Kigali, Rwanda 29 November 2010 — The Ministry of Health (MoH), has dedicated this week to the health of mothers and children, with various activities lined up across the country to promote their wellbeing.According to the Ministry of Health, the objective of the week is to counter the causes of deaths amongst children and mothers - one of the top priorities of President Paul Kagame's second term in office.Most of these diseases that claim numerous lives of children and mothers are preventable.Speaking during a live televised town hall meeting, yesterday, the Minister of Health, Dr. Richard Sezibera, said that though Rwanda has taken strides in reducing deaths in mothers and children, ther...

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 9th November 2010 - Elizabeth Kaboré says she has paid for each of her visits to the clinic, despite a government promise that prenatal check-ups in health centres would be free. "Far from being free, at each consultation, I've had to pay 600 CFA francs (around $1.20) to see the midwives," says Kaboré, several months pregnant. "For an injection, I pay 100 FCFA and the mid-wife explained to me that this money was for the guards at the facility."   Human rights organisation Amnesty International points to financial obstacles as one of the leading obstacles preventing the reduction of high rates of maternal mortality in Burkina Faso."In our society, it's m...

Maputo, Mozambique, 23 November 2010 - Mozambique has joined the ranks of the 19 countries that have eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus since 2000, according to a validation survey conducted last month in compliance with World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus is defined as an incidence of less than one case per 1000 live births in every district of the country.The community-based validation survey was conducted by Mozambique’s Health Authorities with support from UNICEF and WHO in two districts in the south and central regions of the country where incidence of neonatal and maternal tetanus was highest. No neonatal death from tetanus ...

Nairobi, 12 November 2010 — In the living lounge of St Andrew's PCEA Tumaini Children's Home, a group of children are watching a Christian movie on TV.It is 4pm, and nine of them have just returned from the nearby Hekima Primary School, while another 15 have come down from their classroom on the second floor of the three-storey building.What started off as a three-bedroom charity project on December 15, 2001 with just 10 children has become a sanctuary for the children, staffed by three housemothers and a manager. Although the six-apartment home can accommodate as many as 50 children, at the moment it only has 24 because of the costs involved.It takes big hearts and enormous goodwill on t...