No violence culprit will be spared, says ICC

By Wahome Thuku

The International Criminal Court (ICC) will not spare anyone implicated in post-election violence.

The court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said on Wednesday he would go for all irrespective of their status.

And he affirmed that he would step in at earliest indication that Kenya was not ready to form a proper national system to conduct the prosecutions. At an international news conference in Ethiopia, Ocampo ruled out political deals in handling the matter.

“We are not doing political analysis,” Ocampo said.

During last weeks meeting with the Kenyan delegation led by Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo, he said, the Government assured him that they were working on a national plan for the prosecution. The delegation met Ocampo and mediator Kofi Annan.

Mutula said on the Government’s the deliberations were fruitful, but added that Kenya was a sovereign state and must be given a chance to try crimes committed within its borders.

Ocampo said he would respect that plan and it was up to Parliament to determine its mode.

Local systems

But he quickly pointed out that he would take up the matter if there was no progress. Ocampo said a s the national leaders were deliberating on the local system he was collecting information on the events of last year.

Asked whether he was likely to consider proceedings against President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga if shown it was in their support that the civilians fought, he said no one would be above the law.

“This is to protect victims of the acts, they have a right to justice and we will provide it,” he told reporters.

He said Kenya could become a perfect example of how justice could be achieved for the civilians.

Ocampo pointed out that the post elections were directed and the civilian population, indicating that they would meet the threshold for prosecution in The Hague.

Debating is still raging as to whether the culprits said to be contained in the Waki envelope should be tried locally or in The Hague.

Last week the government delegation met the ICC prosecutor in Geneva and promised to expedite the setting up of the local tribunal failing which they would refer the matter to The Hague.

source.standard.ke

Youth PS Murugu dies in Nairobi

Panic as Kenya poll chaos case handed to ICC

TB prevalence in prison investigated

Photo: IRIN

An ideal breeding ground for TB

JOHANNESBURG,� – Poor ventilation, overcrowding and HIV co-infection make prison an ideal breeding-ground for tuberculosis (TB), but a new study will be among the first in South Africa to quantify TB among inmates and personnel.

The study, “Herisa Rifuba” or “Stop TB” in Setswana, will include about 3,500 prisoners and staff at the Johannesburg Central Prison, nicknamed “Sun City”, after a well-known local hotel and casino. The correctional facility has around 12,000 inmates and receives about 500 new prisoners daily.

Study organiser Dr Lily Telisinghe, of The Aurum Institute, a non-profit medical research body, said the findings could lead to better diagnostic methods for identifying the illness in this high-risk group.

Inmate healthcare manager Dr Gladys Nthangeni said so far in 2009 the prison had recorded more than 100 cases of TB, about 10 percent of which were drug resistant.

In 2006, Johannesburg Central became one of the first prisons accredited to offer antiretroviral (ARV) treatment on site. About 530 of were receiving treatment from the prison clinic, said Joyce Lethoba, a project manager at The Aurum Institute, which helped the prison obtain accreditation.

If a prison does not have its own clinic, inmates on ARVs have to be transported to nearby state hospitals to fetch their medication, which carries a greater risk of escapes.

Spillover effects

The start of the study coincided with the graduation of peer educators, who had spent the past month educating their peers and potential study participants about TB.

Peer educator Khulu (last name withheld) came to Johannesburg Central in 1995 after he was convicted of robbery. With one year of his sentence left, he said he used the opportunity not only to talk about TB but also HIV, especially to newcomers.

“You have to make [prisoners] aware of what happens in jail, and we can’t run away from the fact that sex happens in jail,” he said. “We tell them, ‘Test at an early age, gentlemen’,” he told IRIN/PlusNews. “We are tired of watching people die, and the grave[yards] are full.”

About 190,000 men, women and juveniles are currently incarcerated in prisons in South Africa, according to the Institute for Security Studies.

llg/kn/he source.www.irinnews.org

Quality of health care depends on geography

Photo: Mujahid Safodien/PlusNews

Some rural districts scored better on health provision than urban ones

JOHANNESBURG,� – The quality of health care, including access to HIV prevention and testing services, depends to a large extent on which of South Africa’s 52 districts you happen to live in.

A man living in Cape Town received an average of 55 free condoms in 2007/08, while a man living in Kgalagadi, a rural district in Northern Cape Province, received only 1.7. On average, South African men were rationed to about one condom per month, according to the latest District Health Barometer (DHB), an annual report by the Health Systems Trust, a research NGO.

