available today.
In the frontline are teams of village volunteers who fan out across the mountainous province of Pailin, close to the Thai-Cambodian border, to supply free early diagnosis and treatment services to vulnerable communities in this malaria-infested region.

The village malaria workers in Pailin are part of 3,000 volunteers in the country who have been trained to help with early detection of malaria in the local communities, said Nguon Sokomar of the Phnom Penh-based National Centre for…

Matthew O. Berger and Peter Boaz

WASHINGTON, Sep 28 2010 (IPS) – Although the world will miss the 2010 deadline for universal access to HIV treatment, some countries, notably in sub- Saharan Africa, have made real strides forward, three United Nations agencies reported Tuesday.
The goal was set in 2006, but, as the joint report lays out, only some countries will achieve universal access, defined as coverage of at least 80 percent of the population in need, by the end of this year.

As with many health goals, progress is marked by unevenness both between regions and between aspects of the treatment needed.

While prevention efforts to reach the most at-risk populations globally – sex workers, drug users and men who have sex with men – are still limited, for i…

Qadir Sheikh, a landmine victim from Warsun, laments that his handicap will mean no education for his two daughters. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

SRINAGAR, May 18 2013 (IPS) – Aadil Khan and his two siblings had been playing as usual behind their house in the village of Diver, 110 kilometres north of Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, when they came across what they thought was a “plaything” laying on the ground. But no sooner had they picked the object up than it literally shattered their innocent lives into pieces.

Stunned by the explosion from the shell, which the children had mistaken …

Smallholder farmers prosper if they have access to knowledge and use of inputs such as fertilizers and credit. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

LOUIS TRICHARDT, South Africa, Jul 26 2016 (IPS) – Brightly coloured cans, bags of fertilizer and packets containing all types of seeds catch the eye upon entering Nancy Khorommbi’s agro dealer shop tucked at the corner of a roadside service station.

But her seeds and fertilizers have not exactly been flying off the shelves since Khorommbi opened the fledging shop six years ago. Her custome…