Africa: World Must Retain Focus on Anti-Malaria Fight, Says Expert

Despite recent achievements in fighting malaria, the international community must not become complacent or distracted, says Dr. Steven Phillips, medical director of global issues and projects for ExxonMobil. Phillips, who also serves on the board of Malaria No More, spoke with allAfrica.com ahead of World Malaria Day, reflecting on progress in the fight against the disease.

-When we spoke last year you were very positive about the battle against malaria, citing increased funding, the availability of good tools to fight the disease and greater political will. Are you still as positive now as you were then?

I think there’s even more cause for being positive but there’s also some cautionary flags. The positive is that the investment is working. Global investment in malaria control is paying off, and the funding which has cascaded dramatically over the last 10 years has resulted in saving lives and improvement in prevention and treatment.
We, as in the global malaria partners – governments, public sector, private sector, NGOs etcetera – have a plan in place and it is increasingly receiving good country-level attention, especially in Africa, and more political will and more local resources are going toward implementing the plan.
The funding commitments have gone up considerably, somewhere from U.S. $50 million a year for malaria a decade ago from the entire international community to now something like U.S. $2 billion committed from all international institutions in 2011.
You can imagine with the economic headwinds, with the global downturn and also with a lot of competing priorities that donor governments have, the real question is will this level of finance be sustained? And if it’s not sustained what’s going to happen to the progress?

-Is that the note of caution that you mention?

The note of caution to me mainly is finance in terms of levels, but also the competing priorities that are very legitimate and very real and very pressing. With disease control, whether it’s malaria or smallpox or polio or cholera, the more effective the battle and the closer you get to the endgame the more the world tends to shift its priorities to more pressing issues.
So, for example, now some of the issues are hunger and nutrition and the empowerment and human rights of women and girls. One of the things about malaria that is under appreciated and under publicized is how much the fight against malaria can contribute to the health and welfare and productivity of women and girls.
The malaria communities is getting much better at profiling itself and making the world, including policy makers, taxpayers and the general public, recognize that malaria … is not just a single human scourge but it does in fact have repercussions for all of human development.

-The Abuja declaration on malaria signed by African leaders set 2010 as the target year for having cut malaria deaths in half. Last year you said trends were disappointing in terms of reaching that target. Where do we stand now and what more needs to be done?

Malaria deaths have been reduced from an estimated one million to approximately 850,000 per year between 2003 and 2009, and malaria cases have fallen from at least 350 million cases per year to 250 million a year in the same time interval. Among African children under five, malaria-associated deaths have dropped from an estimated 3,000 per day to approximately 2,000 per day.
My sense is that this is evidence of progress. One of the issues with malaria statistics is they tend to be dated. There is a one- to two-year lag time between where you are and getting reliable statistics. I think there’s every hope and expectation that these trends are continuing.

-As you were saying, as you fight malaria you’re fighting not just one disease, you’re fighting a number of things. Can you elaborate?

In general I think what’s really under-appreciated is how prevalent malaria is. Let’s say we have 250 million cases a year of malaria and sub-Saharan Africa has a population of about 750 million of whom about two-thirds live in a malaria zone. That is about 500 million people. So what we’re saying is that about half the people every year get a case of malaria throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Pregnant women and young children are disproportionately affected. It’s been shown, for example, in studies that about one-quarter to one-fifth of all deaths of children under five in a typical village are caused by malaria. And consequently, if you effectively fight malaria you will decrease what is called all-causes child mortality by that number by about 20-25 percent. That’s a huge… saving of lives.
On malaria and pregnancy – it’s not broadly appreciated how both the life of the mother and the fetus and infant-to-be are affected by malaria. The malaria parasite crosses the placenta and goes from the bloodstream of the mother to the fetus and then the infant. It causes growth retardation, it causes failure to thrive, which is a medical term for young infants not growing, not maturing and not developing physically or mentally. This is prevented very easily by a couple of doses of preventive medicine during pregnancy.
So one of the aspects of malaria that is especially important at the village level is to make sure that women, even women who don’t attend formal antenatal care, get a couple of preventive doses of anti-malarial drugs. Not only does that secure their own health throughout pregnancy and delivery, but also results much more likely in a robust and healthy infant.