In KwaZulu-Natal Province’s Umzinyathi district 100 percent of pregnant women attending antenatal clinics were tested for HIV in 2007/08, but only half those in eThekwini, also in KwaZulu-Natal, were tested, despite eThekwini having an antenatal HIV-prevalence rate of 42 percent, the highest in the country.

Some of the inequities highlighted by the DHB can be traced to differences in health spending, with districts in Western Cape Province spending the most on primary health care and districts in Free State Province spending the least.

The uneven distribution of HIV infection in South Africa also influenced ratings: six out of 10 districts with the highest number of Caesarean births were in KwaZulu-Natal, the province with the highest number of HIV-infected pregnant women [HIV infection can complicate delivery].

District Extremes
	55.2 condoms per man per year in Cape Town (WC); 1.7 condoms in Kgalagadi (NC)
	100 percent of pregnant women tested for HIV in Umzinyathi (KZN); 52 percent in eThekwini (KZN)
	100 percent of pregnant HIV positive women received nevirapine in Uthukela (KZN); 12 percent in Lejweleputswa (FS)
	83 percent of TB patients cured in Overberg (WC); 37 percent in Sisonke (KZN)
	12 patients a day seen by nurses in Waterberg (LP); 44 patients a day in Fezile Dabi (FS)
	R633 (US$79) spent on primary healthcare per person in Namakwa (NC); R191 ($24) spent in Lejweleputswa (FS)
FS – Free State, KZN – KwaZulu-Natal, LP – Limpopo, NC – Northern Cape, WC – Western Cape

Writing in the DHB, Dr Tanya Doherty of South Africa’s Medical Research Council attributed a lack of improvement in child and maternal mortality rates to the HIV epidemic – under-five mortality barely shifted from 60 per 1,000 births in 1990, to 59 in 2007, while maternal mortality actually increased.

Prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) is vital to reducing maternal and child mortality and combating HIV, but health authorities have failed to properly monitor PMTCT interventions. “This is indicative of management neglect of the programme from national to facility level,” Doherty wrote.

Although HIV testing of pregnant women has risen in most of the country, Doherty warned that the national average of 80 percent for 2007/08 might be an overestimate, due to errors in recording the data.

Figures on the percentage of pregnant HIV-positive women who received a dose of nevirapine to reduce transmission were even more unreliable, partly because women could receive their dose in either an antenatal clinic or a labour ward, but the two facilities often failed to combine their data.

Based on the available information, the national average for nevirapine coverage was 76 percent, but five districts in Free State achieved less than 40 percent.

Fuelled by the HIV epidemic, tuberculosis (TB) infections have increased rapidly, with Cacadu in Eastern Cape Province recording the highest incidence: 673 new TB cases per 100,000 people, compared to a national average of 283 cases per 100,000.

Although TB cure rates are still far from the WHO target of 85 percent they have steadily improved, reaching 65 percent in 2006. Three districts saw declines, which the authors described as “an indictment of management at all levels”.

This edition of the DHB is the fifth since 2005. It not only highlights inequities in health provision and outcomes, but also reveals South Africa’s progress towards achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals and the targets set in the National Strategic Plan for HIV and AIDS.

ks/he

ZIMBABWE: AIDS number one cause of maternal deaths

Photo: Tiggy Ridley/IRIN

Simple interventions could reduce maternal deaths by 46 percent

JOHANNESBURG,� – A new maternal mortality study names HIV and AIDS as the cause of one in four maternal deaths in Zimbabwe.

The first comprehensive assessment of deaths resulting from pregnancy or childbirth revealed that 725 Zimbabwean women out of every 100,000 who deliver, die due to complications.

“The study findings have confirmed our worst fears: that indeed the maternal mortality ratio and the perinatal mortality rate are high, and present the biggest challenge for attainment of MDGs [Millennium Development Goals],” said Hilary Chiguvare of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which partnered with the University of Zimbabwe and other UN agencies to produce the report.

He noted that the HIV/AIDS responses in maternal health programmes appeared to be “very weak”: of the 91 percent of pregnant women who visited antenatal clinics, only 4.7 percent knew their HIV status, and only 1.8 percent of HIV-positive pregnant women received antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

The second highest cause of death was postpartum haemorrhaging (excessive bleeding after delivery), followed by hypertension (high blood pressure) and sepsis (infection). Most maternal deaths occurred at home, where women had no expert care when they experienced complications.

Many women could not afford transport to distant health facilities, but even those who could often failed to get drugs or assistance from skilled health professionals. The fees charged by health facilities were another barrier.

