Lagos: Blazing the trail in healthcare provision

Ever wonder why many Lagosians keep praise-singing the present administration of Babatunde Fashola in Lagos State? Of course, the facts speak for themselves in terms of infrastructure and the changing faces of the city. However, a further digging would reveal that the government has not only endeared itself to the people because of its infrastructure wonders that turns the city into a reference point in terms of development in the most populous African nation. Ask many beneficiaries of the Lagos State Government’s healthcare facilities and you would marvel at their testimonies.

Besides basic free health care available at the State hospitals, the Lagos State government under the leadership of Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) is not resting on its oars in ensuring that its citizens live a healthy life. Hence, its recent activities are geared towards eliminating avoidable ailments and deaths in the state.

Combating Blindness
Just as the whole world recently celebrated World sight day, Lagos state government unfolded its core strategies including infrastructure and technology development; incorporation of the principle of primary health care; and human resource development to combat blindness in the state. The Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Mr. Toyin Amzat who disclosed this explained that objective of Vision 2020, the global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness which was formally launched by the World Health Organisation in 1999, has since been vigorously pursued by government leading to the establishment of the Lagos State Blindness Prevention Programme in 2000 by creating awareness and conducting free eye screening, distribution of free glasses, drugs and performing free eye surgeries.

Amzat pointed out that the programme which started from occasional community free eye screening and free surgeries has metamorphosed to a permanent, well structured, sustainable comprehensive eye care system that has reached out to 339,409 people in various communities with 113,663people benefiting from free eye glasses; and another 25,489 people had free eye surgery done to restore their vision while 34,138 pupils in the various schools have also been screened.

The determination
The Special Adviser noted that government was not unmindful of the enormous task still ahead of its hence he reiterated government’ s commitment towards the pursue of the goal of achieving sight for all by the year 2020 as well as rendering qualitative, affordable and accessible eye care services and free eye screening/surgery mission to the people.

He stressed that emphasis will be placed on the training and retraining of the state Ophthalmic team and sub specialization of Ophthalmologist adding that low-vision centres and optical workshops will be established in the health facilities in the state. “ Public enlightenment on issues relating to avoidable blindness, visual impairment and good eye health practices will not be left out. Government is always willing to partner with any organization in the realizationof this goal thus I urge all the stakeholders including Ophthalmologist, Optometrist and Ophthalmic Nurses to work together as a team to combat avoidable blindness by the year 2020,” the Special Adviser said.

Fighting Maternal Death
In a similar development, the government, as part of efforts to reduce Maternal Mortality rate in the state, has unfolded plans to launch a Maternal Mortality Reduction (MMR) programme Jide Idris, the Commissioner for Health, who disclosed this in Lagos recently, said the new programme is designed not only to confront the challenges of the soaring rate of maternal and child mortality, but also has major features such as the integration of maternal, newborn and child health services under the primary health care framework.

According to him, the initiative also provides for a continuum of care within the whole health system in the state, and the planned implementation of safety net especially for vulnerable and the poor through the design of an alternative sustainable financing mechanism along the community-based insurance scheme model.

He observed that Nigeria’ s progress over the past years in reducing maternal, infant and under five mortality rates has not been very impressive. “ If this present trends continue, it is unlikely that the country will achieve its IMNCH- elated MDG targets of a three quarters reduction in the maternal mortality ratio from 1,000 in 1990 to 250 per 100,000 live birth by 2015 and a two thirds reduction in the under five mortality rate from 230 in 1990 to 77 per 1,000 live births by 2015, he said.

Programme Objectives
According to Idris, the objective of the strategy is to fast track a programme at revitalizing the Primary Health Care system in every local government. It would also extend coverage of services thereby reducing maternal and under five mortality in line with the country’ s targets for the goal four and five of the Millennium Development Goals.

He added that the state government had worked towards reducing the maternal mortality rate, but accepted that results have been largely unimpressive. The new initiative, according to him, is aimed at accelerating the reduction, if the state is to reach goals four and five of the MDGs by 2015. According to him, the present administration is driven by the vision of building an atmosphere where the fears usually associated with pregnancy and deliveries are eroded.

