Children

New polio threat prompts mass vaccination campaign, as seven million children in nine of the 11 provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are being vaccinated against polio, a disease thought to have been eradicated in the vast country. The campaign, which began on 19 June, targets children up to the age of five, the age group worst affected by polio. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, according to the WHO.

Condom use not catching on among youth, in spite of massive spending on efforts to counter HIV/AIDS, experts warn that many young Thais are still having unsafe sex. “Many people know HIV is transmitted by having sex,” he said. “We also know we should stand up and give our seat to old people on the bus, but we don’t do it,” Sittichok Chaisupasin, a 16-year-old peer educator.

Typhoon Fengshen death toll rises to 224, as it moved out of the Philippines on 23 June towards China, leaving at least 224 dead, hundreds missing and thousands homeless, according to the Philippine National Red Cross and Office of Civil Defence. Heavy rains and winds of up to 195km an hour caused landslides, flash floods and storm surges.

Landmines impede civilians’ return to volatile Arghandab, as dozens of landmines have been discovered in Arghandab District, in the southern province of Kandahar. It is estimated that some 60 people, many of which are children, are killed each month in the country by landmines. Millions of landmines were dumped across Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s, killing and wounding over 70,000 people so far, according to the United Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (UNMAC). In other news, insecurity, uncertainty stop return of Afghan refugees, from Pakistan. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has repatriated 3.3 million Afghans since 2002, including 120,000 from Pakistan in 2008, but some two million registered Afghan refugees remain in Pakistan. The number of unregistered refugees is unknown.

US accuses LRA of abuses, calls for a quick peaceful solution. “The United States condemns the recent LRA attacks on Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Army forces at Nabanga, Sudan, and elsewhere, as well as the LRA’s abductions and other abuses of innocent civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Southern Sudan,” said a statement issued on 18 June. Along with four of his commanders Kony is charged by the ICC with carrying out abductions, killings, rape and conscription of Ugandan children as fighters among other war crimes. Some 30,000 children in northern Uganda have been abducted and forcibly inscripttion into the LRA. Government welcomes Kony’s “change of heart” but rules out more talks; “We only hope that he will put his pronouncement into practice. We note, however, that negotiations were concluded and there will not be a re-opening of the negotiations whatsoever,” Capt Chris Magezi, spokesman for the government delegation, said on 23 June.

Malaria battle gains mainstream popularity through the “Nothing But Nets” program. The program for which a mere $10 buys an insecticide-treated bed net, has united people and organizations from all walks of life in the battle against malaria and helped make charitable action a wildly popular undertaking, The New York Times reports. Supporters that have rallied to the cause include the United Nations Foundation, the National Basketball Association, the TV show “American Idol” and more than 70,000 individual donors.

A three-day United Nations food conference in Rome ended Thursday, June 5th, with calls for urgent steps to boost food production and halt soaring prices. The global food crisis overshadowed the conference, originally organized to address climate change and biofuels. Conference organizers criticized the U.S. for policies they said contribute to inflating food prices, such as subsidies for wealthy farmers and trade restrictions on food (The New York Times).

HIV rates for women decline in South Africa, as health officials in South Africa have announced that the percentage of pregnant women diagnosed with the HIV virus declined to 28% last year from the 2006 rate of 29.2%. The overall rate for women aged 25-29 infected with HIV was 37.9%, down from 38.7% in 2006. South Africa still has the highest number of AIDS victims in the world at 5.4 million.

Myanmar survivors forced to work for food, Amnesty International alleged Thursday, that the country’s military leadership is forcing cyclone survivors to work for food rations as it continues to evict them from aid shelters and camps. The situation, the group said, is not only violating survivors’ basic rights but is further endangering the lives of tens of thousands.

Child labor in Malawi encouraged by poor record keeping, as legislation compelling birth registrations has been delayed by government infighting and the resultant political turmoil. This failure to More than a million Malawian children are still being used as laborers, according to the latest available estimates. The colonial-era 1904 Birth and Deaths Act, which does not require citizens to be registered at birth, nor deaths to be reported to the authorities, is still in force. Consequently, even though Malawi is a signatory to numerous conventions against child labor, including the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, the 1973 International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 138 (setting a minimum working age of 18), and the 1999 ILO Convention 182 (outlawing child labor), child protection officers cannot verify the ages of people suspected of being employed as child laborers.

