Women Affairs

Women suffering from obstetric fistula in Malawi received free medical care to reverse their condition during the country's Fistula Week. Between Oct. 12 and 18, the Malawian government, with technical and financial assistance from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), treated more than 130 destitute women who have no or little access to health care services. Lausi Adamu, from Makanjira in Malawi's lake district of Mangochi, who does not know her exact age, has suffered from fistula for the last 25 years. Her affliction came to an end last week, when she received an operation free of charge to stop her ailment. Adamu told IPS reporter Pilirani Semu-Banda about her life with the disease as she recuperated in hospital after the operation. How did you develop fistula? It was 25 years ago, when I was in labour for three days while giving birth to my first and only child at home. I received no medical care throughout pregnancy, and it was only my mother who was with me during ...

The internationally-acclaimed New Zealand author Janet Frame may have had autism, says a doctor who found repeated signs of the condition in her three autobiographical books. "Janet Frame was an interesting example of what may be achieved by those with strong autistic features," rehabilitation physician Dr Sarah Abrahamson says in today's New Zealand Medical Journal. Dr Abrahamson, of the Queen Elizabeth Centre in Victoria, lists the key features of high-functioning autism in adults as: * Impairment in social and high-level communication skills. * Impairment in development of normal peer relationships. * A special interest, which is abnormal in intensity and focus. Dr Abrahamson said the condition was similar to Asperger's syndrome, although high-functioning autism could in addition involve delayed language development in childhood. She said the features of high-functioning autism showed up in the autobiographies of Janet Frame, who lived from 1924 to 2004. "In t...

If you ate your way through your twenties, and worked your way through your thirties, you’re probably showing a bit of wear. But, don’t despair. You have a long-lost friend in South Carolina who’s going to help you regain the vigor of your teenage years - or, at least help you bring the downward spiral to a screeching halt. Dr. Dana King, of the University of South Carolina, reports rather stunning results concerning the impact of midlife lifestyle changes. It takes a mere four years - think about that - to effectively reverse the damage done in those years of work and wantons. But… There’s a plan you must follow to achieve these results. It’s not a complicated plan, and it requires no special tools. It requires only the full participation of one critical component for success: your horribly neglected body. So, take these simple steps to reduce your risk of heart disease by 35%, and your risk of death by 40%: -Eat five or more fruits and vegetables each day -Exercise a minimum of 2.5 h...

On the screen, she is a brave policewoman or a miserable widow, while in reality, she has other identities: Good Will Ambassador of the Ministry of Health on HIV/AIDS and member of the Leadership Council of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS (GCWA). Jiang Wenli, famous Chinese actress who has starred many prime-time TV series, will attend the meeting of the GCWA and the International Women's Summit slated for early July in Nairobi, Kenya and have site visits there. Jiang previously attended similar meetings in Thailand and Britain. "From the exchanges, we can learn each other's experience in the fight against AIDS," she said. Jiang started her job as a Good Will Ambassador in 2003 together with several other singers and actors. Porn Site Reviews and Previews RELATED LINKS: HIV rises in China, India Lucy Liu in China for AIDS film No condoms, please, we're Chinese men "I knew little about AIDS at that time when officials with the Ministry of Health approac...

Wouldn't it be nice if you could take fat from one area of your body and move it somewhere else? Well if the results of a study performed on mice by Investigators at Georgetown University Medical Center have been able to use simple, non-toxic chemical injections to add and remove fat in targeted areas on the bodies of laboratory animals. They say the discovery, published online in Nature Medicine on July 1, could revolutionize human cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery and treatment of diseases associated with human obesity. Investigators say these findings may also, over the long-term, lead to better control of metabolic syndrome, which is a collection of risk factors that increase a patient’s chances of developing heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Sixty million Americans were estimated to be affected by metabolic syndrome in 2000, according to a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control in 2004. In the paper, the Georgetown researchers describe a mechanism they fo...