With the unwavering determination of the state government in ensuring good healthy living for inhabitants of the state, no doubt, Lagosians are in for better days. From all indications, the Babatunde Fashola administration is committed to serving the people of the state.

Maternal Mortality of 52,000 Per Annum, Scandalous

It has come to light that Nigeria ranks among the highest in maternal mortality rate in the world. In this day and age, when health issues especially the mother and child health related issues are taken for granted in less endowed countries even in Africa, Nigeria is said to be recording 52,000 cases of maternal deaths annually.
A child health expert, Dr. Theresa Ekwere was quoted as saying that about 52,000 Nigerian women lose their lives annually during childbirth. She made this figure known in Lagos recently, at a Women Empowerment and Safe Motherhood Seminar organised by the Women's wing of the Uhueze Nenwe Welfare Association, Lagos Branch.
The medical practitioner said that most of the victims of the maternal deaths were people between the ages of 15 and 45 years, who are at the peak of the productive years. She disclosed that Nigeria has the second highest rate of maternal mortality in the world, behind India, the second most populous nation on earth.
Dr. Ekwere who works at the Chevron Hospital in Gbagada, Lagos, also identified some of the problems as lack of health facilities close to the people, high cost of treatment in hospitals which many poor people could not afford, and poor quality services by the few available hospitals close to the poor people.
She pleaded with the government to show more commitment to the health needs of the people, improve the welfare of health workers and provide necessary infrastructure for effective performance. Dr, Ekwere also advised women to shun abortions so as to avoid unnecessary loss of their lives in the process. She reportedly pointed out that the worst hit are the rural women who have to trek long distance before reaching medical facilities, a situation which could spell doom in case of emergency.
We are pained that Nigerian governments are never ashamed by this scandalous statistics, which are reeled out always by foreign donor agencies, NGOs, medical doctors and other stakeholders. In spite of huge resources we have earned from oil and internally generated revenues, Nigeria is regarded as the second in world record on maternal mortality.
The authorities are only concerned with their pockets and the welfare of their families while common citizens of this country die in droves daily from preventable diseases and child birth issues. What does it take to make health facilities available and cheap for the common people, order than providing Health Centre at the rural areas to take care of less complex health issues like anti natal cases?
Instead of doing that, they would prefer embarking on bogus projects, which they normally abandoned after using it as a conduit-pipe to siphon public funds. But when they have simple headache or cold, they scamper abroad to treat themselves with public funds or ill-gotten wealth.
It is indeed a shameful thing to observe that in the whole of Africa, Nigeria is ranked number one in poor health issue like maternal mortality. Other less endowed African nations are better than us. This is an indication that Nigeria has gone far off on issues of corruption, since it is clear that it is due to corruption that money meant for medical and other social welfare schemes are pocketed by heartless Nigerians charged with providing such facilities.
It is time to have a change of heart by those who have found themselves in positions of trust. It is also time for the common people to ask questions and demand answers from those who claim to be representing them in government. It is equally time to have free, fair and credible elections so that those chosen to represent their people can be held accountable. Things must change in this country for us to have a better society.

