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As at the end of 2003, there were approximately 20,000 persons living with HIV/AIDS in Jamaica, with 34 per cent of those persons in the age group 30 to 39 years and 20 per cent percent in the age group 20 to 29 years. This information was revealed by Dr. Tamu Saddler, Regional HIV/AIDS Programme Coordinator at the Western Regional...

The Ministry of Health, as part of efforts to encourage responsible sexual behavior among young people, as commissioned into service a condom dispensing machine at the Margaritaville sports bar on Gloucester Avenue, Montego Bay. The machine is the fourth of its kind to be installed by the Ministry and the first within a tourist resort area. Others are located at...

Minister of Health, John Junor has said that the management of pesticides requires a collective regional approach, in order to reduce the impact of residual pesticides activity on Caribbean states. Precautionary and preventative measures, he further stressed, should be employed to protect the region from the dangers of pesticides use. The Caribbean, he added, could ill-afford to ignore the problem,...

The National HIV/STI Control Programme in the Ministry of Health, has launched an HIV/AIDS Prevention website, which is geared at providing young people with information about the diseases and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). Behavior Change Communication Officer at the Ministry, Novia Condell, who launched the website at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, said that the Internet was another...

The 50th biannual seminar of the Nurse Practitioners, will be held on July 7 - 9, at the Renaissance Jamaica Grande Hotel, in Ocho Rios, St. Ann, under the theme, "Lifestyle Diseases Prevention and Control: A Shifting Paradigm". Chairman of the planning committee, Isolyn Bell-Rose, told JIS News that the rationale for the seminar was to provide a forum for...

Beginning today (July 1) until August 28, members of the public will be able to access free diabetes screening test at all 26 branches of Courts Jamaica Limited across the island. In an interview with JIS News, Owen Bernard, Executive Director of the Diabetes Association of Jamaica Outreach Programme said that due to the high incidents of diabetes in Jamaica,...

A two-day conference to highlight the achievements of Jamaica's Adolescent Reproductive Health Project (Youth.now), in positively reforming the sexual behaviors of teens, is now underway at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston. The project, which was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Futures Groups International through the Ministry of Health, has come...

From July 12 to 24 the Registrar General's Department (RGD) will conduct several outreach meetings targeting Jamaican nationals living in major North American cities. Initially, a six-city tour, covering Miami, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and New York City in the United States and Toronto and Montreal in Canada, the agency has extended the number of outreach meetings to include areas such...

The Accident and Emergency Department of the Black River Hospital in St. Elizabeth is to be renovated at a cost of $29,989,202. Cabinet has approved award of the contract to W.G. Walters Construction Company Limited to undertake the work. Minister of Information, Senator Burchell Whiteman made the disclosure at the weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House on Tuesday (June...

Minister of Health John Junor has revealed that more than 50 per cent of deaths among the Jamaican population was attributable to chronic non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and cancer. "The fact is that we are now looking at somewhere in the region of about 200,000 hospital days being spent by persons suffering from chronic diseases....

The Pesticides Control Authority (PCA) has reported that a wider range of chemical residue has been found on imported vegetables, as compared with local vegetables. News of the findings has come from Hyacinth Chin-Sue, Registrar at the PCA, who said that over the past two years, the PCA has been visiting supermarkets to obtain samples of both imported and local...

The South Eastern Regional Office of the Registrar General's Department (RGD) has outgrown its current location on Half-Way-Tree Road and will be relocating to 4 Trevennion Park Road, as of July 5. Bryan Aikman, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Director of Operations at the RGD, told JIS News that the move was a part of the Agency's continued effort to...