African leaders try to obstruct international justice

Laurent Gbagbo, former president the Ivory Coast, has become the first former head of state to go on trial before the International Criminal Court at The Hague. He refused to step down after losing an election in 2010, and is accused of encouraging his militias and security forces to commit murder, rape and other crimes to keep him in power.

A very good thing that he should face trial, you might think, but that does not seem to be how other African rulers see it, and they appear to be using the African Union to try to hamstring the court.

When the ICC was set up in 2002, African leaders seemed pretty keen, but now the African Union has resolved to go on shielding President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan from facing charges of genocide in Darfur, and criticised prosecutions being brought against other African leaders such as Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, who is accused of orchestrating violence after an election 8 years ago.

Of course, the ICC is not perfect, and many leaders in Africa and other places who should face trial are powerful enough to escape, but surely it is surely in the interests of Africa’s people that some should face justice rather than none. If the continent’s rulers care about that.

Accidental anti-malaria drug

A Nobel prize-winning drug that kills parasitic worms may also work against malaria. Trials of ivermectin in villages in Burkina Faso are estimated to have prevented nearly 100 cases of the disease.

In communities where people took the drug, 25% of children avoided catching malaria during the rainy season, compared with just 16% in the untreated villages. The drug appears to work by weakening or killing the mosquitoes that spread the illness.

The trial does not end until next week, and these are preliminary results, but one of the investigators said they were ‘pretty excited’. Deaths from malaria have been reduced dramatically over the last 15 years, but it still kills about 430,000 people a year, most of them in Africa.

Fighting parasitic worms is also crucial. They can cause illnesses such as river blindness and elephantiasis, and by some estimates, they affect a third of the world’s population.

Malaria - progress in the fight

Malaria is projected to kill more than 430,000 people this year. That's bad enough, but it represents a cut of around 60 per cent since 2000, the year the disease was targeted by the UN's Millennium Development Goals programme.

The WHO says 6 million lives have been saved. Its director general, Dr Margaret Chan, describes this as 'one of the great public health success stories of the past 15 years. It's a sign that our strategies are on target, and that we can beat this ancient killer.' 

Nearly 70 per cent of the reduction is put down to the distribution of a billion insecticide-treated bed nets. But there are some worrying signs. The mosquitoes that carry the disease are becoming more resistant to some insecticides, and the rate at which cases are being reduced is falling. 

Africa still accounts for about 80 per cent of all cases. (See also my posts of 11 June 2009, 23 May 2012, 23 Sept 2011, 29 April 2013.) 

Ghosts of Biafra

Biafra. Just the name conjures up visions of the dreadful Nigerian civil war in the late 1960s in which two million civilians died, many from starvation, as the federal government blockaded the southern province which wanted to break away.

Now the Nigerian government is trying to shut down Radio Biafra, a pirate radio station broadcasting from the region. The government says it has ‘successfully jammed’ the station, but reporters in Nigeria say it is still broadcasting.

It targets the Igbo, who still feel they are discriminated against by the northern Nigerians, transmitting phone-ins and attacks on the country’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, and other government figures.

Independence for Biafra is still being demanded by a group called the Movement for the Actualisation of a Sovereign State of Biafra (Massob), and a number of its leaders and sympathisers have been arrested.  

AIDS - are we winning the war?

Thirty years ago, I was one of the first foreign television reporters to report on AIDS in Africa. At that time, the disease was a death sentence. There was no effective treatment. But, at a speed that surprised quite a few in the medical profession, effective drugs began to appear, and, though still dangerous, the virus ceased to look all-conquering.

Now the United Nations says life expectancy of those with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, has grown by 20 years since 2001, thanks to a sharp increase in access to effective drugs, the price of which have fallen dramatically. In 2000, the cost per year was $14,000. Now it is just $100.

In 2000, fewer than 700,000 of those with the virus were getting effective treatment. Now the figure is 15 million. The executive director of the UN’s AIDS programme, Michel Sidibé (pictured), describes this as ‘one of the greatest achievements in the history of global health.’

Not that everything in the garden is rosy. Up to 41.4 million are now infected by the virus, the majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa. So most are not getting access to treatment, and experts warn that if we do not invest more money, deaths will start increasing again. 

Ebola survivors afflicted by mysterious after effects

Hopes are rising that the worst of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa may finally be over. Liberia, once the worst affected country, has had no new case since March 27, and it is hoped it will be declared Ebola free this week.

