By Korir, Chief editor/API

She may not have been raped as she claimed earlier. The accuser has made Strauss-Kahn loose his IMF job.

This may also have caused him to be less attractive in the French politics. He was planning to stand for the presidency in his country. It is really sad if the woman has been used by the criminals to spoil the man’s chances in political life for the sake of money – greedy.

The New York Times writes “Senior prosecutors met with lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn on Thursday and provided details about their findings, and the parties are discussing whether to dismiss the felony charges. Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are issues involving the asylum application of the 32-year-old housekeeper, who is Guinean, and possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering.”

The prosecutors are now pointing fingers at her for having leid when applying for asylum in the US and that a man jailed on drug charges has been depositing money in her account. Money reported totals to over 100.000 US dollars. The man is accused of money laundering. The woman is from Guinea in West Africa.

If found to have lied about the assault charges, she may be facing a number of years in US jail and thereafter be deported to her native country.

Police have reported that she had lied earlier that she was forcefully circumcised, using this as part of her reasons to ask for asylum in the US.

End

HEALTH: Staying the course on malaria research

Photo: Wendy Stone/IRIN

Lack of testing leads to frequent misdiagnosis in Africa

JOHANNESBURG, 28 June 2011 (IRIN) – Funding for malaria research and development has quadrupled in the past 16 years – new drugs, diagnostics and insecticides have been developed and a vaccine is in the final stage of testing – but the constantly adapting malaria parasite means the pipeline of new products and technologies needs to keep flowing.

A new report, “Staying the Course? Malaria Research and Development in a Time of Economic Uncertainty”, analyses the progress that unprecedented levels of funding has achieved in recent years and warns that the future of the global fight against malaria depends on better coordination among a larger number of donors and ensuring that the money is more evenly spread.

Currently, the lion’s share of research and development (R&D) funds goes to developing new drugs (38 percent), vaccines (28 percent) and basic research (23 percent), while research into diagnostic tests receives a paltry 1 percent of funding, and product development for controlling malaria-carrying mosquitoes (vector control) just 4 percent.

Partly this is because developing and testing new drugs and vaccines is much more costly than developing diagnostics and vector control products, but David Bell, head of the malaria diagnostics programme at the non-profit Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), believes it also reflects donor preferences.

“It’s easy to sell the idea of a drug or vaccine because it saves lives. A diagnostic test also saves lives by stopping a child being given the wrong drug and ensuring they receive the right drug… but it’s harder to sell that to donors,” he told IRIN on the phone from Geneva.

Bell described his field as “grossly underfunded”. This has slowed the development of new diagnostic tools and made it difficult to ensure the quality of existing tests for detecting malaria – in sub-Saharan Africa, where the use of diagnostic tests is not widespread, patients presenting with a fever are often misdiagnosed with malaria and treated for the wrong disease.

The report, published by the global health non-profit, PATH, and the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, estimates that funding for diagnostic tests needs to quadruple and remain at US$50 million per year for the next four years.

Some of the most pressing needs are for the development of rapid tests for less common types of malaria; a way to screen pregnant women with low levels of malaria parasites that can still harm a foetus; and more sensitive tools for detecting a potential resurgence of the disease in areas with low prevalence.

“The problem in areas where mortality [from malaria] is very low because interventions have worked, is that people lose interest and there’s a danger we’ll see a rebound in malaria, so we need to have these new tools to manage that,” said Bell.

Vector control neglected

Spraying insecticides and treated bed nets have yielded impressive results in reducing the malaria burden in many parts of the world, but vector control has been neglected in recent years – just when resistance to the one class of insecticides licensed for use with bed nets, pyrethroids, has become widespread.

“There are very few locations [in Africa] where there isn’t [pyrethroid] resistance,” said Janet Hemmingway, CEO of the non-profit research group, Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC). “If resistance is sufficiently strong, a treated bed net is of no more use than an untreated one.”

Developing a new active ingredient is a seven-year process because of the need for long-term toxicology reports, but IVCC is looking at several agricultural insecticides to determine whether they could be “re-purposed” for malaria control.

“We know there’s nothing ideal, but there could be something that would hold the fort for a few years while we get some new active [ingredients] through [the process],” said Hemmingway.

IVCC is also developing a simple point-of-use test to determine whether a net has been treated properly, and another for monitoring insecticide resistance in mosquitoes – but even with a five-year, $50 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a further $28 million from other donors, they still face a $100 million funding shortfall. 

More donors needed

Total funding for malaria R&D reached $612 million by 2009, up from $121 million in 1993, but nearly three-quarters of that amount was provided by nine organizations, most of them public and philanthropic, and just two organizations – the Gates Foundation and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) – accounted for half of all funding, and most of the increase in funding in recent years.