UNICEF says polio infection drops by 98 per cent in Nigeria

Poliomyelitis virus infection in Nigeria has dropped by 98 per cent since 2009, UNICEF said in a statement in Abuja on Monday.
The statement, signed by Paula Fedesk of UNICEF Communication, Media and External Relations Unit, said, “It is one of the most dramatic reductions in polio virus circulation seen in any endemic country in the history of polio eradication programme.
“Nigeria had had a total of 367 cases in 2009 but only 8 cases as at October 4, 2010.”
It explained that the achievement was the outcome of the sustained effort of political and traditional leaders as well as the commitment of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency.
According to the statement, Nigeria can stop polio virus transmission by mid-2011 if it intensifies its effort and upgrades its eradication programme. It stressed that the battle against polio was not yet won as the gaps in the programme needed to be addressed to stop transmission.
Nigeria needs to record zero cases of polio transmission for at least three years for it to be certified polio-free. UNICEF promised to continue its support for vaccine procurement and ensure that the vaccines reached their destinations.
The statement quoted Suomi Saki, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, as saying that once polio was interrupted, it had to stay interrupted. Dr Saki also promised that UNICEF will ensure that Nigerian children were protected against polio.
“We have to work together to make sure that all children in the country are protected routinely against polio.”
The official also said that the effort would ensure the protection of children “against other vaccine-preventable diseases like measles, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus”.
The statement said the Federal Ministry of Health with UNICEF and other partners is working to put in place mechanisms that would deliver maternal, newborn and child healthcare services.

Can Cell Phones Really Save the Planet?

Bracken Hendricks thinks it's not the gadget that will make the difference—but what we do with it.
Last year, nearly one in four of the world’s six billion people lived in extreme poverty. A quarter of all human beings on the planet had no electricity. Nearly a third did not have reliable access to safe drinking water, and even larger numbers subsisted on wood and charcoal instead of modern fuels. Just under 800 million adults were not able to read or write last year. And, close to nine million children died before their fifth birthday.
Yet, in the face of these terrible unmet needs, the earth’s ability to supply more resources is already strained to capacity. Last year, global forests lost an area the size of Greece. Creeping deserts drained the fertility of the soil in thousands more acres, costing farmers $42 billion in lost income from dwindling harvests. Pollution from our homes, cars, industry, and mismanaged lands, burdened the atmosphere with yet another 30 billion tons of greenhouse gases, rendering the natural environment ever more fragile, less resilient, and stressed by our demands.
The urgency of development is on a collision course with the very real constraints of a limited planet. The un-sustainability of this current path goes to the very core of our greatest global challenges in poverty, health care, education, and the environment. We can never provide enough stuff in the same old ways. The only solution is to innovate.
Reversing these devastating trends requires new access to services, new ways of building prosperity, and new communication tools available to all. Technology is accelerating and democratizing the work of saving the planet.
The value of new technology is not in the gizmos themselves. It lies in their ability to foster new communication, business models, and organizing strategies that touch human lives and foster creativity.
The value of new technology is not in the gizmos themselves. It lies in their ability to foster new communication, new business models, and new organizing strategies that touch human lives and empower creativity.
Information technology can transform development. Increasing mobile-phone penetration is linked to rising GDP. Over half the businesses in South Africa and Egypt attribute increased profits to mobile phones. Last year more than ten percent of Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product passed through the cell phone based M-Pesa financial service tool. That number will double in 2010. And, the gender gap that results in 300 million fewer female subscribers to mobile services, is estimated as a $13 billion market. But the real mobile revolution is in the innovative services that are delivered on this platform.
The African nonprofit Tostan, a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) member, has launched initiatives to teach literacy and numeracy with mobile phones to non-literate, poor and rural populations. Last year, one project reached 12,000 people in 200 rural communities in Senegal. And studies show major gains, as the number of participants able to write a text message jumped from 8 to 62 percent.
Another platform, Ushahidi, meaning “testimony” in Swahili, was built for tracking electoral violence in Kenya, to tap the knowledge held by crowds, and force transparency. But social entrepreneurs around the world now put this mapping tool to work on other things like disaster relief in Haiti. Other SMS-based tools are fighting counterfeit drugs in Ghana, monitoring elections in India, and sharing market prices to improve the lives of Southeast Asian fisherman.
The applications of cell-phone based tools are as diverse as the human imagination and as plentiful as human needs.
The applications of these tools are as diverse as the human imagination and as plentiful as human needs. Vitana.org, another CGI member, is using online tools to provide access to micro lending for student loans in un-served markets around the world. A new commitment from Delta Partners will assist separated refugee families reunite. While blogs and streaming video are empowering dissident voices and countering human rights abuse. The United States Secretary of State has even called Internet freedom a human right.
Technology innovation is transforming physical infrastructure as well. The next generation of development will not involve ever-bigger pipes, roads, and wires to move ever-larger flows of resources. Instead progress increasingly means being smart, using resources sparingly but to greater effect. CGI members are leading the way here too, with commitments that reinvent building materials, rewire communities and replace oil with fuels made from algae or electricity from the sun.

