OpenForum – a blog by the Health and Human Rights community

During his speech on World AIDS Day, South African President Jacob Zuma promised to ramp up HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs for children and high-risk groups. The new plan calls for treating all HIV-infected babies in a country whose child mortality rate has risen since 1990. “Our message is simple,” President Zuma said, “we have to stop the spread of HIV. We must reduce the rate of new infections. Prevention is our most powerful weapon against the epidemic.”

President Zuma’s commitments set a new ideological standard in South Africa that breaks from previous conceptions of the disease. Former President Thabo Mbeki received widespread criticism for his ideas about the nature and treatment of the epidemic. He is often noted as a denialist of the viral cause of AIDS and the effectiveness of antiretroviral treatment. A Harvard University study reported in The New York Times found that more than 330,000 premature deaths could have been prevented if Mbeki’s administration had backed the provision of antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients.

Despite Mbeki’s misguided stance, that Jacob Zuma reversed his predecessor’s rhetoric on HIV/AIDS came as somewhat of a surprise. A husband to three wives – an acceptable facet of his Zulu heritage but a risk factor for contracting HIV – and the defendant in a 2006 criminal case for the rape of an HIV-positive friend, he is an improbable leader in the AIDS movement.

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More than 500,000 women die each year from preventable complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. The World Health Organization describes the main causes of maternal mortality and morbidity as “unavailable, inaccessible, unaffordable, or poor quality” medical treatment and care. More than 70% of maternal deaths are caused by five complications: hemorrhage (25%), infection (15%), unsafe abortion (13%), eclampsia (seizures caused by high blood pressure – 12%), and obstructed labor (8%). Life-saving surgical services, such as caesarean section, are often not an option for many women in resource-poor settings. Additionally, maternal death devastates the entire family; motherless children are ten times more likely to die within two years of their mother’s death. As a global health and human rights crisis, maternal morbidity and mortality (MMM) has received increased international attention and advocacy since being identified as a target for one of the Millennium Development Goals.

A recent resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Council, adopted in June 2009, “Preventable mortality and morbidity and human rights,” reaffirms and requests new efforts to curb maternal deaths and to promote gender quality and universal access to reproductive health services. Resolution 11/8 tasks the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) with preparing a “thematic study on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights, in consultation with States, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Bank, and all other relevant stakeholders.” The study signifies a tangible and actionable way forward for the maternal health agenda.

In order to develop the strongest possible study, the OHCHR has called for input from interested organizations and advocates, due by December 1, 2009. Information is welcome on the following:

(a)    Identification of the human rights dimensions of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity in the existing international legal framework;

 

(b)   An overview of the initiatives and activities within the United Nations system to address all causes of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity;

 

(c)    Identification of how the Council can add value to existing initiatives through a human rights analysis, including efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals on improving maternal health; and

 

(d)   Recommended options for better addressing the human rights dimension of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity throughout the United Nations system.

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