East Africa Drought Leaves 9 Million Needing Aid: U.N.

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Ugandan children turnin' into zombies...

Mysterious ‘zombie’ disease afflicts thousands of Ugandan children
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - Agnes Apio has to tie up her son Francis before she can leave the house. In his state, he is a danger to himself. Where once he walked and talked like a normal child, now he is only able to drag himself along in the dirt. Francis is suffering from “Nodding Disease,” a brain disorder that, according to CNN, afflicts at least 3,000 children in northern Uganda, leaving them physically stunted and severely mentally disabled.

“I feel dark in my heart,” Apio says as waves flies away from her son’s face and mops up his urine after a seizure, “This boy has become nothing.” “Reportedly the children gnaw at their fabric restraints, like a rabid animals,” says The Daily Tech. The article calls them “zombie children,” having “no cure” and “no future.” First the victims become restless, can’t concentrate. They say they have trouble thinking. Then comes the nodding, an uncontrollable dipping of the head that presages the disease’s debilitating epilepsy-like seizures. It is this nodding motion that gives the illness its name.

Nodding Disease first attacks the nervous system, then the brain. As the epilepsy-like seizures progress and worsen, the children become less and less like themselves, and more and more distant and blank. Eventually the brain stops developing and the victims’ bodies stop growing. So far, no patients have recovered. Grace Lagat also has to tie up her children in order to leave the house. Daughter Pauline, 13, and son Thomas are bound hand and foot to keep them from shuffling away and getting lost. Pauline recently disappeared for five days. Experts are baffled as to what causes the disease, which only occurs in children. Early findings suggest a confluence of the presence of the black fly-borne parasitic worm Onchocerca Volvulus, which causes river blindness, and acute vitamin B6 deficiency.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, onset usually takes place at the age of five or six and progresses rapidly, leaving the victims severely mentally and physically handicapped within a couple of years. Victims can wander off and disappear. Some 200 “secondary deaths” have been blamed on fires and accidents caused by children with the disease. Physicians and workers with the Ugandan Red Cross are frustrated by what they see as a lack of urgency in the government’s handling of the disease. After months of lagging, officials have only begun an official tally of cases within the last two weeks.

The situation was already dire when a team from the World Health Organization visited northern Uganda in 2009. CNN quotes one doctor from the team, Dr. Joaquin Saweka as saying, “It was quite desperate, I can tell you. Imagine being surrounded by 26 children and 12 of them showing signs of this. The attitude was to quickly find a solution to the problem.” Solutions, however, have been slow in coming. Doctors have been treating the seizures caused by the disease with epilepsy drugs, but their efficacy is limited. The drugs only slow the progression of the disease, but fail to stop it.

Currently, Ugandan government officials say that they are doing everything they can to fight the epidemic. They say that new epilepsy drugs are being tried and special training has been instituted for local health officials. This, they say, is as much as can be done for a disease whose cause and cure are largely unknown. Saweka said, “When you know the root cause, you address the cure. Now you are just relieving the symptoms. We don’t expect to cure anybody.”

MORE & Video

 

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Mebbe dey'll be able to irrigate the Sahara and get water to drought-stricken areas...

'Huge' water resource exists under Africa
20 April 2012 - Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater.

They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface. The team have produced the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden resource. Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, they stress that large scale drilling might not be the best way of increasing water supplies.

Across Africa more than 300 million people are said not to have access to safe drinking water. Demand for water is set to grow markedly in coming decades due to population growth and the need for irrigation to grow crops. Freshwater rivers and lakes are subject to seasonal floods and droughts that can limit their availability for people and for agriculture. At present only 5% of arable land is irrigated.

Now scientists have for the first time been able to carry out a continent-wide analysis of the water that is hidden under the surface in aquifers. Researchers from the British Geological Survey and University College London (UCL) have mapped in detail the amount and potential yield of this groundwater resource across the continent.

Helen Bonsor from the BGS is one of the authors of the paper. She says that up until now groundwater was out of sight and out of mind. She hopes the new maps will open people's eyes to the potential. "Where there's greatest ground water storage is in northern Africa, in the large sedimentary basins, in Libya, Algeria and Chad," she said. "The amount of storage in those basins is equivalent to 75m thickness of water across that area - it's a huge amount."

Ancient events

 

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Polio still a problem in third world...

Polio fight at tipping point: WHO
Sat, May 26, 2012 - MAKE OR BREAK: An Emergency Action Plan aims to boost vaccinations in the three remaining endemic countries, but there is a funding gap of US$945 million

The international group tasked with ridding the world of polio said on Thursday it was shifting to “emergency mode” as the fight enters its final stretch. Polio remains endemic in just three countries — Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan — after India was taken off the list in February. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) said accelerating efforts now could wipe out polio for good — if not, its spread to other countries would remain a constant risk. If it is stamped out, polio would be the second infectious disease affecting humans after smallpox to be completely eradicated.

The GPEI, spearheaded by the WHO and UNICEF among others, says failure could lead within a decade to 200,000 children being paralyzed each year. Aside from the health benefits, it also estimated savings of US$40 billion to US$50 billion by 2035 by taking into account cash spent on campaigns and treatments, and gains in productivity. “Polio eradication is at a tipping point between success and failure,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in a statement. Polio is an infectious disease which affects mainly children under five and can cause paralysis in a matter of hours. Some cases can be fatal. The GPEI’s Emergency Action Plan aims to boost vaccination coverage in the three remaining endemic countries, but it said it has a 50 percent funding gap of US$945 million through the end of next year.

The group hopes a resolution being considered by health ministers this week in Geneva, Switzerland, declaring polio eradication “a programmatic emergency for global public health” would mobilize the political commitment and resources needed to make up the shortfall. Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan saw an unexpected rise in cases last year, according to experts, who said conflict, political change and poor infrastructure all make vaccination programs difficult. Outbreaks in recent years in China spread from Pakistan, and in West Africa transmitted from Nigeria, highlight the continued threat of resurgence. “The polio map looks better than it ever has before, [but] at the same time the program is a little bit on the edge because the funding support needed to get that final mile isn’t really there,” said Jay Wenger of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which supports the GPEI.

India was taken off the list of polio endemic countries by the WHO on Feb. 25 after more than a year passed with no fresh cases. Worldwide, polio cases have dropped by more than 99 percent since 1988, from an estimated 350,000 infections to 1,352 reported in 2010. “We know polio can be eradicated and our success in India proves it,” president of GPEI partner Rotary International Kalyan Banerjee said. UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake said the group’s efforts were at risk until every child was fully immunized against polio. “We have come so far in the battle against this crippling disease. We can now make history — or later be condemned by history for failing,” Lake said.

Polio fight at tipping point: WHO - Taipei Times