30 December, 2005

Photo taken in a schoolyard in Mtwara, Tanzania. The children are, by raising their hands, answering the question “who has had malaria”.

Site Visit arranged by MIM and Roll Back Malaria in Mtwara, Tanzania. 

 Photo: Andy Craggs, WHO

2006 - we are nearly there… and… l would like to thank all of you who have taken the time to send in your emails over the past year. Keep up the good work.

Three interesting and retrospective (and positive) email contributions from listserv members included below. A nice way to round up the year -- also, some heath news and a couple of odds and ends you may be interested in reading.

I'll see you next year.

Colin Lloyd, Moderator, South Africa

1. Listserv member contributions

Pius Sawa Murefu, Radio Journalist, Kampala, Uganda

+ The year 2005 has left me with many desires, but I will remember it positively in that I managed to join the Health and Media listserv. Thanks for that.

I will also remember this year for my successful exam with the U.S federal bureau as an international Swahili Broadcaster, awaiting employment with the Voice of America (VOA). My eligibility is on until June 2008.

Of-course, I cannot fail to mention the 2005 U.S embassy radio journalism award I won earlier this month. I also applied for a fellowship at Stanford University, in California. I was, however, not pleased with Reuters who denied me a place on an HIV/AIDS reporting course, despite having applied twice.

I got a Christmas gift: a job reading the Swahili news on the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation’s TV channel, UBC. I am doing very well. In addition to this new job, I also work for radio Sapientia as a reporter and newsreader (in Swahili).

Also, World Vision Radio has promised to contact me in case they need any news reports from Uganda.

I would like to correspond with anyone working at a media house in Africa and the Diaspora, either in Swahili or English. Please pass on my appeal.

I did not go back to my country, Kenya, for Christmas… I miss home!!!

Links: MIM conference overview

Erick Odour, print journalist, Nairobi, Kenya

+ As we prepare to usher in New Year, I must pay my tribute to the heath and media staff for a wonderful job it has done in terms of keeping members updated on health issues. It is not an easy task. My “congratulations” to all! Please keep it working.

I personally hope to see 2006 a year to turn around health coverage with the assistance from “health and media”. In what first appeared to be a mere workshop that comes and goes, has now turned to be a reliable source of news and information. I am delighted and hope that you have great plans for future initiatives. Please come back to Kenya once again, you are productive. Let me also take this opportunity to wish all members a happy new year.
 

Sraj Sulemani, Radio Producer, Malawi

+ Thank you so much for taking your time to update me on the latest research on the groundbreaking Malaria Vaccine being conducted by Betuel Sigauque and colleagues at Manhica Health Research Centre in Mozambique. I know that a Malaria Vaccine is indeed a long way off as it was also disclosed by some researchers during the recent Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Pan African Conference in Yaoundé Cameroon.

However, it’s worthy taking such an initiative as the rewards of having an effective Malaria Vaccine far out weighs the trouble these researchers are undergoing.

Thanks once again for running the item I sent you about my trip to Yaoundé Cameroon for the MIM Pan African Conference. I would like to make one correction however that I was considered for the trip to MIM by The Malaria Alert Centre (MAC) of Malawi and not the Gambia.

As a follow up for the Yaoundé meeting, the Director of Malaria Alert Centre in Malawi, Dr. Grace Malenga organized a day long media orientation workshop on how the media can collaborate effectively with the health sector.

This workshop took place on the 20th December 2005 at the MAC Secretariat in Blantyre – Malawi, where more than 20 Journalist from the Electronic as well as the print media attended.

One of the main thorny issues which emerged during the workshop was the lack of collaboration between the Media and the Health Sector. This, it was observed, was impeding the media to report effectively on health matters.

Another issue that was brought up was a lack of commitment by the government, non-governmental organizations and other stake holders in the health sector.

At this point, I was asked to present my experience of the MIM meeting in Yaoundé and, really, this was the highlight of the day as I assured my fellow journalists that there is a lot of initiatives underway.

Institutions such as the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM), provides the necessary framework to coordinate Malaria research. Also, MIM’s headquarters is to be moved from Stockholm, Sweden to Africa, in Tanzania, by end of 2006. This should offer a greater opportunity for African countries to scale up Malaria research.

I also mentioned that there are other organizations which are quite active in researching for new drugs for Malaria like the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) and TDR of the World Health Organization and others.

The Gates Malaria Partnership (GMP) has done a tremendous job by supporting African graduates of Human Medicine to pursue Ph D studies and more than 30 students of Ph D have already completed their research in Malaria. I was very lucky to meet and interview Prof. Brian Greenwood, the chairman of GMP based at the London School of Tropical Medicine, during this Yaoundé Meeting.

I asked him several questions on issues related to Malaria - particularly on resistance of the Malaria parasites to Sulphurdoxine Pyrimethamine SP and, the resistance of mosquitoes to insecticide treated bed nets (ITNs).

…well, before I sign off, I am requesting that all my fellow journalists who attended the MIM Pan-African Conference email me so we can share experiences in other areas.

Keep the network ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Health News

sources: BBC News, Global Health Reporting

+ Quake Villages Still Without Health Care
More than two months after a powerful earthquake ripped through parts of Pakistan, scores of mountain villages throughout the quake-affected areas still lack medical facilities and staff.
More

+ South Africa: Global Fund Withdraws Support for loveLife
The Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has pulled the plug on financing loveLife, a controversial South African youth-targeted HIV/AIDS campaign.
More

+ Ending AIDS: The Search for a Vaccine
This documentary looks beyond the purely medical challenges into the wider cultural issues surrounding HIV and addresses the scientific, political, ethical and organizational challenges of stopping the epidemic.
More

+ Microbicides 2006
This conference intends to provide updates on recent microbicide research, a forum for the discussion of new developments in microbicide research and to present opportunities for knowledge sharing.
More

+ Clue to how malaria infects cells
Scientists have made a key discovery about a molecule that helps the malaria parasite infect human cells.
Source: BBC - Full story

+ What do endemic, epidemic and pandemic mean?
 

Endemic is the constant presence of a disease or infectious agent in a certain geographic area or population group. Epidemic is the rapid spread of a disease in a specific area or among a certain population group. Pandemic is a worldwide epidemic; an epidemic occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting a large number of people. Source: Global Health Reporting

+ Why are young children and pregnant women more susceptible to malaria?

Many children experience initial malaria infection during their first two years of life, when they have not yet developed sufficient immunity, making these early years particularly dangerous. Malaria accounted for one in 10 deaths among children in developing countries in 2002. Pregnancy causes women to have reduced immunity to malaria, making them more susceptible to malaria infection and increasing their risk of illness, severe anaemia and death. Approximately 60% of all cases of malaria occur among the poorest 20% of the world's population.
Source: Global Health Reporting

Quote:

+ “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”   -- Author, Mark Twain

More news + information on the Health and Media website www.healthandmedia.org