But signs are emerging of a disturbing ‘post-Ebola syndrome’ which seems to be affecting some survivors, who are reporting a variety of symptoms such as loss of sight and hearing. A WHO official said she had come across two people who were now blind.

Other complaints include severe joint, muscle and chest pain, and extreme fatigue. Experts acknowledge that so far the focus has, understandably, been on trying to save people’s lives, and that little research has been done on the disease’s long term effects, so that it is not even clear whether the symptoms reported are caused by the illness or its treatment.

The current outbreak is by far the deadliest the world has ever seen, killing 11,000 people. The previous worst came in 1976 when 280 died.  (See also my blogs of April 4, June 7, Aug 8, Oct 30, 2014, and Jan 29, Feb 16, 2015.)

*Thanks to York Library, New Hampshire for this listing of my book Disaster!  http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20150428/NEWS/150429058/101017/NEWS

Mass poisonings - Africa and India

Alcohol can kill, especially it it’s laced with crocodile bile, or other lethal additives. In Mozambique, 69 people, including apparently a toddler, have died after drinking home-made beer, ironically, at a funeral.

Health officials believe contamination with crocodile bile made the drink lethal. The woman who brewed it and a number of her relatives are dead, and another 39 people are being treated in hospital.

Meanwhile in India, at least 29 people have died in Uttar Pradesh after drinking toxic liquor at a cricket match, and 100 more are in hospital. Some have lost their sight. Doctors say the drink may have been adulterated with cheap, but dangerous, methyl alcohol. The owner of the shop that sold it has been arrested.

Poisonings of this kind are depressingly common in India. Nearly 170 people died in 2011 in West Bengal, 107 in Gujarat in 2009, and 30 in Uttar Pradesh in the same year.

The cost of stopping Ebola

The current death toll of nearly 5,000 means more people have been killed in the present ebola outbreak than in all previous ones put together. If you're wondering why the stricken countries in West Africa have been finding it so difficult to halt the epidemic, the Economist has crunched some interesting numbers.

Experts reckon ebola could be brought under control if 70% of the sick could be got into clinics or treatment centres where the spread of the virus can be halted, but to deal with the kind of case numbers being predicted for the next few weeks, that would require tens of thousands of beds.

Medecins Sans Frontieres and other charities, as well as governments like those of the US and the UK, have been busily building, but the WHO calculates that running just a 50-bed ebola hospital would cost nearly $1 million a month. No wonder the UN says a 20-fold increase in aid is needed.

And it's not just the buildings. The three countries where most people have died - Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia - have only a few hundred doctors between them, and some of those have now died of the disease. 

Ebola outbreak deadliest ever

The current Ebola outbreak is by far the worst the world has yet experienced. So far more than 930 people have died in West Africa, while more than 1,700 cases have been reported. The previous worst death toll came in 1976, when 280 people died in Congo and Zaire.

The mortality rate this time appears to be about 55%, though it can reach 90%. The World Health Organisation has now declared an international health emergency, but it is not proposing any bans on trade or travel.

Ebola is a fearsome disease, with symptoms that include high fever, internal and external bleeding, and damage to the central nervous system. There is no vaccine and no cure.

One of the obstacles to containing its spread is the poor state of the health services in the countries it has struck, with a lack of medical staff, laboratory technicians and protective clothing for doctors and nurses.  (See also my blogs of April 4 and June 7.)

More refugees than ever

This week 45 African men suffocated in the hold of a ship as they tried to get themselves smuggled into Italy. It is said they had begged to be released but that they were kept below in case the vessel capsized. Another 70 boat people were lost in the Mediterranean in a separate incident.

Over last weekend, patrol boats picked up 5,000 migrants, following a reversal in Italian policy. Until 2011, the country had tried to block them, sending those it caught back to Africa, but after 360 drowned off Lampedusa last year, it has started search-and-rescue missions.

Since then, the number of arrivals has ballooned to 65,000, compared with 8,000 in the first half of last year, while Greece has seen the number of illegal migrants more than double. Earlier this week, Italian police arrested five Eritreans they said were running a people-smuggling operation.

Across the world, 2013 saw 6 million people driven from their homes by violence and conflict, taking the global total for refugees to more than 50 million. The war in Syria has displaced 9 million people – nearly half the population.