-If malaria infection decreases in a village with normally high malaria prevalence, what does that mean for the community?

Since malaria is both physically debilitating and takes children from school, takes mothers from tilling the soil and takes fathers from local employment … what it means is that more human resources can be devoted to activities of daily life and economic productivity.
What that means in turn is more food, more education, probably better social integration and development of the entire community. And this is not [just] theory. This now in certain parts of Africa, especially with strong community-based malaria programs, has become a reality.

-Tell us about Nets for Life and where that project currently stands.

We feel Nets for Life is one of the most unique and creative private/state-based partnerships. It comprises six operational partners. They are six organizations that have banded together to form a single secretariat and then a single operational program.
The six organizations are: the Coca-Cola Foundation of Africa; Standard Chartered Bank; ExxonMobil; and the faith-based organization Episcopal Relief and Development, which works through a number of African dioceses in 17 countries. The non-corporate, non-faith based partners are two private foundations: Starr Foundation and the White Flowers Foundation.
Together we have banded together not only to finance the delivery and distribution of bednets at the end of the road, at the village and community level in Africa, but also to instill a bednet culture at the end of the road.
We use the power of the faith-based community, which has local trust and credibility, and the communication access and skill. So in many, many villages … the Nets for Life consortium is developing and delivering malaria messaging about the importance of prevention and treatment of malaria, using community volunteers and faith-based volunteers at the end of the road where there are typically no health facilities. And [the consortium is] also delivering bed nets.
The consortium over the last three years has delivered three million bed nets throughout 17 African countries. So it’s really a case example to me of partnership at its best. It builds on the core competencies of each partner and leverages it to maximum benefits.
Exxon Mobil’s contribution to this is the monitoring and evaluation program. What we’ve done with Nets for Life is work very closely with what is a faith-based culture and together we have adopted monitoring and evaluation measurement at all levels, all the way from the village levels to the country headquarters level to the regional Africa level.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201004230141.html

Ugly Sides of Forced, Early Marriage

Lagos — Nkiru Dubem was in Junior Secondary School 2 at Girls' Secondary School, Aguobu Owa, Ezeagu Local Government Area, Enugu State, when she was put in a family way by one Emeka, who was at the time a student of the Federal College of Education, Eha Amufu in Enugu.


When the school was about to close for the second term in 1999, some of her friends noticed that she had stopped attending class, a habit known to be strange.

One day, they decided to pay her a visit and on getting to her house, they met her vomiting at the back of the building.

When the school learnt that she had been impregnated, she was expelled forthwith in order to serve as deterrent to other students.

Another student, Angela Okoro, a JSS 1 student suffered a similar fate with Nkiru. Her own case was even worse as she was forced to marry a man twice older than her age and against her wish.

Emily on her part, a female daughter of a retired civil servant in a family of four had lost her mother long before she got married to a man almost the age of her father.

In 2000, when she was barely 17, her father made her to understand that she was the only female child of the family and also that he knew that one day somebody would come to marry her.

Emily told her father that even though she was 17, she had not really known what marriage really was because her mother who supposed to tutor her on the issue died two years after she was born and that the only knowledge she had about marriage was through stories her peers told her while in school.

These students are one out of many people in the category of early and forced marriages.

Forced and early marriages are interwoven because both entrap young girls in relationships that deprive them of their basic human rights.

Though, different reasons abound for entrants into early marriages as in the long run, the persons involved see themselves as being forced into it, because, sometimes, it is not consented and they end up being victims of early and forced marriages.

In other words, a forced marriage is the union of a man with woman but with at least one of them not given their full and free consent to the marriage.

In Nigeria for example, it is not uncommon where parents genuinely felt that they were acting in their children and family's best interests.

To families living in poverty or economic instability, a daughter may be seen as an "economic burden", who must be married as soon as possible to take financial strain off the family.

To another, it could be used as settling a debt, or to strengthen family or caste status through social alliances.

