The White House has now told API that President Obama is willing to come clean on the issue of his birth place and the birth certificate.

The American people who feel they have been misled on the issue will soon get the truth. Revealing the truth just months before the Presidential elections in November will most probably ruin the chances for re-election but the source says the President is ready to deal with it.

The White House source says the timing to come clean now is not based on threats of any kind, but observers, however, believe that Obama has realised that the truth may soon fall in the hands of his challenger the Republican candidate Romney who may use the information during the debate when the two meet.

During the release of the details on where he was born and which real birth certificate he holds, the White House says, the President will not address the press, but that the information will be published on the White House website.

This move will serve all purposes in confirming what API has always informed the readers about.

API has been promised an interview with the White House spokesman on the matter. Our readers will soon be treated to a rare occasion when a video recorded interview on the birth certificate issue is released.

End

NAIROBI,  – Kenyan HIV activists say a ruling by the High Court that the definition of “anti-counterfeit” in the 2008 Anti-Counterfeit Act is too broad will save millions of lives and protect the right to life of citizens.

The case filed by three people living with HIV in July 2009 argued that sections 2, 32 and 34 of the Act contained ambiguities, which, if misinterpreted or abused, would be detrimental to Kenyans’ access to essential generic medicines.

High Court Judge Mumbi Ngugi found that the Act failed to clearly distinguish between counterfeit and generic medicines. She called on parliament to review these ambiguities that could result in the arbitrary seizure of generic medicines under the pretext of fighting counterfeit drugs.

Like many low- and middle-income countries, more than 80 percent of the drugs used by Kenyans are generic and largely manufactured in India. The judgement also ensures that government agencies cannot interfere with the importation and distribution of generic medicines.

“The right to life, dignity and health of people like the petitioners, who are infected with the HIV virus, cannot be secured by a vague proviso in a situation where those charged with the responsibility of enforcement of the law may not have a clear understanding of the difference between generic and counterfeit medicine,” she said in her judgement.

“As an interested party, this judgement was a victory for us because the judge specified that protecting intellectual property rights cannot override the interests and rights of the individual – it’s a powerful message,” Jacinta Nyachae, executive director of local NGO, the AIDS Law Project (ALP), told IRIN/PlusNews. “She [Judge Ngugi] found that the wording of the Act was unconstitutional and a threat to the right to life, dignity and health.”

With advice of the Attorney General, the minister concerned will be expected to amend the Act to reflect the judgment.

UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibé welcomed the decision. “A vast majority of people in Kenya rely on quality generic drugs for their daily survival. Through this important ruling, the High Court of Kenya has upheld a fundamental element of the right to health,” he said. “This decision will set an important precedent for ensuring access to life-saving drugs around the world.”

Kenya has not had a case where patients were denied access to generic drugs as a result of the Act, but ALP’s Nyachae noted that generic drugs bound for Africa had been held in Europe in the past, which formed the basis for the case. In 2009 a shipment of drugs headed to Nigeria was held at The Netherlands’ Schipol Airport on the grounds that they violated patent rights.

Uganda and Tanzania currently have draft anti-counterfeit bills. “We are working to ensure that the text of the law is not as vague as that of the Kenyan Act,” Nyachae noted.

We hope to see a ripple effect, where countries will pick up on this ruling and adapt it to protect their own citizens

James Kamau, coordinator of the Kenya Treatment Access Movement, said the judgement is historic and protects not just Kenya, but the entire eastern African region.

“Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and so on – all the countries that depend on Kenyan ports to import their drugs – have now been shielded from the threat of being denied access to vital generics as a result of the ruling,” he told IRIN/PlusNews. “We hope to see a ripple effect, where countries will pick up on this ruling and adapt it to protect their own citizens.”

“Even in Kenya this judgement is not just important for people living with HIV, but to all 42 million Kenyans, who depend on generics to treat all kinds of illnesses,” Kamau said. “It extends well beyond ARVs [antiretrovirals] and to drugs for opportunistic infections and all other diseases.”

kr/he
source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Mark Wilson/IRIN

Ibu Sutria along West Java’s heavily polluted Krukut River, along which millions live

JAKARTA,  – Heavy pollution of river water by household and industrial waste in the Indonesian province of West Java is threatening the health of at least five million people living on the riverbanks, say government officials and water experts.