Innovative use of mobile and internet technologies

Pesinet’s service leverages the quality GSM network in Africa and open-source software to record and transfer information and then reduce the amount of time a doctor needs to access and analyze it.
A mobile application has been developed to collect and transfer data on the ground by Pesinet’s agents. An online application linked to a database allows for remote monitoring of health data by the local doctor, activity management and tracking of key impact indicators.
Data flows go through three steps:
Data collection
Health agents record data on their mobile phones via a customised JAVA applet designed to be easy to download, install and use.
The phone keeps track of each subscriber so that the agents can easily access and update recorded information on a patient.

Data transfer and treatment
Each day, proximity health agents send the data through the GPRS network to a central server. Pesinet pays for the bandwidth used and manages the server infrastructure.
Display and features
Collected information is made available through a web interface with two main features: pre-sorting and flagging of abnormal cases and generation of medical records
Activity management and administration
Program coordinators can administrate the service and monitor the collection and the enrolment processes. Automatically generated activity reports ease remote follow-up by each management level. The systems also allows monitoring of key progress indicators on Pesinet’s impact. Data is aggregated and statistics displayed in restricted access at different levels (by program, by region, by country).

Lagos: Blazing the trail in healthcare provision

Ever wonder why many Lagosians keep praise-singing the present administration of Babatunde Fashola in Lagos State? Of course, the facts speak for themselves in terms of infrastructure and the changing faces of the city. However, a further digging would reveal that the government has not only endeared itself to the people because of its infrastructure wonders that turns the city into a reference point in terms of development in the most populous African nation. Ask many beneficiaries of the Lagos State Government’s healthcare facilities and you would marvel at their testimonies.

Besides basic free health care available at the State hospitals, the Lagos State government under the leadership of Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) is not resting on its oars in ensuring that its citizens live a healthy life. Hence, its recent activities are geared towards eliminating avoidable ailments and deaths in the state.

Combating Blindness
Just as the whole world recently celebrated World sight day, Lagos state government unfolded its core strategies including infrastructure and technology development; incorporation of the principle of primary health care; and human resource development to combat blindness in the state. The Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Mr. Toyin Amzat who disclosed this explained that objective of Vision 2020, the global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness which was formally launched by the World Health Organisation in 1999, has since been vigorously pursued by government leading to the establishment of the Lagos State Blindness Prevention Programme in 2000 by creating awareness and conducting free eye screening, distribution of free glasses, drugs and performing free eye surgeries.

Amzat pointed out that the programme which started from occasional community free eye screening and free surgeries has metamorphosed to a permanent, well structured, sustainable comprehensive eye care system that has reached out to 339,409 people in various communities with 113,663people benefiting from free eye glasses; and another 25,489 people had free eye surgery done to restore their vision while 34,138 pupils in the various schools have also been screened.

The determination
The Special Adviser noted that government was not unmindful of the enormous task still ahead of its hence he reiterated government’ s commitment towards the pursue of the goal of achieving sight for all by the year 2020 as well as rendering qualitative, affordable and accessible eye care services and free eye screening/surgery mission to the people.

He stressed that emphasis will be placed on the training and retraining of the state Ophthalmic team and sub specialization of Ophthalmologist adding that low-vision centres and optical workshops will be established in the health facilities in the state. “ Public enlightenment on issues relating to avoidable blindness, visual impairment and good eye health practices will not be left out. Government is always willing to partner with any organization in the realizationof this goal thus I urge all the stakeholders including Ophthalmologist, Optometrist and Ophthalmic Nurses to work together as a team to combat avoidable blindness by the year 2020,” the Special Adviser said.