Evidences have shown that fears about sexual activity before marriage, or of rumors about such activity ruining a daughter's opportunity to marry willingly, also fuel early and forced marriages.

In many cultures, a family's honor depends on a girl's virginity. So, a girl sometimes may get married soon after her first menstruation so as to "protect" her virginity.

Recently, inside Iyana-Ipaja-bound Bus rapid Transport (BRT) bus, a young lady entered the bus with two children- one tied at her back, the other she held with her hand.

When she was entering the bus, she carelessly dragged the boy child whom she held in her hand into the bus when some passengers shouted at her to take it easy with the small boy, but instead she dragged him the more while they both climbed the bus.

Throughout this period, the woman in question never uttered a word either in protest or apology.

It was at this point that some women in the bus started abusing her for not being very careful the way she handled the child.

A particular woman said she must have been abused during her childhood days, which was why she never cared about her action; others predicted that she must have been forced into early marriage.

Almost everybody in that bus had one thing or the other to say about what she did but after she alighted from the bus.

A particular woman in her mid 30s remarked saying "any woman, who doesn't know the pains we women go through while giving birth, will not be careful in handling children, because if they do, they will not but pamper them knowing full well that it is neither easy to conceive nor to deliver".

According to her, a lot of women die in labour, others die immediately after delivery. So I don't know why some women are heartless, they find it difficult to show love to their own 'children.

"But could early marriage be the reason for this young woman's action, a man has asked a co-passenger neighbor?

"Certainly not. It could be that she was abused from childhood or must have been annoyed by her husband at home or anything could have fueled her action. Also, it may not even be any of these we are thinking," another passenger had reasoned.

Mama Kemi is a native of Ifo in Ogun State, who lives at Alade Street, Shasha Akowonjo, Lagos State. She had Kemi when she was 14 years old.

'Iya Orobo' as she is popularly known, recounted how her parents persuaded her to marry a man thrice her age when she was still in secondary school many years ago.

"I am the only child of my parents. My father died during the civil war and that was soon after my birth," she said. "So my mum was the person who took care of me till I was 14.

"The month I clocked 14, I was to enter JSS1. My mum told me that she could no longer fund my education due to the fact that her petty trading job was no longer profitable.

the proceed wasn't enough to feed on let alone paying my school fees, There was this man that usually came to our house and sometimes to the shop to buy fresh tomatoes and 'vegetables. In fact he was a regular customer, my mum said he liked the man because according to her, she saw all the qualities of a good husband in him, but this man was too old for her to marry, not only that, I used to call him "egbon Kabiru."

'Iya Orobo' also said her first sex with Kabiru was very painful even as she said when she was about seven months old she gave birth to Kemi prematurely.”It is not good for parents to force their daughters to marry when they are not up to the age, because some of these under aged girls are not matured mentally, psychologically, physically, spiritually and otherwise which were the things I suffered", she advised.

The phenomenon as well as early motherhood research predicted, are becoming increasingly less common among the wealthiest sectors of society in all regions of the world, they persist in Africa and South Asia, as well as certain areas of the Former Soviet Union. In 2003, the International Centre for Research on Women estimated that more than 51 million girls under 18 years were married and they expected the figure to rise to over 100 million within the next ten years. Similarly, in 2006, experts estimated that thirty-eight percent of young women aged 20 to 24 in the fifty least developed countries were married before the age of 18.

UNICEF estimates that in Africa, 42 per cent of women aged 15 to 24 were married before age 18. In Niger, 27.3 per cent of women aged 15 to 19 were married before the age of 15 and 76.6 per cent of women age 20 to 24 were married before the age 18.

The consequences of forced early marriage are that one is likely to become violent because the relationship is based on the power of one spouse over the other. Rape occurs frequently in forced and early marriages, especially for young brides.

Young married women are more at risk to (STDs) sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS. In general, younger women enter into marriages with partners who are significantly older and more sexually experienced.

UNICEF also anticipated that complications during child birth are much more common among young mothers.