Poor sanitation and hygiene cause 50,000 deaths annually in Indonesia, with untreated sewage resulting in over six million tons of human waste being released into inland water bodies, according to an ongoing study by the World Bank.

Ibu Sutria, 53, lives in a wooden shack on the banks of West Java’s Krukut River, which runs approximately 20km south from the capital, Jakarta, to the city of Depok. “Sometimes the river is clean, sometimes it’s dirty,” she said. Sutria suffers from regular bouts of stomach ache and diarrhoea, and says the river is constantly flooded.

“People use the river for a toilet and children play in it because they have nowhere else to swim.” She and others in her community use nearby ground water to wash themselves because they think it is cleaner than river water.

Pak Jumari, 35, is a leader of a community group living along the Ciliwung River, which runs north for 97km from the West Java city of Bogor. Since 2010 he has been using a boat to keep his own section of the Ciliwung clean by scooping out rubbish. “We find many detergents and soaps in the river, “he said. “We no longer use it for washing or drinking.”

Fishermen on the Ciliwung use “blast fishing” – bombs made of kerosene and fertilizer to kill fish so they are easier to catch – which has worsened pollution. Nevertheless, his community still fishes in the river, with few reported ill effects, he said.

Reasons for pollution

The Deputy Minister of the Indonesian Environment Ministry, Hendri Bastaman, told IRIN that pollution in West Java’s rivers is worsening, particularly in the Ciliwung and Citarum, where five million people live along the riverbanks.

“Much of the waste is dumped into rivers from households,” said Bastaman. “People are using these rivers as personal toilets. We’ve also found mercury in river water, which we suspect is coming from companies or those running small-scale mining activities close to the rivers.”

Health risks

Muhammad Rez Sahib, advocacy coordinator of KRuHA, a Jakarta-based coalition of more than 30 Indonesian NGOs focusing on safe water access, said none of the capital’s rivers could be viewed as safe for human use.

“Even the water suppliers in Jakarta don’t use the water here because it is so polluted,” he said. “Instead, they use water from the Citarum River, which is also heavily polluted. Even after this water is treated it’s still unsafe to drink.” The Citarum flows north from Bandung, the capital of West Java, for approximately 300km to the Java Sea.

Safe water alternatives for poor communities are “few and far between” Sahib noted. “Many will turn to use ground water, but due to a poor sewage system and open defecation, 90 percent of ground water in Jakarta is contaminated by E.coli bacteria. Many infant deaths are caused by this bacteria – E.coli is the main threat to human life from these rivers.”

Edward Carwardine, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Indonesia, noted that in West Java the use of “improved water” – obtained from taps, boreholes, covered wells and springs – falls below the national average, with only half of the population (approximately 20 million) able to access it.

“When families don’t have access to improved water sources, disease is much more likely,” said Carwardine. “Nearly a quarter of all deaths amongst children under five in Indonesia are caused by diarrhoeal disease.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that nationwide more than 20,000 children in this age group die every year from diarrhoea.

Dengue fever and malaria, both spread by mosquitoes that thrive in stagnant water, account for an additional 3 percent of overall child deaths, according to Carwardine, who said more focus is needed to end the widespread practice of defecating in the open.

The Environment Ministry’s Bastaman said the government is using educational campaigns to raise awareness of the dangers of unsafe water and to end defecation in rivers.

“For the Ciliwung we have a 10-year plan to restore the river’s health,” said Bastaman. “But for the Citarum, it’s impossible to get it back to the way it was prior to being polluted. The pollution is just too much.”

mw/pt/he
source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Tiggy Ridley/IRIN

Few pregnant women in the DRC are offered the full package of services for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (file photo)

KINSHASA, – Poorly integrated maternal health services, a lack of human resources and a serious shortage of money for treatment mean the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is unlikely to meet the global plan of eliminating mother-to-child transmission by 2015.