Fighting Maternal Death
In a similar development, the government, as part of efforts to reduce Maternal Mortality rate in the state, has unfolded plans to launch a Maternal Mortality Reduction (MMR) programme Jide Idris, the Commissioner for Health, who disclosed this in Lagos recently, said the new programme is designed not only to confront the challenges of the soaring rate of maternal and child mortality, but also has major features such as the integration of maternal, newborn and child health services under the primary health care framework.

According to him, the initiative also provides for a continuum of care within the whole health system in the state, and the planned implementation of safety net especially for vulnerable and the poor through the design of an alternative sustainable financing mechanism along the community-based insurance scheme model.

He observed that Nigeria’ s progress over the past years in reducing maternal, infant and under five mortality rates has not been very impressive. “ If this present trends continue, it is unlikely that the country will achieve its IMNCH- elated MDG targets of a three quarters reduction in the maternal mortality ratio from 1,000 in 1990 to 250 per 100,000 live birth by 2015 and a two thirds reduction in the under five mortality rate from 230 in 1990 to 77 per 1,000 live births by 2015, he said.

Programme Objectives
According to Idris, the objective of the strategy is to fast track a programme at revitalizing the Primary Health Care system in every local government. It would also extend coverage of services thereby reducing maternal and under five mortality in line with the country’ s targets for the goal four and five of the Millennium Development Goals.

He added that the state government had worked towards reducing the maternal mortality rate, but accepted that results have been largely unimpressive. The new initiative, according to him, is aimed at accelerating the reduction, if the state is to reach goals four and five of the MDGs by 2015. According to him, the present administration is driven by the vision of building an atmosphere where the fears usually associated with pregnancy and deliveries are eroded.

With the unwavering determination of the state government in ensuring good healthy living for inhabitants of the state, no doubt, Lagosians are in for better days. From all indications, the Babatunde Fashola administration is committed to serving the people of the state.

Mobile phones help lift poor out of poverty - U.N. study

Mobile phones -- spreading faster than any other information technology -- can improve the livelihoods of the poorest people in developing countries, a United Nations report released last week said.

But governments must design responsive policies to ensure that the benefits reach the broadest number in the most effective way, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said in its Information Economy Report.

Mobile phone subscriptions will reach five billion this year -- almost one per person on the planet, UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi told a news conference on the report.

Penetration in developed countries is over 100 percent, with many people having more than one phone or subscription.

In developing countries, the subscription rate is now 58 per 100 people, and rising rapidly, with the rate in the poorest Least Developed Countries (LDCs) up at 25 from only 2 per 100 a few years ago, UNCTAD figures show.

UNCTAD said the economic benefits of mobile phones, whose use in LDCs far outstrips technologies such as the Internet or fixed-line phones, go well beyond access to information.

Insight
Key findings of the Women and Mobile Report include:
• 93% of women reported feeling safer because of their mobile phone
• 85% of women reported feeling more independent because of their mobile phone
• 41% of women reported having increased income and professional opportunities once they owned a mobile phone
• Women in rural areas and lower income brackets stand to benefit the most from closing the gender gap
• Across all countries a woman is 21% less likely to own a mobile phone than a man. This figure increases to 23% if she lives in sub-Saharan Africa, 24% if she lives in the Middle East and 37% if she lives in South Asia
• Over the next five years women could account for two-thirds of all new subscribers

Can Women and Technology Save the UN Development Goals?

