Yangon – In Myanmar, where abortions are illegal, complications arising from unsafe terminations are the third leading cause of maternal deaths after post-partum haemorrhage and eclampsia, according to the government’s 2006-2011 National Health Plan. (more…)

Nay Pyi Taw – There is no A/H1N1 death case in the country despite 63 were infected with the virus in the country as of January this year. (more…)

Rangoon – When Aye Aye (not her real name) leaves her youngest son at home each night, she tells him that she has to work selling snacks. But what Aye actually sells is sex so that her 12-year-old son, a Grade 7 student, can finish his education. (more…)

A NEW grant from the Global Fund could see a threefold increase in the percentage of HIV-infected people receiving lifesaving antiretroviral treatment (ART), the head of UNAIDS in Myanmar said last week. (more…)

Cases of A/H1N1 swine flu have been reported in Naypyidaw, the Burmese capital, following a similar outbreak in Rangoon earlier this month, according to sources in the former capital. (more…)

Mae Sot, Thailand — Naw Wah Wah didn’t feel well. Worried that her fever, cough, headache and diarrhea was malaria—common during Karen State’s long monsoon season—she roused herself from her sick bed and trudged through thick, red mud during a pause in a downpour, heading to the local clinic, an hour’s walk away. (more…)

Burmese authorities have banned the sale of eggs in markets in Rangoon Division after the discovery of the A/H1N1 virus at a chicken farm, according to Rangoon sources. (more…)

Yangon – Tolerance to artemisinin, the most effective anti-malarial drug available, is emerging in Myanmar and could pose a major challenge to regional malaria control, says the World Health Organization (WHO). (more…)

Medical negligence and lack of contraception in Burmese prisons are leading to high rates of HIV infection among inmates, a political prisoner support group has warned. (more…)

Yangon – Myanmar’s medical council on Thursday suspended the license of a surgeon who who mistakenly performed an appendectomy on a 15-year-old girl who was in fact suffering from dengue fever. (more…)

Hundreds of people in Mon state continue to suffer from HIV-AIDS in Mon State, but go untreated. (more…)

HIV infection is on the rise among people in the country’s northern border with China’s Yunnan province because of sexual promiscuity and drugs, according to figures released by the border-based ethnic Kachin rebel group today on World Aids Day. (more…)

The Burmese government marked World AIDS Day today with an article in state-run media linking the disease to “socially unacceptable behavior”, despite warning against stigmatizing AIDS sufferers. (more…)

In the three years that he was an injecting drug user, Phoe Htoo (not his real name) shared a needle with just one person—a close friend he grew up with. (more…)

THE Three Diseases Fund will undertake a “scoping study” in the coming weeks to identify areas donors can contribute to when the present project cycle is completed in 2011. (more…)

Private schools and hospitals abolished under the former Ne Win regime in Burma are to reopen in an attempt to generate more revenue in the country and improve the struggling sectors. (more…)

Yangon – The Global Fund has agreed to provide Myanmar with 110 million dollars to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, after pulling out of the country four years ago, media reports said Sunday. (more…)

The Mae Tao clinic, which is located in Mae Sot, on the Thai side of the Thai–Burma border, has continued to attract thousands of ill and injured Burmese people not only with its close proximity to Burmese villages, but with its policy of treating migrants and refugees for little or no patient cost. (more…)

Chiang Mai – At least 500 villagers belonging to nine villages in Phapun district in Karen state in eastern Burma, bordering Thailand, are suffering from a new but as yet unidentified type of flu, according to the back-pack medical team, which visited the area and distributed medical supplies. (more…)

A mass infestation of rats in western Burma is likely to compound a food shortage in a state that has lost thousands of acres of crops over the past two years, according to local aid workers. (more…)