Current Ebola outbreak among worst ever

The current outbreak of Ebola in Guinea in West Africa is now perhaps the fourth deadliest ever. The World Health Organisation says it has so far registered 328 confirmed or suspected cases in the country, and that 208 people have died.

The worst ever outbreak so far was in Congo, then Zaire, in 1976, in which the death toll was 280. A further 245 died in the country in 1995.

As well as the cases in Guinea, the disease has cost 6 lives in Sierra Leone, where there are 79 known or confirmed cases, and there are also fears that Ebola has reappeared in Liberia, which suffered 9 deaths earlier this year.

There is no vaccine and no effective treatment for the disease, which causes fever, muscle pain, and severe bleeding.  Death rates can reach 80 per cent or more.

Chikungunya - dengue's nasty cousin spreads

Chikungunya fever, like dengue, tortures sufferers with severe pain especially in the joints. Spread by the same mosquitoes that transmit dengue, it is common in Africa and Asia, but is now extending its presence alarmingly.

First detected in the Caribbean in December on St Martin, it has now spread to 15 other countries there. More than 4,500 cases have been confirmed, though health officials admit there may be thousands more. Haiti has more than 1,500 cases.

The disease probably crossed the ocean in the blood of an infected traveller. It has also reached French Guiana and Florida. Chikungunya is less lethal than dengue, but there are fears that it could leave victims with long-lasting arthritic pain in the joints.

Local people are being urged to get rid of puddles or containers holding water where mosquitoes thrive, while travellers are being told to wear long trousers, long-sleeved shirts and socks, and to use insect repellent. 

Ebola spreads

Mali is the latest West African country to go on alert against the Ebola virus, after three cases were reported close to the border with Guinea where 86 people have died. Another six people have died in Liberia, while Sierra Leone has also reported cases.

Senegal has now closed its border with Guinea, and controls are being imposed on people entering Mali’s capital, Bamako.  The virus first appeared in Guinea's remote south-eastern region of Nzerekore, where most of the deaths have happened, but it was not confirmed as Ebola for six weeks, and it has now reached the capital, Conarky.

This is the first known outbreak of the disease in Guinea. Most recent cases have appeared in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a sign of the alarm it is causing is that Saudi Arabia has suspended visas for Muslim pilgrims from Guinea and Liberia.

The virus is spread easily and kills 25-90% of those it infects. Just as with AIDS when it first appeared, there is no vaccine and no cure. The deadliest outbreak so far came in Congo (then Zaire) in 1976 (pictured), when 280 people died - about 88% of those infected.

Forgotten cyclone hits Africa

While the eyes of the world have been on Typhoon Haiyan as it devastated the Philippines (see my blog of 12 Nov), a cyclone has killed at least 140 people in the Somali region of Puntland. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and livestock has perished by the thousand.

The authorities say many people are still missing, and fear the death toll could reach 300. Heavy flooding has made many of the region’s dirt roads impassable, making it hard to get supplies to stricken communities.

Makeshift shelters have been built to accommodate people driven from their homes, while the government has appealed to international aid agencies to help. The Somali government has pledged $1 million.

Puntland declared itself an autonomous state in 1998 in an attempt to escape the clan warfare that has disfigured so much of Somalia, but the region has not escaped armed conflict and has been used by pirates as a base for attacks on international shipping.

·        * Another Spanish review of my book Historia mundial de los desastres http://lecturaserrantes.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Withington%20%C2%B7John

Darfur - lest we forget

So far this year, an estimated 300,000 people have fled their homes in Sudan’s Darfur region according to the United Nations.    After a peace deal was signed in 2011, violence had died down, but not out.

Altogether, about 1.4 million people are now homeless, and 300,000 are believed to have died since the conflict began in 2003.  While on a visit to a refugee camp, the UN’s top humanitarian official, Valerie Amos, said the situation was ‘extremely worrying’.

She said displaced people faced chronic food shortages, and had to walk in fierce heat to get water.  They also lacked access to health care and education, while rebels were obstructing the distribution of aid.

The conflict began with rebels complaining that the Sudanese government favoured Arabs and oppressed black Africans.  Since it started, the mainly Arab Janjaweed militia has been accused of carrying out ethnic cleansing and genocide, and President al-Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.

(See also my blogs of March 4, 5 March, 6 Aug, 21 Sept, 2009 and 27 May 2010.)

