Visit the stop TB Partnership for more information: www.stoptb.org/default.asp

You can also get some quick facts on TB on the Health and Media website: www.healthandmedia.org/TB.html

Gambian print journalist, Lamin Dibba, wrote in to ask if there are any health conferences in the near future - I don't know of any off hand so if you know of any, please send me the details.

Meanwhile, you can read Lamin Dibba's analysis of the Bird Flu in Africa that he recently wrote for The Gambia's Observer newspaper - Details below.

I would like to hear more from our members from the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Bangladesh - so... send me an email and let me know what health stories are making the headlines..

... all for now.

Colin Lloyd

Moderator - South Africa

more news and information: www.healthandmedia.org

1. Member Contributions:

Yusupha Bojang, journalist, Gambia

"In The Gambia, the Department of State for Health is embarking on sensitisation campaign on the bird flu. Communities are gathered and informed about the disease bird how it can be prevented and take charge of ones self. We believe if the communities are well informed and sensitised about the preventive measures it will help a lot. we have not discover any case in the Gambia but the government is on high alert."

2. Health News

+ Kenya: Malaria Research Fails to Lead to Action
Although Kenya is a leading producer of research on malaria, it has one of the highest malaria mortality rates in the world.
http://en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=65648188&u=604707

+  Drugs Fueling AIDS Crisis in Dhaka Slums
In the slums of Bangladeshs capital, drug use and prostitution are fuelling an HIV/AIDS emergency that threatens to become a full-blown epidemic.
http://en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=65648188&u=604710
 

+ Bird Flu Spread Raises Threat to Africans
The spread of the H5N1 virus to Niger, the second sub-Saharan African country hit after Nigeria, has raised the threat to people on a continent with weak disease detection, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
http://en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=65648188&u=604711
 

+ Underpaid Kenyan Nurses Lured Away
Kenya has lost 3,390 of its brightest nurses to rich nations over the past five years, frustrating the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis -- Africa's biggest killers.
http://en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=65648188&u=604713
 

+ ANGOLA: CHOLERA OUTBREAK CONFIRMED, 8 DEAD
Cholera, a disease associated with poor sanitation and access to potable water has claimed eight lives in a suburb of the Angolan capital, Luanda. The UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) said that 40 cases of the highly contagious disease, spread through contaminated water or food, were reported in the last few days in the Boavista shantytown located to the north of the capital.
www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51860

+ ETHIOPIA: DEAD BIRDS TO BE TESTED FOR AVIAN FLU
Samples from a poultry farm in southern Ethiopia where thousands of chickens have died are to be sent to Europe for further analysis to determine whether the birds died of avian flu, an official said on Tuesday. Local tests have found "flu-like" symptoms in 49 chickens from the farm, but more tests were needed to determine what exactly killed the birds.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200602280231.html

+ NIGERIA: FIGHTING MISCONCEPTIONS IS FIRST HURDLE IN BATTLE AGAINST BIRD FLU

“It’s a government set-up,” “It’s a white man’s disease,” “Getting close to chickens kills.” Since Africa’s first cases of the deadly H5N1 virus were reported in northern Nigeria early this month, rumours, conspiracy theories and scepticism have been rife. And as the federal government steps up the battle to stem the spread of the virus, many Nigerians are still puzzling over what to make of this strange poultry disease that has created such panic in the west.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51904

+ SOUTH AFRICA: THE SCIENCE OF HIV/AIDS
Science, human rights and good governance can make the world a better place, begins the introductory article of the latest Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) newsletter. "This is why we must protect all these things. If they are undermined, our country's development will falter. Ordinary citizens must make sure that government respects science and our rights and that it ensures that scientific and technological advances benefit all. Science must be held to account for itsinadequacies. But we must not allow our own government to misuse legitimate questions about science to refuse us our rights." Click on the link to read the newsletter.
www.tac.org.za/Documents/EqualTreatment/ET19.pdf

+ 12 NATIONS BAND TOGETHER TO FIGHT OFF H5N1 THREAT
Twelve West African nations on Thursday pledged to work together to fight the deadly H5N1 virus and called on the international community to back a joint emergency fund dedicated to the battle against bird flu. In a statement issued after two days of talks in the Senegalese capital, the group of nations - two of them bordering Nigeria, the only bird-flu-hit country in Africa to date - agreed on “the need for a concerted and coordinated approach in setting up national campaigns” against the virus.
www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51888

Latest: World Health News (BBC)

www.healthandmedia.org/world_health_news.html 

Latest: Africa Health News

www.healthandmedia.org/africa%20health%20news.html

3. Analysis

Avian Influenza: Risk Assessment for Africa
The arrival of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza on the African continent would be of great concern for human as well as animal health.

Though the densities of human and poultry populations are generally lower in Africa than in South-east Asia, the poultry production systems have many similarities, which would create multiple opportunities for human exposure, should outbreaks occur in African poultry. In Africa as in affected Asian nations, large numbers of households keep backyard flocks, which often mingle freely with wild birds. Most of such flocks scavenge for food, often entering households or sharing outdoor areas where children play.... read more

http://allafrica.com/stories/200603061106.html

4. Opportunities

Media course for journalists in Southern Africa

Political and economic reporting, media management, media policy, training of trainers, science and technology, and HIV/AIDS reporting. The program is open to working print and broadcast journalists from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe -  and includes two courses each year until 2008, with international travel, living expenses and tuition fees.

Contact the NSJ Trust at lucilia@nsjtraining.org or

visit: www.nsjtraining.org or www.kasmedia.org

Deadline: March 20, 2006

Apply for Educational programme producation course
The Radio Netherlands Training Center (RNTC) invite English-speaking journalists from developing countries worldwide to apply for a fellowship to attend a course, in Hilversum, Holland, from September 18 to December 8, on producing educational programs for radio, TV and the Internet.
Application deadline: April 1

For the application form and more information,

email info@rntc.nl

or visit http://www.rnw.nl/cgi/?app=rntc&page=index&id=132
 

5. Editorial

Kenya: Take Bird Flu Threat Seriously
The chickens will soon come home to roost if we do not handle the bird flu pandemic with care.

With the confirmation of the first case of the avian flu virus almost inevitable, little has been done to educate the public about how to deal with infected birds.

The public ignorance was graphically displayed on national television recently when onlookers - without protective clothing - picked up carcasses of hundreds of dead chickens with their bare hands, inherent dangers notwithstanding... read more..
http://allafrica.com/stories/200603061327.html