A new MEASURE DHS study of 10 sub-Saharan African countries finds that, in most countries, receiving multiple medical injections is significantly linked to being HIV-infected, for both women and men. Having ever received a blood transfusion also tends to be positively associated with being HIV-infected.

New estimates of the orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in sub-Saharan Africa paint a stark picture of the heavy burden borne by Africa’s youngest citizens. The scope of the problem is enormous, with more than 6 million OVC in Tanzania and Uganda, more than 3 million in Cameroon, Kenya and Zimbabwe, slightly less than 3 million in Cote d’Ivoire and Malawi, and a half million in Lesotho, according to a new study.    

One in five married women report that they have ever experienced physical violence by their husband reports the 2007 Jordan Population and Family Health Survey. Twelve percent of these women experienced spousal physical violence within the past year. The 2007 JPFHS provides the first nationally representative data on domestic violence in the country. Only a small proportion of abused women seek help from medical personnel, police, or lawyers.

While almost all Rwandan health care facilities offer services for sick children and about three-fourths offer antenatal care and family planning, the quality of care needs improvement, according to the newly released 2007 Rwanda Service Provision Assessment Survey (RSPA). Poor infection control, lack of client counseling, and frequent stock outs of essential drugs are the major concerns. These problems are found nationwide, according to the survey of 538 facilities.

Twenty-five percent of women and 32 percent of men have hypertension reports the 2007 Ukraine Demographic and Health Survey. The majority of these women and men are unaware of their hypertensive status. Hypertension increases dramatically as women and men age. Over half of women and men age 45 and older have some form of hypertension, indicating that high blood pressure is a serious public health problem in Ukraine.

Across the developing world, thousands of young adults do not know how to protect themselves from HIV, other sexually transmitted infections, and unwanted pregnancies, according to a new global study on youth. Only about a third of young women in Egypt, Jordan, and Indonesia, for example, know that using condoms can reduce the risk of HIV infection. In most of the 33 countries studied, less than a third of young women know when they are fertile during their monthly cycles.   

A new Macro International/MEASURE DHS study challenges widely held beliefs about “slim disease,” as HIV was once called.  In a study of women in 12 sub-Saharan African countries, authors found that in 10 countries, HIV infection is higher among overweight women than among underweight women.  HIV prevalence is highest among underweight women only in Malawi. 

More Namibians are getting tested for HIV, young people are waiting longer to start sexual activity, and use of condoms has increased, according to the new 2006-07 Namibia Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) just released today. At the same time, the HIV epidemic continues to ravage the population. Adult mortality has increased, and one in four children is orphaned or sharing households with very ill adults. 

CALVERTON, MD, October 1, 2008-Macro today announced that it was awarded the MEASURE Phase III Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) contract for international survey research in population and health by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The five-year project will support the Monitoring and Evaluation to Assess and Use Results (MEASURE) Program by serving as the Bureau for Global Health's primary demographic and health data collection effort.

Only one percent of Congolese adults are infected with HIV, reports the first ever Democratic Republic of Congo Demographic Health Survey. National prevalence is 1.3 percent, while prevalence is almost twice as high among women as among men (1.6 and 0.9 percent, respectively). Men and women living in urban areas are twice as likely to be infected as those in rural areas.

More than 70 percent of health care facilities in Uganda offer basic health services--curative care for sick children, immunisation, treatment of sexually transmitted infections, and family planning; 45 percent of facilities provide 24-hour services for childbirth. Preventive care and counseling are far less available.  Lack of running water and shortages of some types of medicines compromise the quality of care offered to children and adults. These problems are found nationwide, in both governmental and non-governmental facilities, and in all types of facilities, according to a new survey conducted by the Ministry of Health.

The fertility rate is holding steady in Azerbaijan at about 2 children per woman, according to a new national health survey. The State Statistical Committee released the final report for the 2006 Azerbaijan Demographic and Health Survey (AzDHS) recently in Baku.  It is the first DHS ever conducted in Azerbaijan. More than 8,000 women and 2,500 men across the country were interviewed for the survey.