We live in a blessed time," Jeffrey Sachs said. We met at a cafe outside the UN to discuss the Millennium Development Goals to fight poverty and disease and, with these words, Sachs left me thinking really? With all the news about floods, earthquakes and tsunamis, war and political oppression that dominate world news, the words "we live in a blessed time" seemed out of touch. But they're true. And Sachs -- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special adviser on the MDGs -- is optimistic. We're behind on our 15-year goal to reduce world poverty by half by 2015, yes. But breakthrough technologies and a focus on women's empowerment may allow us to catch up and save lives as never before.
"In the past deprivation was inevitable," he said. "Now it can be ended."
He gave examples. Anti-malaria bed nets have revolutionized the control of that disease. Supercharged fertilizer and seed may allow a poor farmer to grow crops on arid land. Water storage, as well as filtration technologies, may save poor women a day's walk to a well. Sachs has a long list. "There are many, many other examples of technological breakthroughs in the last ten years that make the MDGs far more achievable quickly than was the case at the beginning of this process," he said.
Now comes the hard part: galvanizing aid.
Why should we?
In the days leading up the recent MDG summit in New York, Selim Jahan, Director of the Poverty Division for the UN Development Programme, met with congressional aids in Washington to pitch the goals as an investment. Painted often by conservatives as either flabby, toothless and corrupt or cunning, dangerous and corrupt, the UN is a tough sell in the US. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that he met a certain reluctance. Why should our tax dollars be spent on these things? they asked. Americans have little appetite these days for state building at home, let alone abroad.
"Suppose in Country X, because of deprivation, international policies, inequalities or natural disasters, the level of poverty and deprivation has become so severe that people become desperate and a civil war brakes out," he said. "Once that happens, the international community, including all the developed countries, will try to send peacekeeping forces, will then try to provide humanitarian assistance, will try to contain that thing. But that's down the road. If you spend your money upstream, you may not have to do anything downstream," he said. "Saving two dollars now may cost 200 dollars later on."
Jeffrey Sachs made a similar point. "When people connect the dots to the world's big instabilities in places like Afghanistan, Somalia or Sudan," he said. "they see a lot of that has its roots in extreme poverty and make, what I believe, is the ultimate connection: That this is not only about the important values of being good global citizens and humane people. This is also about peace on the planet."
Eight Goals, One System
The UN and its partners implement MDG programs through a complex network of government policy, state agencies, community leaders, NGOs and private sector investment. On a global level, the eight goals (which include poverty relief, primary education, gender equality, child mortality, maternal health, environmental sustainability, combating disease, and global partnership) are seen as equally important, eight pillars to a kind of development system. The UN tries not to prioritize because the goals are "synergistic," as they put it. Progress on one will lift the sagging state of another -- or decline with it.
Compared to its neighbors, for example, Malawi has largely ended extreme hunger. But it's fallen behind on school enrollment, leaving any progress vulnerable.
Meanwhile, in parts of Africa where the population suffers from a high rate of HIV / AIDS, combating disease is clearly the biggest challenge. "Without a healthy population, what kind of development can you have? That has an impact on your employment, your income, child mortality and all other things," Jahan noted.
Ironically, the goal with the widest impact on development, the most integrated of the eight, is the most neglected. Women's empowerment may not seem as urgent as solving hunger, disease, or child mortality, but the world is slowly realizing it's the key to all three.
Women Buy Food, Men Buy Motorcycles
If the MDGs are interconnected -- a kind of system for development -- then poor women are its handyman. In the villages, they're the farmers. They collect the water and they collect the fuel wood. Women raise the kids. The women take care of the children in a health crisis. Women engage the schools. "It's a sad true message to the men out there that the women carry a disproportionate share of the burden," Sachs said. "In poor areas it's shocking sometimes."
That may never change. But if empowered with credit, Sachs notes that these women could buy fertilizer, improve seed and at least sustain their families where they toil now in vain. At home, with solar panels providing electricity, they could save hours spent collecting fuel wood and money spent on kerosene. They could live in a safer home, and in a more productive country. Their children could finally study at night.
"So many things can be done that are simple and very empowering," he said.
Jahan pointed out to me that women are more prudent with money as well. Policy experiments show women invest more in family welfare, he said. "If you give women money, the first thing they do is buy better food for their children, send their children to school, or take on their children's health issue."
And men?
"If you give them the money, they'll drink beer, buy a TV or a motorcycle, these kinds of things."
That's good to know. But knowledge and ideas are of little worth without the mother. Another long neglected goal in the developing world is maternal health. Hundreds of thousands of women die in child birth not only tragically but needlessly, due to complications that basic emergency care would prevent.
The MDG Summit and UN Women
In typical UN fashion, the MDG summit came and went with a lot more pomp and circumstance, a lot less transparency and action, than the media, NGO observers, and member states would have liked. "Many of us came into this event with very high hopes," Joanna Kerr, CEO of Action Aid International, told the press. "We know that almost a billion people are living in chronic hunger, and yet we have the solutions to address that on the table."
Kerr called the summit's outcome document, the Action Plan, "a very long laundry list with many wonderful aspirations. But you can't eat an aspiration."
"Many of us feel there's too much complacency at the UN building," she said. "We were hoping much more commitment and much more money was going to be pledged."
Her frustration is understandable. But hopefully this wont be the last word on the world's commitment. The agendas of the G8, G20, and other international forums will allow for follow-ups on unmet pledges -- and status checks on action, Jahan said.
And on the final day of the summit, at least, the UN did make progress on its women's goals. At an event titled "Every Woman, Every Child," Ban Ki-moon announced a new global strategy for women's and children's health that he projects, through committed pledges of more than $40 billion over the next five years, has the potential to save the lives of more than 16 million women and children.
The Secretary General also introduced former-Chilean president Michelle Bachelet as the leader of UN Women, a new "superagency" charged with equality and empowerment missions around the world. Having lobbied several months for a leader with internationally credibility and experience, Women's rights advocates celebrated the choice as "top notch."
Behind The Curve, But ...
Seeing a mixture of hope and pessimism in its aftermath, it's hard to make MDG projections out of the summit. Before the meeting, in conclusion, I asked Sachs where we were.
"We're behind the curve," he said. "But we could accelerate tremendously."
"What would that take? It would take increased financing from major donor countries and putting that money into the most effective countries in a carefully directed manner."
"If we do that, we'll achieve the success we want," he said.
Pledges came. But to the extent that the world's poor needed? Probably not. But UN Women and technological breakthroughs remain X factors. And the MDGs remain our promise to keep.

