Friday Newsletter
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Dear Centre Leaders,
In today's newsletter:
  • Health and Human Rights Journal publishes special issue on Abortion and Human Rights
  • The Lancet launches new series on Health and Humanitarian Crises
  • Stipends and bursaries to attend the Global Evidence Summit
  • Risk of STIs and its influence on condom use among women
1. Health and Human Rights Journal publishes special issue on Abortion and Human Rights
As this special section of Health and Human Rights goes to press, women’s access to sexual and reproductive health, including safe and legal abortion, faces both old and new threats in many corners of the world. Among other things, the US government under Donald Trump decided to defund the United Nations Population Fund and to reinstate and expand the so-called Global Gag Rule that prevents any non-US, nongovernmental organization from receiving funds from the United States if they provide not just abortion services but any information regarding abortion, even with other donors’ funds.
 
USAID is the largest donor in the world for family planning services, and grantees will lose funding unless they agree to these conditions.  As many as 50 European and other governments, including Canada, stepped in to try to make up at least in part for the loss in funding. Now that it has been announced that all US global health assistance funding for international health programmes, such as for HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, malaria, global health security, and family planning and reproductive health will be affected, the losses may be as much as US$9 billion. Read more:
2. The Lancet launches new series on Health and Humanitarian Crises
The Lancet today launched a new Series on Health in Humanitarian Crises which is very relevant to health priorities and actually includes a paper on attacks on health care in Syria.  Below are details about the venue, program and watching online. This area worth exploring as part of our research agenda. Read more
3. Stipends and bursaries to attend the Global Evidence Summit, 13-16 September 2017, Cape Town
Various stipends and bursaries are offered, also specifically for participants from low and middle income countries, to attend the Global Evidence Summit in Cape Town in September this year. Read more: 
News from Centres
 1. Kintampo HDSS:
     Risk of STIs and its influence on condom use among women

 
Dr. K.P. Asante, Ag. Director Kintampo Health Research Centre.
Sexually transmitted infection (STI) affects the reproductive health of both men and women worldwide. Condoms are important part of the available preventive strategies for STI control. The lack of proper risk-perception continues to impede women’s ability to negotiate condom use with their partners. This paper “The Risk of Sexually Transmitted Infection and Its Influence on Condom Use among Pregnant Women in the Kintampo North Municipality of Ghana” published in the Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases is the outcome of secondary analysis of data collected in a cross-sectional survey that explored the perception of risk of STI and its influence on condom use among 504 pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at two health facilities in the Kintampo North Municipality. Read more:
Policy Engagement and Communications