26th May 2010, Jakarta - Millions of Indonesian children remain vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and discrimination because the government has not prioritised children’s rights, says a coalition of NGOs. On 25 May, the National NGO Coalition for Child Rights Monitoring launched its review report on the implementation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) between 1997 and 2009, making a number of recommendations to better protect Indonesian children. “The government has shown a lack of initiative in integrating the CRC with Indonesian law,” said Ahmad Taufan Damanik, executive coordinator for the National NGO Coalition for Child Monitoring in Jakarta. Among the recommen...

20th May 2010, Jakarta - Health authorities are successfully battling malaria in remote eastern Indonesia by linking efforts to fight the mosquito-borne disease to maternal and child healthcare."Pregnant women and children are especially vulnerable to malaria, and modern malaria diagnosis and prevention can be delivered via existing maternal health and immunisation services in a symbiotic way," said William Hawley, a malaria expert with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).Nurses and midwives help the malaria programme with diagnosis, treatment and bed net distribution, Hawley said. Furthermore, because people want bed nets, more women use antenatal care and bring their children to be immunised."...

16th May 2010, Dushanbe - A sharp decrease in polio cases is expected as a result of an ongoing nationwide anti-polio immunization campaign in Tajikistan, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).“During the immunization campaign we are vaccinating all children under six, which is about 1.1 million children. We are sure that the result of these three rounds will be a decrease of infected cases,” Cristiana Salvi, a spokesperson for WHO in Tajikistan, told IRIN in the capital Dushanbe.The first round of the campaign ended on 8 May 2010, the second round will take place on 18-22 May and the third is slated for 1-5 June.According to WHO, as of 9 May, Tajikistan had reported 278 cases...

14th May 2010, Kathmandu - Aid agencies are urging Nepal to implement stronger water and sanitation measures to prevent diarrhoea outbreaks, which claim hundreds of lives each year.Ahead of next month's monsoon season - the four- to five-month period when there is a spike in diarrhoea-related deaths - aid workers have been calling on the government to prepare for a deluge of cases."This is the period of water-borne disease, and there is a lack of effective awareness programmes, which has to be stressed a lot to reduce the outbreak," said Richard Ragan, country representative of the UN World Food Programme, which is involved in public health education about safe drinking water and sanitation ...