WEST AFRICA: Yellow fever outbreaks on the rise

Photo: Brahima Ouedraogo/IRIN

Vaccination drive in Burkina Faso (file photo)

DAKAR, 26 January 2009 (IRIN) – As international agencies respond to the emergence of the deadly yellow fever virus in Guinea, experts say they are increasingly concerned about a rise in outbreaks across Africa.

Africa saw 13 yellow fever outbreaks in 2008, as opposed to an average two to five per year in recent years, according to Sergio Yactayo, adviser on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) yellow fever prevention team in Geneva.

There have been four outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa since December 2008 – in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to Yactayo.

“We have never had so many outbreaks in such a short period as we have now. We are very worried there could be more on the way,” Yactayo told IRIN. “We must prepare for that.”

Yellow fever is a viral haemorrhagic fever transmitted by mosquitoes. The vast majority of cases and deaths take place in sub-Saharan Africa, with 32 African countries considered to be “at risk.”

West Africa is the continent’s most-affected region, with 72 percent of the region experiencing outbreaks since 2000, according to WHO.

The fight

Agencies including WHO, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), NGOs such as Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Federation of the Red Cross, and health ministries are working to control the disease in West Africa through the Yellow Fever Initiative. They plan to vaccinate 49 million people in 12 yellow fever-endemic countries by 2010 — Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

To date, vaccinations have been completed in Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Togo and Cameroon is next up, according to Yactayo.

Why the rise

The reasons for the explosion are unclear but WHO’s Yactayo said it could be linked to climate change, which in some settings can expand breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Growing urban populations in West and Central Africa – many of them with no access to clean drinking water or sanitation facilities – also pose an increased risk, according to WHO.

“Increased virus circulation among insufficiently immunized populations in combination with the region’s rampant urbanization set the scene for an explosion of urban epidemics,” WHO reports on its website.

Urban populations in Africa are growing at 4 percent per year – the most rapid pace in the world, according to WHO.

Guinea outbreak

Following confirmation of two cases of the yellow fever virus in Faranah, central Guinea, international agencies on 26 January launched a mass vaccination campaign.

The campaign follows an emergency response in Sierra Leone that targeted over half a million people in Bo District.

Agencies including WHO and UNICEF, alongside NGOs, the Guinean Ministry of Health and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization network aim to vaccinate 60,485 people, or 36 percent of Faranah’s population, over the next week.

The campaign will target only those not covered in a 2003 vaccination campaign, and will focus on high-risk areas such as markets and on vulnerable groups including children aged 9 months to six years, Yactayo said.

He said that in some pockets of Faranah just half of the population was covered in the 2003 campaign. “This is often the case, because people may be ill, they may not show up, or they may be away at the time, so you can rarely vaccinate everyone,” he said.

aj/np source.www.irinnews.org

TOGO: “Where is the money?”

Photo: Phuong Tran/IRIN

Donors are returning to communities like this one in northern Togo’s Savannah region (file photo).

LOME, 26 January 2009 (IRIN) – Four months after international donors pledged US$12 million to help rebuild Togo – a country emerging from 15 years of donor sanctions – residents in the capital Lomé say they are still waiting to the see the impact of resumed funding.

In response to widespread accusations of rigged elections and human rights abuses in Togo throughout the 1990s, the country’s biggest donors cut back or pulled out. The country lost more than 60 percent of donor funds from 1990 to 2005, according to the UN.

Only after government reforms that culminated in the 2007 legislative election, widely accepted as free and fair, are donors resuming full support.

Jewellery vendor Francoise Adabadji, 35, told IRIN she had heard about the “much-touted donor return,” but is still waiting to see the impact. “Life is still expensive. We do not see any concrete impact from their return. Where is the money? We really don’t see it here in the market.”

She told IRIN that when people have money, she and vendors feel the benefits immediately. “But if people are not getting paid, it is hard for us to make our living.”

More than 90 percent of families in the north and 77 percent in central Togo did not make enough to cover basic needs in 2006, according to the government.

Trickle down

The head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Togo, Rosine Coulibaly, told IRIN donors are re-engaging even if the impact is not obvious. “Contrary to concerns that donors are still sitting on the sidelines, they are actually investing, forgiving debt and launching projects.”

The World Bank is finalising a $13-million grant to the government to strengthen its financial sector, crippled by the government’s inability to pay for commercial services it contracted. The government owes $60 million to private companies, according to a recent international audit conducted for the government.

“It is a vicious circle,” said a World Bank employee working on Togo’s grant who requested anonymity. “Banks rely on government funds, but the government is in debt to private companies.” Most of Togo’s banks are government-owned and -operated. The World Bank project aims to work with the government to restructure its banks to jump-start the private sector.

In addition to financial problems, UNDP’s Coulibaly said the government faces a shortage of qualified workers after donor cutbacks shuttered training institutions. “The country has lost 30 percent of its human resources . This is an enormous challenge for the country.” The UN is working with the government to improve training, she told IRIN.

