HANG KIA, Hoa Binh Province, Viet Nam – When Kha Y Khua gave birth to her first child 13 years ago, she broke with tradition and gave birth at the local health station. Her people, the H’Mong, live mostly in mountainous, hard-to-reach areas, and are known for their close family ties and strong cultural traditions and beliefs. In H’mong cosmology, a life-soul can be snatched by evil spirits and separated from its body. Because newborn babies are so small and new to life on earth, they are especially vulnerable.

The Vietnam National Institute of Ophthalmology (VNIO) has provided free eye checks-up and medicine to 150 patients, mostly women, in response to the World Sight Day (WSD) 2009’s theme of gender equality in eye care.

UN meeting seeks to accelerate progress towards development goals for 2015

HCM CITY — A proper nutrition regime, including breastfeeding immediately after birth, will maintain brain development during the first three years of life, according to local and international leading pediatric nutrition experts.

A financial agreement worth nearly 16.7 million euro to help Vietnam improve its heathcare services was signed in Hanoi on September 18 between the Minister of Health, Nguyen Quoc Trieu, and Willy Vandengerghe, a representative of the European Commission.

Bali — An estimated 50 million women in Asia, who are either married or in long-term relationships with men who engage in high-risk sexual behaviours, are at risk of becoming infected with HIV from their partners, according to a report published by UNAIDS in partnership with UNIFEM and other agencies. The report, entitled “HIV Transmission in Intimate Partner Relationships in Asia”, was released in Bali on 11 August at the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.

On September 7th, the Ministry of Education and Training sent a document to provincial departments of education and training not to discriminate against HIV-infected children in educational establishments.

BERLIN, GERMANY— A global forum held in Berlin put governments and international donors on notice that advocates for women’s health and rights will now be speaking more frankly and pressing more strongly for speedy action, investment and an end to gender-based discrimination.

Ho Can Mai, a Pako ethnic minority woman no longer thinks that ghosts and gods cause and treat diseases, but believes in doctors who examine, give advice and provide medicine for treatment.

HA NOI — The Ministry of Health yesterday launched a campaign on prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission in an effort to ease the increasing impact of the disease in Viet Nam.