“It is a catastrophe. An HIV test during antenatal visits is not automatic – the information may be given but the tests may not be available, or the treatment may not be available,” said Thérèse Kabale Omari, the director for Kinshasa Province of Femme Plus, an organization that works with women living with HIV in seven provinces of the DRC.

Only one laboratory in the country is equipped to carry out polymerase chain reaction tests for early infant diagnosis. “When an HIV-positive mother has a baby in [the southern province of] Kasai-Occidental, the centre must send the sample to Kinshasa, the capital of DRC. Getting results back can take weeks, and these women often don’t live near the health centre,” Omari said.

According to 2011 government statistics, just 5.6 percent of HIV-positive pregnant Congolese women receive ARVs to prevent transmission of HIV to their babies, but the official estimate puts the mother-to-child transmission rate at 36.8 percent.

Major problems

A nationwide shortage of life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs after the closure of some HIV projects and reduced funding for others means Omari is often forced to negotiate with doctors for HIV-positive women to be accepted in local treatment programmes. “I have to plead with them to prioritize pregnant women when someone dies or drops out off treatment,” she said.

“If you help someone to find out their HIV status, then you should have a way to treat them if they test HIV-positive, but today we can’t give women that assurance,” Omari noted. Dr John Ditekemena, country director of the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), says while the DRC has strong policies and strategies for fighting HIV, and for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), a severe lack of resources means they cannot be fully implemented.

“A main problem is coverage – many pregnant women who are tested will not return to the same facility for delivery. The DRC is a huge country with very limited resources – human resources, logistics, problems with the supply chain coordination – and the disastrous situation of the health infrastructure mean we won’t be able to reach the goal of eliminating mother-to-child transmission by 2015,” he said.

Femme Plus’s Omari noted that ‘free’ treatment was rarely completely free. “For example, the HIV test may be free, but you have to pay for the patient card, for the syringe they use if you need some treatment, for transport – the costs add up and few women can afford them,” she said.

Mariam, in her 20s, was diagnosed with HIV while she was pregnant a year ago, but has not started on ARVs because she cannot afford the US$15 it costs to get a CD4 test, which measures immune strength. She has since had her baby but the child has not been tested for HIV.

Mariam’s husband travelled to the southeastern city of Lubumbashi shortly before she was diagnosed and has not returned. She suspects he has left her and their children for good. To make ends meet, she sells plastic bags of drinking water on the streets of Kinshasa, the capital, but the money she makes is barely enough to feed her family, let alone pay for health care.

“I have not been tested and I think I am getting sick because I have noticed an itchy rash all over my arms recently,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. “I have two other children who are healthy but the baby gets sick often – I am worried.”

If you help someone to find out their HIV status, then you should have a way to treat them if they test HIV-positive, but today we can’t give women that assurance

Ramping up PMTCT

EGPAF and its partners, under a project known as Projet Intégré de VIH/SIDA au Congo – Integrated HIV/AIDS Project (ProVIC) – supported by the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), are assisting 24 maternal health facilities in five provinces of the DRC. Separately but also funded by PEPFAR, EGPAF is supporting 53 sites in Kinshasa and 17 in Lubumbashi as part of the “Malamu” project – meaning ‘good’ in the local Lingala language – to accelerate the pace of PMTCT in the DRC.

“The idea is to have a network of sites where women can receive the full package of PMTCT services, which will help improve coverage,” said Ditekemena, adding that the project was working to build up other areas of PMTCT such as male involvement and counselling on infant feeding.

“If you invite 100 women to the antenatal clinic with their husbands, only 10 or 12 will show up – we are extending the hours of service to allow men to come in after work or at the weekend,” he added. “Mother and infant follow-up is difficult if she is not counselled properly, especially if she does not have a support system around her – spouse, family, community.”

The ProVIC project aims to see 50,000 pregnant women tested for HIV and get their results in 2012, while the Malamu project aims to test 30,000 women.

“Slowly, step by step, we can increase coverage and improve the quality of care,” said EGPAF’s Ditekemena. “Perhaps by 2019 we will have eliminated mother-to-child HIV transmission in the DRC.”

kr/he
source www.irinnews.org