They can result in severe disabilities, such as obstetric fistula -a tearing of the vagina which can leave women isolated from the society. Maternal mortality rates (MMR) are significantly higher among younger women. For example in Ethiopia the MMR is over 1200 per 100,000 live births among girls aged 15 to 19 and only slightly over 400 per 100,000 live in women ages 20 to 34. I n Yemen, where 52.1 per cent of women are victims of early marriage, the maternal mortality rate among girls 15to 19 is 19 per cent, research concluded.

Geraldine Okolie


http://allafrica.com/stories/201004090394.html
 

Govt rules out emergency action in power sector

From Madu Onuorah, Emeka Anuforo and Lillian Chukwu, Abuja.



THE Federal Government yesterday clarified Acting President Goodluck Jonathan's headship of the Ministry of Power.

Rather being seen as a move to declare a state of emergency in the sector, the government said the leadership structure was designed to enable the Acting President have a full grasp of the problems of the sector and promptly evolve ways to tackling them.

According to the Minister of State for Power, Nuhu Somo Wya, Dr. Jonathan is passionate about the deplorable state of the power sector and wants to bring reprieve to Nigerians by making electricity available for both domestic and commercial use.

Also yesterday, Jonathan directed the Federal Ministry of Education and the chairman of the Governors Forum to meet and agree on how best the 36 states of the federation can access the funds under the Education Trust Fund (ETF) to achieve the educational targets in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Jonathan told a quarterly meeting of the Presidential Committee on the MDGs to harmonise the activities of the intervention agency to have data on all its activities and its successes so far.

Wya said yesterday in Abuja that the Acting President had resolved "to do everything possible to unravel the issues militating against the power sector."

He debunked claims that the government had handed over rural electrification to the states. The minister said state governments willing to take over any project in their areas were free to do so in consultation with the Federal Government. The plan of government, he stated, is to hand the scheme over to the distribution companies, which have direct contact with the communities.

The Acting President raised a committee chaired by himself with the Minister of State as the deputy chairman to proactively solve the nation's seemingly hydra-headed power problem.

Other members are the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Federal Ministry of Finance, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), and Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), ministries of Petroleum and Water Resources, and experts from the private sector.

Wya, who spoke with reporters when he resumed at the ministry, described his re-appointment as a return to a normal course.

He said: "I have been appointed minister of state under the direct supervision of the Acting President. The Acting President is passionate about the economic development of this country and knows that without power we can't have any meaningful development.

"Our immediate objective is to improve on power to the generality of Nigerians, get sufficient gas, re-enforce our transmission and distribution network, ensure that whatever has been put on ground is improved and sustained, to create the enabling environment for the private sector to come in to invest, to make the power sector a very conducive environment for both the present and future investors.

"We are going to explore in the medium term, other sources of power. We have many dams that are already constructed by water resources. They have sewage, hydro sources that have electricity potential and we are going to tap into those resources so that we can give Nigerians more electricity and electricity delivered to the point of consumption."

He assured that all the stakeholders necessary for the attainment of the power target would be brought on board.

Wya said: "We are getting all the stakeholders involved to participate in this committee because power is a chain of stakeholders, from the fuel to the generation, to the transmission, to the distribution and to the consumers involve a lot of people. The oil companies are in charge of it. Water Resources Ministry is in charge of the water. These are the main sources we use.

"We are involving the CBN to facilitate most of our transactions. We also want to ensure that whoever is giving us power has his investment secured."

He called on the management and members of staff of the ministry and its agencies to redouble their efforts by ensuring that Nigerians enjoy reliable and sustainable power supply.

Wya assured that the current arrangement would massively reform the power sector, charging officials of the ministry "to embrace the reform which is not aimed at retrenching people but primarily to transform and reposition the sector for efficiency, accountability and the rule of law."

As the government unveiled its new plan for the sector, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) alerted yesterday that there would be a drop in power supply by 400 megawatts (mw).

A statement from PHCN yesterday said "the management of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) regrets to inform its esteemed customers that it has received notice from the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) that it will commence a four-day accelerated maintenance work on Oben and other gas pipelines on Friday, April 9, 2010.