Nigeria close to stopping polio if…

Nigeria’s Expert Review Committee on Polio Eradication and Routine Immunisation has concluded that the country could stop poliovirus transmission by mid-2011 if it were to intensify and upgrade its eradication programme, and build on the significant progress it has made.
A UNICEF statement released weekend noted that the Committee revealed that the incidence of wild poliovirus infection dropped an unprecedented 98 per cent since 2009.
During its 20th meeting in Abuja last week, the report said the Committee noted that the drop has been one of the most dramatic reductions in poliovirus circulation seen in any endemic country in the history of the polio eradication Nigeria had had a total of 376 cases in 2009 but only eight cases at 4 October 2010.
It is thanks to the sustained engagement of political and traditional leaders and the strong direction of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency that poliovirus transmission is now at the lowest level ever seen in Nigeria.
This effort was significantly supported by international partners like UNICEF, WHO, Rotary International, the Gates Foundation, US-CDC, USAID, World Bank and the German and Japanese governments.
But the battle against polio isn’t quite won yet: significant programme gaps must be addressed to stop transmission—and there have to be zero cases for at least three years for Nigeria to be certified polio-free.
The statement also revealed that it would continue its support for vaccine procurement, to ensure enough for every child in the country; for quality logistics so that vaccines reach their destinations safely; and for effective social mobilization and communication so that not a single child is missed.
UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Suomi Sakai said: “We have reason to celebrate, but not to relax. Once polio is interrupted, it has to stay interrupted. We have to work together to make sure that all children in the country are protected routinely against polio and against other vaccine-preventable diseases like measles, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus as
well.”
The Expert Review Committee, the Federal Ministry of Health and UNICEF, with other partners, strongly support mechanisms to deliver routine immunisation, one of which is Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Weeks. During the MNCH Weeks,which occur twice a year, children receive life-preserving immunisations,de-worming medications and supplements like Vitamin A free of charge. The next MNCH Week is in November.