Poverty, Gender, and Youth
Innovative Program Dramatically Lowers Child
Mortality in Ghana
If you live in a remote location where more than one in ten babies die before age
five,
what do you do? Scientists at the Navrongo Health Research Centre in
rural northern Ghana teamed with researchers at the Population Council to
design and test an innovative program—employing nurses on motorbikes and
using community volunteers—to deliver health care to people in their own
homes. The program has succeeded in cutting deaths among children younger
than five years by more than half and is on track to achieve a two-thirds reduction in the
next few years. A two-thirds reduction of mortality among children under age
five by 2015 is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by the United
Nations in 2000. The program has thus demonstrated how professionals in a
resource-poor setting can reach such a goal relatively quickly. The program
has also increased contraceptive use, reduced fertility, and sought to
reduce or eliminate female genital mutilation/cutting. The program has been
so successful that the government of Ghana is scaling it up across the
country.
HIV and AIDS
Comprehensive Program Successfully Decreases HIV Risk Behaviors
Researchers
with the Population Council’s Horizons program recently concluded a project
to provide HIV-related testing and counseling services to truck drivers
traveling through a customs station at the southern border of Brazil. These
services were offered as part of a broader set of health services, including
testing for diabetes and high blood pressure, in order to reduce the
stigmatization associated with HIV services. A study found that the project
greatly improved access to voluntary counseling and testing for HIV and
significantly reduced the incidence of behaviors known to increase HIV risk,
as compared to a control site that did not offer the services.
Reproductive Health
Pakistan: Multifaceted Approach Reduces Infant
Deaths
A Population
Council project has succeeded in significantly reducing perinatal deaths in
Dera Ghazi Khan, a predominantly rural district in Pakistan’s Punjab
province. The project addresses multiple factors that contribute to maternal
and infant deaths.
Focus On: Microbicide Development
Tests Suggest New Microbicide Will Have
Improved Efficacy
Petri-dish
tests of a new candidate microbicide indicate that the formulation is likely
to be more effective at preventing the sexual transmission of HIV than the
first-generation candidates currently in clinical trials. The new compound, called PC-815, combines Carraguard®,
the Population Council’s first-generation candidate, with an anti-HIV drug
called MIV-150. The drug stops HIV from reproducing by blocking the reverse
transcriptase enzyme, which normally allows the virus to replicate and
spread.
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