Text young Kenyan women about sex to boost HIV testing – experts

By Kieran Guilbert DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Texting young women in Kenya with regular information about sex, contraception, and sexually transmitted diseases could encourage more to get tested for HIV in a country where stigma surrounding the virus is rife, researchers said on Wednesday. Some 600 female college students in Kenya received monthly text message surveys about their sexual behavior, and half were also sent weekly messages about HIV prevention, for a recent study by medical researchers and mobile research firm mSurvey. Two-thirds of the 300 women who were sent the weekly texts said they got tested for HIV within six months of the study, while among those who received the monthly surveys, only half reported going to be tested for the virus, the study found.
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Factbox: Trump announces picks to fill two key healthcare posts

Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named a vociferous Obamacare critic and a consultant to help him overhaul the nation’s healthcare system. Republican Representative Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon from Georgia, will be Health and Human Services secretary, and consultant Seema Verma will lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a powerful agency that oversees government health programs and insurance standards, Trump said in a statement. Below are details about his selections: SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TOM PRICE Price, 62, is an orthopedic surgeon who heads the House of Representatives’ Budget Committee.
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Corruption and illegal cash deals hamper efforts to tackle rape in Cambodia

By Beh Lih Yi KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The conviction rate for rape cases in Cambodia is “disturbingly low”, as corrupt officials mediate illegal settlements and pocket kickbacks, deterring women from coming forward and hampering efforts to tackle the crime, activists said. Campaigners have long said sexual violence is not taken seriously in the Southeast Asian country of 15 million people, and there is widespread impunity. Of 282 rape and attempted rape cases investigated by Phnom Penh-based Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (Licadho) in 2015, only 53 ended with a conviction and an appropriate sentence, the rights group said in a report released this week.
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