Factors Contributing to Health Of Women Worldwide: The Kaiser Family Foundation features a narrated slide tutorial by epidemiologist Laurel Spielberg on the health issues facing women around the world. The tutorial touches on issues such as economic status and biological, social, and cultural factors that affect women’s health, as well as…

Tanzania Unlikely To Reach MDG Targets, Local Organizations Say “Local organizations say that it’s unlikely for Tanzania to achieve targets set under the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 because the country is still besieged by pervasive unemployment, high levels of poverty, escalating child mortality and counterproductive rural-urban migration,”…

Researchers Find Flu Vaccine Created Using Faster Technique As Effective As Traditional Vaccine A seasonal flu vaccine “made using quicker cell-based manufacturing methods was at least as effective at preventing flu as conventional vaccines grown in chicken eggs,” researchers reported Tuesday in the journal Lancet, Reuters reports. The clinical trial, conducted…

The Future Of Global Health Journalism: This report for the Kaiser Family Foundation found that shrinking newsroom budgets and the closing of many foreign bureaus are curtailing global health coverage within traditional news media outlets. Advocacy and nongovernmental organizations are increasingly bypassing news outlets and producing their own content, leading to questions…

“Babies who are exposed to HIV at birth but don’t become infected with the virus have lower levels of antibodies to diseases such as whooping cough, tetanus and pneumococcus,” according to a study published in the Feb. 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), HealthDay News/U.S. News & World Report (2/8). The findings “might explain in part why uninfected babies born to women with HIV have a higher risk of illness and death early in life,” according to a press release by the Imperial College of London, whose researchers helped lead the study.

U.N. officials on Sunday called for countries to renew their commitment to end female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), a practice which endangers the lives of women and girls, Inter Press Service reports (Deen, 2/7).

Ethiopian Government Says 2.8M Ethiopians Need Emergency Food Aid “Ethiopia and the United Nations said on Monday 2.8 millions Ethiopians will need emergency food aid in 2011, and appealed for $227 million to fund programmes for the first six months,” Reuters reports (2/7). According to Bloomberg, a drought in the Somali…

Uganda Launches Program To Attract Farmers To Produce Staple Food Crops Uganda recently launched a program aimed at attracting farmers in the country to produce staple food crops, the East African reports. The strategy, contained in the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) Implementation Guidelines, will offer “[e]ach farming household ……

Here is a sampling of opinions about recent media reports of corruption and fraud in some Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria grants: The Lancet: Supporting the Global Fund to fight fraud (2/5). Nature: Tough on truth (2/3). Huffington Post: Why We Must Protect the Global Fund (Zeitz, 2/1).…

On the sidelines of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Monday, the General Assembly of the Organization of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA) gathered to discuss the continent’s progress against HIV/AIDS, Walta Info reports.