AIDS Conference calls for refocusing attention on prevention

Speakers at the closing session of the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City called for the marriage of prevention and treatment and an end to stigma and discrimination. FCI’s article, "From PMTCT (Preventing Mother to Child Transmission) to a More Comprehensive Aids Response for Women: A Much-Needed Shift", published in April 2008 by the journal Developing World Bioethics, explores the importance of a broader approach to prevention and treatment that considers women’s health needs, rather than seeing them primarily as a means for the transmission of HIV to children. The article cites the need for programs to: 1) pay equal attention to the prevention of HIV infection in pregnant and non-pregnant women, examining how gender inequality increases vulnerabilities to violence, unintended pregnancy, and risk of HIV transmission; 2) prevent unintended pregnancy in HIV positive women; and 3) increase access to adequate testing, treatment, and care for HIV positive pregnant women, before, during and after childbirth. Click here to read the article.

Academic and government officials joined FCI at a press conference in Mali on July 31 to spotlight their action plans to lower Mali’s high maternal and newborn mortality rates. Prof. Dolo said: “In Mali mothers die because of delays in seeking care, delays in traveling to a health care facility, and delays in receiving care once there.” He quoted Fred Sai, adviser to the president of Ghana on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, and chair of FCI’s board of directors: “No country sends its soldiers to war to protect a nation without ensuring that they will return safe and sound; and still the human race has women renew human resources without protecting them.” The event received extensive media coverage, raising awareness of Mali’s high maternal mortality rate. Click here to read more.

While national laws and policies in many countries recognize the critical importance of young people’s health and rights, many of these policies not been implemented. FCI has just released Mobilising Communities on Young People’s Health and Rights: An Advocacy Toolkit for Programme Managers that carefully lays out the steps in designing and  launching an advocacy strategy to ensure that existing government commitments are translated into concrete