According to the nationally representative 2007 Liberia Demographic and Health Survey (LDHS), 2 percent of Liberian adults age 15-49 are HIV-positive.  This low prevalence rate is promising, especially when compared to neighboring countries such as Côte d'Ivoire where HIV prevalence has reached 5 percent.  Further work, however, is needed to increase knowledge and change behavior in order to maintain or reduce the current rate. The LDHS, for example, found that only 44 percent of women and 66 percent of men know that HIV can be prevented by using condoms and limiting sexual relations to one partner. Additionally, only one-fourth of men who had higher risk sex (sex with a partner who is neither a spouse nor who lives with him) used a condom.

HIV tests among thousands of men and women provide a sobering look at the international epidemic.  A new publication, HIV Prevalence Estimates from the Demographic and Health Surveys, summarizes the results of population-based HIV tests in 28 countries among more than 400,000 men and women worldwide.

In Pakistan, 1 in 89 women will die of maternal causes, according to the 2006-07 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS). Among women age 12 to 49, complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death, accounting for 20 percent of all deaths for women of childbearing age. The National Institute of Population Studies recently released the final report of the 2006-07 PDHS at a ceremony in Islamabad.

One in seven children born in Swaziland dies before reaching his or her fifth birthday, and 70 percent of these deaths take place during the child's first year, according to the nationally representative 2006-07 Swaziland Demographic and Health Survey (SDHS). Reflecting the spread of HIV in Swaziland, mortality rates for infants and children have risen in recent years.

The Ministry of Health of the Republic of Mali recently released the final report for the 2006 Mali Demographic and Health Survey (EDSM-IV) in Bamako.  On the whole, results reported in the EDSM-IV are promising; however, there remain areas of little or no progress. Significant gains were made in rural areas for both maternal and child health. Immunization coverage of children ages 12 to 23 months increased markedly since 2001 as did women's use of antenatal care during pregnancy. The survey results show important reductions in morbidity and mortality but other areas, such as fertility and malnutrition rates, saw little change. 

 

Young adults' reproductive health is steadily improving in Ethiopia, but there is still much room for improvement, according to a new report released by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.  Young men and women are waiting longer before having sex and getting married. According to the report, sexual activity among young men has dropped dramatically since 2000, when 44 percent had ever had sexual intercourse. By contrast, five years later, 23 percent of young men had had sex. Sexual activity among young women also decreased during that time while their use of contraception increased.

Across the developing world, women's knowledge of modern family planning methods is high, and use of modern methods is increasing, according to a new report analyzing data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Contraceptive Trends in Developing Countries reviews recent survey results from 35 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. The report's findings verify that investments in family planning programs over the past decades have paid off and continue to help women and their families around the world.

Health care initiatives throughout the developing world should make greater efforts to reach the world's poor, suggests a new series of reports highlighting health inequalities in 56 low-income and middle-income countries. Worldwide, the health of the poor is notably worse than that of the better-off. On average, the poorest suffer under-five mortality and malnutrition rates that are about twice as much as the best-off. In some countries the difference is much greater. In Egypt, for example, children living in the poorest households are nearly three times as likely to die before age five as children in the best-off households. In South Africa, they are four times as likely to die early.

One out of five children in Angola has malaria, according to the 2006-07 Angola Malaria Indicator Survey (AMIS 2006-07). In addition, 14 percent of pregnant women tested positive for malaria.  Earlier today, the Ministry of Health released the AMIS final report in a ceremony in Luanda. The nationally representative survey is based on interviews with over 2,500 households and close to 3,000 women ages 15 to 49.

A new national health survey finds that immunization rates in Benin are decreasing and child nutrition has worsened in recent years. In addition, fertility rates and unmet need for contraception continue to be high.  The Ministry of Health recently released the 2006 Benin Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) at a ceremony in Cotonou. The nationally representative survey is based on interviews with more than 17,000 women age 15 to 49 and more than 5,000 men age 15 to 64. The last DHS survey was conducted in 2001.