Articles

Since the early years of the 21st century, much of the news about HIV/AIDS has been encouraging. In many places, funding for diagnosis and treatment has increased, as has the number of people getting treatment. Transmission of HIV from mothers to infants has fallen while lifespans have soared. But a couple of stories this week remind us that the good news doesn’t extend to everyone.

They are tired, and they want a break. That’s how community health workers in Senegal describe the women who visit their village health huts for family planning—women who often have had one baby after another.

When PATH began working in Thailand in the early 1980s, the HIV/AIDS crisis was just emerging. It was a time of confusion and fear, when the availability of accurate information crucial to the lives of both health care providers and the people they served was scarce. Some of our first projects in Thailand targeted both: We provided HIV-prevention training to factory workers, and we disseminated essential information on the virus and its prevention to health care providers.

It’s estimated that more than 200 million women worldwide who want products to help them plan their families lack access to contraceptives. In advance of the International Conference on Family Planning in Addis Ababa next month, Ethiopia’s Minister of Health Dr. Kesetebirhan Admasu writes this week about his country’s progress in providing access to family planning tools, the reasons behind the great demand for them, and the work yet to be done.