Agriculture

The director of the National Association of Farmers, Charité Attikpo, said the agriculture sector and its workers were neglected during the country’s “crisis”, which is how residents often refer to the period of donor sanctions. “In Kpélé [120km northwest of Lomé], we cultivate rice and really need tractors and grain huskers to improve rice production.”

The government plans to hold a donor meeting on 30 January to discuss its three-year request for $120 million to improve the grain, cocoa and cereal sectors.

But Attikpo said bigger harvests alone do not guarantee bigger earnings. “We also need better roads so that we can bring rice from our fields to the markets.”

Youths, health

Edgar Buagbe, a second-year law student at the University of Lomé, told IRIN youths are worried about health and employment. “Every youth should have a job and access to health care,” said Buagbe.

More than 30 percent of the working-age population was unemployed in 2006, mostly youths, according to the government.

Buagbe added that free basic health care should be a top government priority. “I see so many deaths, especially those caused by traffic accidents, because people don’t have enough money to pay for care.”

The average life expectancy in Togo in 2006 was 57 years, but people lost eight years to disease and debilitating accidents, leaving 45 “healthy years”, according to the World Health Organization.

pt/np source.www.irinnews.org

SUDAN-UGANDA: Civilians flee LRA “revenge” attacks

Photo: Peter Martell/IRIN

South Sudanese children displaced by attacks by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the town of Mundri, Western Equatoria state

MUNDRI, 27 January 2009 (IRIN) – Every person seeking assistance at the government offices in Mundiri, Western Equatoria State, has a story to tell after fleeing rebel attacks on their homes.

“The LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army] attacked our village of Diko [on 4 January], taking 10 people with them,” said Saleh Sebit, a village elder. “We do not know where they are, and we fear they are now dead.”

One eight-year-old boy said he was forced to watch rebel fighters chop the legs and arms off his father and a companion, before they beat the men to death with a wooden club.

“The LRA attacked two tractors as [they were] coming with people to Mundiri,” added Sebit. “They fired, killing one, and set fire to the vehicles.”

Sebit and the boy are just two of an estimated 8,000 people displaced in a recent upsurge of attacks on farming villages in Western Equatoria state. Many of the displaced, according to state officials, are now staying with relatives.

The upsurge followed a mid-December, Ugandan-led assault on rebel positions, with support from Southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Analysts, however, say that despite hopes that “Operation Lightning Thunder” would crush the rebels, they are far from a spent force. Others claim the LRA was tipped off and the jungle hideouts in north-east DRC were largely empty when the Ugandan gun-ships arrived.

According to UN figures, some 130,000 in both DRC and South Sudan have been forced to flee their homes. Hundreds more have been killed, while others have been abducted as the rebels fan out across the region.

“The LRA seem to want to take revenge,” said Bullen Abiatara Ariwari, commissioner of Mundiri West country, where several attacks have occurred. “We are supporting those [displaced civilians] who have come here, and have increased security.”

In Western Equatoria, there is growing pressure for those who have fled to return home since key sorghum crops must be harvested soon, or they will risk losing their grain supply for the year. But most are too scared to do so.

Escalating needs

Officials said troop numbers had been beefed up, but outside Mundiri there were only young men patrolling villages with bows and arrows, and a few with AK-47 assault rifles.

The growing humanitarian needs are worrying many, with critics arguing that poorly planned military action against the rebels only served to exacerbate civilian hardships.

Photo: Voxcom/IRIN

LRA fighters are being blamed for the attacks

“Protection of vulnerable civilians must become a priority for this operation so that one of the greatest costs of this offensive – those lives lost and communities destroyed by LRA attacks – do not outweigh the benefits,” said Julia Spiegel, analyst for the Washington-based Enough Project.

“Simply put, protection of those at risk must be paramount in any military effort [in future].”

Concern is also growing over the possible impact on the wider region.

“The military operation will certainly raise humanitarian, political and economic problems, which will invariably complicate the potential security in the region,” said Louise Khabure of the International Crisis Group.

“The gains made in the peace process have been lost … It would be difficult to resurrect any talks as trust has been broken.”

However, LRA representatives deny their fighters are involved. “These reports are not true, this is not the LRA doing this,” said Justin Labeja, a delegate to the failed two-year-long peace talks between the LRA and the Ugandan government. “This is another group responsible.”

The claims are dismissed by many in South Sudan. “The LRA are targeting women and children, not soldiers,” said Eluzai Munda, retired bishop of Mundiri. “What they are doing is not human.”

International plea

International agencies have called for an end to abductions, forced recruitment and extreme violence against women and children affected by the conflict.

“More people have been killed over the past few weeks in Haut-Uele than over the last six months in North Kivu,” Pierrette Vu Thi, representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the DRC, said. “The number of children abducted has reached horrible proportions.”

The official had just returned from a mission to Dungu in the Haut-Uele District of DRC. “We urge all armed groups to immediately end deliberate attacks against civilians, the recruitment and use of children, and to release all children in their ranks,” she added in a 27 January statement.

pm/eo/mw source.www.irinnews.org