Temporary shelters near health facilities, set up for expectant women unable to arrange emergency transport, had improved access to care. The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, with funding from the Japanese government,�recently started a programme to revitalize the “Mothers Waiting Homes”, Chiguvare said.

The report also revealed that the 29 percent of pregnant women who belonged to the Apostolic Faith Christian sect were at greater risk of maternal death due to their belief that health problems should be treated only through prayer.

“The major challenge will be to develop a sensitive approach to the sect, which respects their right to religious freedom but also asserts women’s right to health.”

The study concluded that nearly half the maternal deaths could be avoided by successful prevention and treatment of complications, and that “None of the interventions are complex or beyond the capacity of a functional health system in Zimbabwe.”

See also: ZIMBABWE: Responding to the PMTCT challenge

ks/he source.www.irinnews.org

By: JEFF OTIENO

Embattled Mombasa based businessman Sam Okello has been re-elected the mayor of Kisumu.

During a tensed election in a packed town hall, Okello garnered 14 votes against his close rival Pamela Omino 13 votes.

Benson Odondi scooped the Deputy Mayors slot bagging 15 votes against Erick Otieno Oricho 12 votes.

In his acceptance speech Okello vowed to stamp out corruption and land grabbing which has marooned town hall in the recent past.

He further assured the residents that he will bond with the disgruntled councilors who have opposed and questioned his leadership since he came to the helm two years ago. Security was tight at the main entrance of the hall under the command of the area OCS Mr. Wanyama.

Only Journalists, chief officers and invited clergy were allowed into the main hall but they had to brace for thorough inspection.

It was one of the most democratic Mayoral elections ever witnessed in Kisumu City, Previous polls have always been bloody and chaotic.

Okello�s re-election has been attributed to support he enjoys from hawkers and workers who argue he�s practical and focused.

Majority of Kisumu workers went on to describe him as �a pragmatic and focused� saying that nowadays they get their salaries in time contrary to previous scenario where some of them had to be fished out in estates for rent default.

Observers are however anxious to see what shrewd and prompt mechanisms he will deploy to make the workers who are now getting salaries in time plough back to the residents who are yawning for quality service which has been wanting.

END

ZIMBABWE: The slang of sexual networks

Photo: IRIN

Are older men better boyfriends?

JOHANNESBURG, – Risky sexual behaviour has a language of its own on the University of Zimbabwe’s (UZ) campus in the capital, Harare.

When female students arrive, they join an informal sorority known as the “university spinster association”, or USA, while their male counterparts are inducted into the “university bachelor association”, or UBA.

Their sexual networks are coded in a slew of slang that, according to University of Pretoria researcher Tsitsi Masvawure, masks high-risk behaviours, including multiple concurrent partnerships and cross-generational sex, which facilitate the spread of sexually transmitted infections and HIV.

Masvawure presented the findings of her study, conducted over 15 months at UZ, where she also studied, at the Sexual Violence Research Initiative Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Induction into these risk behaviours comes soon after orientation week, when the “gold rush” begins and first-year female students, perceived to be “sexually pure”, are targeted by older male students for a one-night stand, or “one-day international”.

These young women are categorized as “gold”, those in their second year as “silver”, and third-year female students are labelled “bronze” members of the USA.

I don’t want you to rush … [in making] me yours; don’t rush, this is not a land reform programme

Older female students often engage in multiple concurrent relationships, not to survive in cash-strapped Zimbabwe, but to secure access to luxury goods like expensive hair extensions or high-priced foodstuffs, or because they perceive older men to be better boyfriends, Masvawure told IRIN/PlusNews.

“UBAs are not romantic,” one young woman told Masvawure in an interview. “I don’t want you to rush … [in making] me yours; don’t rush, this is not a land reform programme.”

Younger male students also helped connect female friends with wealthier, older men, often finding potential sugar daddies at transport hubs en route to the university in Harare’s city centre � an exercise known as “pimping”.

“This disputes the traditional analysis that transactional sex is about money and sex, with boys giving money and girls giving sex. These girls were not from the poorest households, they were from families that, in some cases, were politically connected,” Masvawure noted.

She said her study revealed problems in HIV prevention programmes on campuses, and hoped it would lead to more targeted HIV interventions for students.

The government is looking to strengthen sex education to better equip young people before they reach tertiary level. A policy on adolescent sexual and reproductive health is expected to be released in two weeks.

llg/kn/he source.www.irinnews.org