According to the report, funding for malaria R&D only needs to increase by 2 percent per year to meet the goals agreed by the international malaria community in the 2008 Global Malaria Action Plan (GMAP). After 2016, earlier investments should start paying off and funders can begin to scale back their contributions. However, this best-case scenario depends on donors coordinating with each other to ensure funds are distributed more evenly.

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership hopes to achieve this during two donor meetings later in 2011. “We need to ensure the main donors are aware of the poor distribution of funds,” said executive director Awa Marie Coll-Seck.

“We’re hoping new donors will come along – it’s important to diversify,” she said, insisting that the goal of eradicating malaria from the world, set out in the GMAP, was still within reach.

“All the elements are in the pipeline – a vaccine, insecticides, diagnostics. The more results we see, the more we think it is possible,” Coll-Seck told IRIN. “But the malaria parasite is always changing and adapting; you need to always be developing new tools to stay ahead of it.”

ks/he source www.irinnews.org

EASTERN AFRICA: Severe food crisis hits region

Photo: Kenneth Odiwour/IRIN

Rains have been bad across the region

NAIROBI, 28 June 2011 (IRIN) – Eastern Africa is experiencing what has been described as the “most severe food crisis in the world today”, with at least 10 million people affected in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Somalia is one of the hardest-hit countries in the region, with deaths reported in some areas amid alarming malnutrition levels.

“We are no longer on the verge of a humanitarian disaster; we are in the middle of it now. It is happening and no one is helping,” Isaq Ahmed, the chairman of the Mubarak Relief and Development Organization (MURDO), a local NGO working in the Lower Shebelle region of Somalia, told IRIN on 28 June.

He said: “In the three districts of Qoryoley, Kurtunwarey and Sablale [in Lower Shebelle] our estimate is that some 5,000 families [30,000 people] have been seriously affected by the current drought.”

Ahmed said those who can are seeking survival in Mogadishu.

“Those remaining in the area are the ones who cannot even afford transport to Mogadishu,” he said, adding that a number of people had died due to a combination of hunger and related diseases.

“Most of those who died were children, the elderly, and lactating and pregnant mothers,” he said.

Up to eight people a day were being buried in Lower Shabelle, according to Sultan Sayidali Hassanow Aliyow Ibirow, a senior traditional elder in Lower Shabelle. Most of them were cattle herders who had lost everything.

“Three years of little or no rain have led to this disaster. People have not recovered from their previous losses [but] now we have an even worse drought,” he said.

Driest season since 1950

In many pastoral zones, this is the driest season on record since 1950, according to OCHA.

Drought conditions in Somalia have had regional implications, with refugees flowing into Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

An aid worker in Mogadishu, who preferred anonymity, told IRIN the number of people from the Bay, Bakol and Lower Shabelle regions coming into displaced persons camps in the Afgooye corridor has been increasing in recent months. “I would not say it is a flood yet but it is a steady stream and they are coming every single day.”

Nearly every child or parent we have spoken to says they are not just fleeing fighting in Somalia – the drought and food crisis are equally perilous to them now

According to Save the Children, children arriving from Somalia in the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya are exhausted, malnourished and severely dehydrated.

“Nearly every child or parent we have spoken to says they are not just fleeing fighting in Somalia – the drought and food crisis are equally perilous to them now,” said Catherine Fitzgibbon, Save the Children’s Kenya programme director.

Experts are warning that the situation could get worse in the short term if the delayed and poor rains cause the current crop to fail.

In Ethiopia, the estimated number of people in need of emergency food and non-food assistance was revised upwards from 2.8 million to 3.2 million. Nearly two thirds of the requirements were in the southern Somali and Oromia regions as well as in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region, where shortages of water and food were recorded. Cereal prices there have continued to rise, with inflation rates close to 30 percent recorded in April. 

According to the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group, a regional forum, the rate of Somali refugees arriving in southern Ethiopia has jumped from 5,000 per month to more than 30,000 in the second week of June. Among new arrivals to the two camps in the Dolo Ado area, the Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate is 45 percent, way beyond the 15 percent emergency threshold set by the World Health Organisation.

In Djibouti, poor rains from March to May of this year hurt pastoral household food security and sent food prices shooting up. The average price of wheat flour increased by 17 percent between January and February 2011, to US$620 per ton, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Global Information and Early Warning System, GIEWS.

Kenya

In Kenya, rising inflation rates have also adversely affected poor households’ ability to buy food. Prices of the main staple, maize, have tripled from about 1,300 shillings (US$14.4) in January to 4,500 ($50) for a 90kg bag.

Recently, the government announced the removal of tax on imported maize in a bid to cushion consumers. But millers say rising global maize prices mean the measure will have little impact on the commodity’s prices locally.

“The problem has been compounded by the fact that the Kenyan shilling has been on a free-fall, trading at an all-time low [about 90 shillings to the US dollar] not experienced in the country for almost two decades. I do not see the cost of maize dropping any time soon,” said a miller who requested anonymity.