* The fifth in my series of videos on Britain’s 20 Worst Military Disasters features the Battle of Hastings.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtIhODt-Wrc&feature=youtu.be

 

Air accidents - skies getting safer

Last year saw the fewest number of airliner crashes since 1945, when, of course, there were only a fraction of the number of flights we have today.    Altogether there were 23 fatal accidents, killing 475 in aircraft, plus 36 on the ground.

The number involving passenger flights was even lower – just 11.  The year 2012 also saw the longest time to elapse without an accident in modern aviation history – 68 days.  The worst event of the year happened on June 3, when a Dana Air MD-83 crashed on approach to Lagos in Nigeria, killing 153 people on board and 10 on the ground.

Africa remains the least safe continent, accounting for 22% of all fatal airliner accidents even though the continent accounts for only about 3% of all departures.   Airlines from 14 African nations are banned from flying into the EU.

The accident figure has been declining steadily since 1997, and the Aviation Safety Network, which compiles it, says this is a tribute to the continuing efforts of international aviation organisations.

Disastrous start to New Year

A Happy New Year to all readers.    Sadly, 2013 got off to a very unhappy start in the Ivory Coast’s biggest city, Abidjan, where 64 people were killed at a fireworks party at the national football stadium.   Another 49 were injured.

According to reports, a deadly crush developed at about one o’ clock in the morning when one group of partygoers tried to leave the event just as crowds of others were arriving.   At least 28 of those killed are said to have been under 15.

The authorities have said that 5,000 extra security personnel had been drafted in, as many people went along to the event to celebrate what they saw as the country’s return to peace following months of violence after a disputed election in 2010.

The government has announced an inquiry, while the opposition has called on the Interior Minister to resign.   About 20 people were killed in a stampede at an international football match at the same stadium in 2009.   (See my blog of March 30, 2009.)

*My book Disaster! has just been published in paperback in the USA - http://www.amazon.com/Disaster-History-Earthquakes-Plagues-Catastrophes/dp/1620871815/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356715794&sr=1-2&keywords=disaster+withington

AIDS - good news and bad news

The United Nation’s latest report on the prevalence of the AIDS virus across the world shows that the number of children newly infected last year is nearly a quarter fewer than the figure for 2009, though that still means there were 330,000 new infections.

The number of new infections among adults on the other hand has remained broadly stable for the last four years at about 2.5 million.   Across the world, 34 million people are thought to have the virus.

Over recent years, the number of victims receiving drugs that can keep the virus at bay has increased substantially, but the report reckons that 7 million people who need them still do not get them.   Sub-Saharan Africa remains the part of the world that is worst hit, though some countries there have managed to reduce the number of new cases.

In contrast, the number of new infections in Russia is growing, and there have been increases in AIDS-related deaths in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.  The UN has ambitious targets to reduce the spread of the virus and provide treatment for all who need it by 2015.

Fakes undermine fight against malaria

Recent successes in the fight against malaria are being undermined by the way counterfeit drugs have penetrated the supply chain in sub-Saharan Africa and south-east Asia.   American researchers examined 4,000 anti-malaria drug samples from 28 countries and found that a third were fake.

The problem is that not only do they fail to protect the people who take them, but they can also lead to resistant strains appearing, and the researchers think the problem may be even worse than their findings suggest.

Death rates from malaria have fallen by more than a quarter since 2000, but more than 3 billion people in 106 countries are still at risk, and up to 1.2 million die every year.

There has been concern in recent years over the emergence of resistance to the most effective drugs in western Cambodia.    (See also my blogs April 11, May 30, Sept 24, 2009 and Oct 21, 2010 and Sept 23, 2011.)

Measles - still a major killer

A global campaign has cut the number of deaths from measles dramatically, but they are still way above target, and every day, there are nearly 400 deaths from the illness.  

Back in 2000, 535,000 died every year.    By 2010, that total had fallen to 139,000 – a reduction of 74%, but the target had been to achieve a 90% drop.   Unicef says every death could have been prevented by vaccination. 

The campaign had been progressing well until 2007 when a vaccination programme stalled in India, with the authorities (perhaps distracted by the effort to eliminate polio) trying to make do with giving children just one injection to protect them when two were needed.   In addition, there were major outbreaks in southern Africa. 

A new combined vaccine against measles and rubella is being launched, with a new target of a further 95% drop in deaths from the 2000 level by 2015.   

*I was interviewed about the Titanic the other day by BBC Somerset.   It's posted here:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoCfD2kzNm8&list=HL1335275415&feature=mh_lolz