"As a result of the maintenance work, daily power generation will drop by 400 mw, from the 3,600 mw of electricity currently being generated. However, we are informed that at the completion of the maintenance work more gas will be made available for additional electricity generation.

"In the circumstance, we appeal to our esteemed customers and other stakeholders, especially the mass media for understanding and co-operation as there will be substantial improvement in power supply nationwide after the maintenance of the gas pipe lines, as Geregu, Sapele and Olurunsogo power stations currently being restricted will come up fully to contribute to the overall generation to the national grid."

Special Adviser to the President on MDGs, Hajia Amina Zubairu, told journalists at the end of the meeting attended by Jonathan, governors, ministers, civil society groups, international and private sector partners at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that Nigeria had recorded successes as the maternal mortality had been reduced by 60 per cent, from 1,100 per 100,000 to 550 per 100,000 in the last three years.

Zubairu said: "Looked at the performance of the debt relief for the past three years with particular focus on the appropriation of 2009 budget that was N112 billion. Aggregate expenditure largely went to three sectors - health, education and water. In those sectors, health took about 35 per cent, 23 per cent to education and 25 per cent to water.

"Of course, MDGs' challenges in the health sector are one of maternal and child mortality. However, the investment we have made over the past three years, particularly last year, have made impact on the state of maternal and child mortality. The NDHL that was recently released showed that the investment reduced the mortality by 60 per cent. And this is a big success story. The challenge, however, is to further reduce this because it is not sufficient. And to ensure that by 2015 we reach the target of reducing it by three quarters."

She said the investment the government made went beyond infrastructure. "We put money into more than primary healthcare centres. One of the biggest successes was through the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, the 3,000 midwives that were put into the system. On education: We have successfully re-trained 120,000 teachers on basic core subjects. We also put in another 31,000 teachers on the federal teachers' scheme."

Zubairu stated that Nigeria "can reach the MDGs by 2015 but the three tiers of government have to come together. We have to be able to co-ordinate how we spend. For easy access to the Education Trust Fund, the Acting President has directed a meeting between the Minister of Education and the chairman of Governors' Forum to take a fresh look at the criteria that would enable access to that.

"These next five years, we have to treble and quadruple the progress we need to make. Data is a huge challenge to us. If you ask now for the data of the success recorded, we will find it difficult and it is a very big challenge to us and that is why the Acting President said, we must harmonise and get a dateline data this year."

We all know that without light no nation can have rapid and significant progress and development. Likewise for there to be a significant reduction in maternal and child Death, it is pertinent that we support and advocate for power so our hospitals and clinics can have electricity to perform to optimum capacity.   Well; afterall said and done, AMIHN  will be watching.

Child Abuse, the Bane of Our Society

It is not uncommon to see children walking the streets desperate, looking wretched and hunger stricken while hawking. Some of these children grow up to become touts, thugs, drug addicts, prostitutes or armed robbers.

What happened to their right to qualitative education access to clean water, food, shelter and health services? Why is the reverse the case in Nigeria and most Africa societies with children of school age roaming the streets, seeking alms with others serving as guides to the disabled parents?

This is a cause for alarm because the Nigerian child is in dire straits. From health, to education, to life expectancy, damning statistics regularly paint unflattering pictures of the terrible conditions under which Nigerian children are nurtured.

At different fora in all parts of the country, government officials make speeches about the state of the Nigerian child and promise them and their parents a better deal, as has being the routine over the years, yet the condition of the Nigerian child remains the unchanged.

Chatting with those who hawk, I found out that some parents are contributory factors to their constant presence on the streets. Some of the children even say they are always under strict instructions not to return home, unless they have something to show for it.

Everywhere in the country, the pitiable state of children in Nigeria is an evidence. In the Northern part of the country, hopeless students,beggars, almajiris, roam the landscape. In Lagos and other urban centre of the country, children are often to be found in market and in the street, engage in trading and other strenuous activities that are well beyond the at their tender frames.

Those who are Almajiris (students in search of knowledge) say they have no option but to go begging for what to eat, since their Mallam (teacher) cannot afford to provide for all of them likewise their parents. These Mallam can only afford shanty and unfavorable accommodations.