The recent March to May “long rains” in Kenya were poor for the second or third successive season in most rangelands and cropping lowlands, with many of these areas receiving 10-50 percent of normal rains, noted the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET).

The consequences include declining water and pasture, and subsequent livestock deaths. In the predominantly pastoralist north, a low milk supply has contributed to malnutrition levels soaring above 35 percent. The GAM rate in northwestern Turkana has hit 37.4 percent, the highest ever in the district.

Nationally, at least 3.2 million people are currently food insecure – up from a projection of 2.4 and 1.6 million in April and January, respectively.

Even in Kenya’s coastal region, thousands are food insecure, says the Kenya Red Cross Society’s (KRCS) region manager, Gerald Bombe.

“There is a need to import maize and distribute food and water to the hardest hit areas,” added Kevin Lunani, a local leader in the coastal Kisauni region.

aw-ah-jk/js/cb source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Plan International

Children perform a skit on cholera prevention

DAKAR, 28 June 2011 (IRIN) – Devolving power to local authorities is helping Cameroon step up its fight against a two-year cholera outbreak, say government and aid agency staff.
 
In 2010 decision-making and financing on health, water infrastructure and education was devolved to the country’s 376 local government councils. Slow to get going at first, since early 2011 these councils have more effectively fought to prevent cholera, said Casimir Youmbi, programme manager of Plan International in Cameroon.
 
Since four councillors took charge of preventing transmission in Mokolo, capital of Mayo Tsanaga Department in the Far North Region, which had the highest concentration of cholera cases in 2010, there have been no new cases, said Mayor Martin Geedeme Rewetem of Koza Council, near Mokolo City. Councillors have sent volunteers house to house to spread awareness of the importance of hand-washing and good hygiene practices.
 
A number of regions have set up emergency funds to battle the disease and prepare for future crises, which has sped up the response, said Youmbi. An emergency fund set up by the mayor of Founban, in Western region, has led to a decline in new cases reported at the local hospital, according to aid agencies.
 
Local government is quicker to respond, and much better placed to identify which areas are most in need of cholera treatment and prevention-messaging, said Mayor Rewetem.
 
“Local councillors are now in the forefront of the battle. More and more, they are taking the lead… That is the only long-term possibility to stem the cholera outbreak and prevent new cases,” said Plan’s Youmbi.
 
As of mid-June 2011, 8,450 cholera cases had been reported, and 281 people have been killed by cholera in nine of the country’s 10 regions since the beginning of 2010. The South West, Littoral, West and Central regions are currently the worst-affected, as the disease spread southwards.
 
Reduced, not eliminated
 
But even with boosted efforts, cholera cases are likely only to be reduced, not eliminated, due to the shortage of clean toilets, and of clean drinking water points: Just 20 percent of people can access clean water across the country, according to André Zamouangana, response coordinator at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) in Cameroon.
 
Even in cities access is poor, said Youmbi. “In the capital [Yaoundé] you can go two weeks without running water – there is simply not enough for everyone.” Countrywide, most drink from open wells while those in the bush drink river water.
 

Other factors impeding elimination of cholera include heavy cross-border movement to and from Nigeria and Chad in the north which helps infections to spread; lots of north-south population movement, which aided the spread of the disease to southern regions; traditional practices whereby numerous people simultaneously wash a dead body, but not necessarily disinfect it of cholera; and very low public hygiene levels, according to interviewees.
 
“The main problem lies at the community level. There is very low awareness of how people’s behaviour causes diseases to spread, and this requires a long-term effort,” said Zamouangana.
 
Investment up, but more needed
 
Investment in water infrastructure has recently increased in the country’s largest cities Douala and Yaoundé now that the government has completed restructuring basic services, freeing up money for investment in public works, according to Youmbi. But it will take time for the funding to trickle down to council level, he said.
 
Councils do not have enough equipment to disinfect wells on a large scale or to distribute water purification tablets to all who need them, according to Mayor Rewetem.
 
His council has been able to repair just six water pumps this year – relying on NGOs and UN agencies to help with others. Aid agencies have also helped pre-position rehydration fluids and disinfectant stocks in clinics.
 
Severe staff shortages mean many councils rely on volunteers to spread the prevention message – tapping into the IFRC’s network of 300 trained volunteers in the four hardest-hit regions, or into their own volunteer networks at the village level. The latter are often untrained, said Zamouangana, and do not have the money to buy bicycles to travel village to village, or communications materials, like posters.
 
Plan International has also trained up dozens of “cholera soldiers” to spread prevention messages.
 
Despite these difficulties, councillors are working hard to spread prevention messages, particularly in the north where the rainy season has already begun, said Rewetem. If prevention efforts had been stepped up at the beginning of 2010 the disease might not have spread south, he said. “This was not done in time last year,
but this year we are learning the lessons.”
 
aj/cb source www.irinnews.org