Over the years, organizations, philanthropists and indeed the government have made several pronouncements on the need to reduce or if possible completely eradicate this problem on our streets. Rather than reduce, the problem seems to have defined all solutions. The question then is what has been wrong with the previous efforts towards solving these problems? What steps do we need to take in order to tackle them once and for all? Yes, there exist governmental and non-governmental agencies that are making efforts towards eradicating the menace but what exactly needs to be done about the issue? Yes, there is the need to critically review the present situation because these children will eventually become the leaders of tomorrow.

The most disheartening aspect of the problem is that our politicians who have the mandate to steer aright the people's aspiration have remained in the forefront, promoting this unwholesome culture. They spend huge amounts of money buying drugs and other intoxicants for these youths to impulsively attack political opponents.

Infact they have organized them under various names across the country to unleash terror on innocent citizens such names include: Kaourage (tough ones) in Kaduna Yan Sara suka in Bauchi, Yan kalare in Gombe. Ecomog in Maiduguri, Bakassi boys in Eastern part of the country and Area boys in Lagos.

The questions are: why not spend such money in a better way? Why not provide infrastructure, offer scholarships, build vocational center’s or institutions and create job opportunities in order to eradicate the menace?

Should future mothers continue to hawk and fall victims of rituals and rapists as they seek to sell pure water, oranges, kola nuts, groundnut or soft drinks? These young children ranging between the ages of 7 - 12 years have become vulnerable to dangers of teenage sexual exploit by men. These men recklessly spend money on them and encourage them into commercialized sexual relationships. Children are raped, maltreated and sold at the whims and caprices of depraved adult. The girls end up as bread winners of their families, with some beneficiary parents deliberately ignoring to ascertain these sudden source of steady fat income.

Subsequently, they become victims of social insecurity with unwanted pregnancies, increased maternal mortality and infant mortality rates during child birth due to untimely attainment of maternal responsibilities and evidence of lack of adequate healthcare service delivery.

No wonder the famous American President, Abraham Lincoln emphasized on the importance of training a child, knowing fully well that they are the leaders of tomorrow. This was when he wrote a letter to his son's teacher in which he says "he will have to leave and know, that all men are just all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel, there is a hero. That for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader. Teach him that a dollar earned is of far more value than five dollars found. Teach him to learn to lose and also to enjoy in winning. Steer him away from envy... Teach him the secret of quiet laughter. Teach him the wonder of books, but also give quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hillside. In school, teach him that is far more honorable to fail than to cheat. Teach him to have faith in his ideas, even if everyone tells him is wrong. Teach him to be gentle with gentle people and tough with tough people. Try to give him strength not to follow when everyone is joining the band-wagon. Teach him gently, but do not cuddle him because the test of fire makes fine steel, let him have the courage to be patient, let him have the patient to be brave. Teach him to have sublime faith in his creator and faith in himself too because then will he always have faith in mankind."

Children are largely unprotected by the state and their rights to life, basic education an d the right not to be used for forced labour, child trade, child trafficking etc, as provided for under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989, are routinely flagrantly flouted. The United Nations Declaration on the Right of the Child that "mankind owes the child the best it has to give" ha little meaning in the country.

Our government at various levels need to strengthened current efforts to ensure the attainment of goal number two of the millennium development goals. Budgetary provisions should be improved; policy matter in this regard should be implemented collaboration with holders of stake should be instituted and sustained to ensure that children regardless of gender disparity attain basic education at affordable or no cost at all. They also need skill acquisition programmes to be able to cater for their own needs and those of their parents while they become employers of labour.

Awareness campaigns on the dangers of street hawking need to be stepped - up by constituted authorities with enforcement of stiff penalties on defaulters; provision of social amenities in rural and urban settings by government at various levels must be top priority; infrastructure and availability of competent manpower in educational institutions should be upper most on policy issues. All these will help to reduce the menace of child abuse in our societies. We cannot afford to fail our future generations. The time to act is NOW!

This lovely write up was done curtesy of: Lubabatu Idris of the Department of mass communication, University of Maiduguri.

I take my hat off for you...