Recent reports in Kenya of a Boy’s suicide reveals gaps in HIV education, the boy was in secondary school when he received his fateful results which was accompanied by no counseling. Soon after his results where received to committed suicide by ingesting lethal amounts of pesticide. The boys death which occurred last month has sparked grave concern over the gap in HIV/AIDS education in schools;

“Serious awareness-raising and counseling of students on HIV is non-existent in schools here; the little information they have is either gathered from public meetings, dramas or media. The results sheet was a death sentence passed to him; he was not counseled or offered words of hope, hence his belief that testing positive was the end of life,” “It is possible he also feared isolation by the community.” said one of the boy’s teachers, who preferred not to be named.

The boys death in Kenya was obviously trajic and highly preventable, but it leaves one to question how many other young people are committing suicide out of misinformation and fear of a life living with HIV/AIDS?  Education is a huge gap in many countries, especially in rural areas, and this case only highlights the urgent need to see that education and awareness programs are put into place in both schools and communities across Africa.

The AIDS pandemic effects not only those who sub-come to the deadly disease, but to both their families and communities. Villages have been stripped of generations, families have fallen apart, and children have been orphaned in extraordinary numbers. The long reaching effects of HIV/AIDS cannot be ignored, and nor can the children for which it has left behind.

• Over 15 million children worldwide have lost one or both parents to AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, over 12 million children have been orphaned by the pandemic.

• Experts believe that millions more orphans remain unaccounted for in India, China and Russia.

• By 2010, the number of AIDS orphans worldwide is expected to reach at least 20 million.

Children are not only left traumatized by the death of one or both of their parents, but also remain heavily stigmatized by the disease which has led many children to be turned out to the streets and left many children in poverty.

World AIDS Orphans Day has surprisingly has its roots on Wall Street, as it began with a demonstration on Wall Street in 2002, as activists carried signs that read: “What is the value of an orphan on the New York stock exchange?” The fight six years later has hardly changed, and the face of the largest victims to the pandemic remain the same. Children who are orphaned by AIDS are some of the worlds most vulnerable children, often born into struggle, all raised with the stigma and the fear of the disease. Each child left to fight for both the present and the future, disadvantaged and left behind they are a generation of instability that affects the entire global nation;

“There are many, many awful problems in this world today, but our first task is to raise the next generation in a way that they can become productive citizens and not become child soldiers or terrorists or drug dealers or prostitutes or whatever. All the things we’re seeing,”says Albina du Boisrouvray of the FXB Foundation (VOA).

Therefore today is a grassroots campaign which calls upon donor countries to commit at least 10% of their AIDS funding to that of the needs of AIDS orphans and vulnerable children. Let us look to a future where a generation is not orphaned to disease and left to struggle against poverty, violence and stigma. For more information please see World Aids Orphans.

Today April 25th is World Malaria Day, spearheaded by the Roll Back Malaria campaign, which was launched in 1998 by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. Malaria continues to kill more than a million people every year, mostly children, and remains an endemic in 107 countries and territories according to UNICEF. The them of this years World Malaria Day is, “a disease without borders”.

In a press release UNICEF called for stronger action against malaria, as Executive Director Ann M. Veneman, stated:

“It is unacceptable that malaria still kills more than one million people, mostly children, every year. Malaria is a curable and preventable disease that can be controlled by increasing the use of mosquito nets and other proven interventions, as part of integrated, community-based programmes.”

UN urges world to help Africa fight malaria, as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon marked World Malaria Day Friday by launching a new campaign drive, which is aimed at all African nations, which he claimed those countries where the disease is heavily concentrated, are well behind. “We have the resources and the know-how, but we have less than 1,000 days before the end of 2010,” he stated with urgency. The campaign aims to see that sufficient supplies of mosquito nets or high-quality household sprays by the end of 2010.

In recent malaria news, Sir Lanka, who is close to malaria elimination, with only 196 cases and no deaths from malaria in 2007. However while on the verge of elimination, the battle is not one to be taken lightly as government authorities and NGOs warn that “vigilance” is a must, if the eradication of the disease is to continue, especially due to the high level of vulnerability amongst the majority of the population.

Fighting malaria in children is a costly expense, one that many parents cannot bare, leaving children to suffer the consequences of the deadly disease. According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), malaria is the leading cause of death for children under five in the Congo, with some 21,000 child deaths each year. However drives to distribute treated bed nets continue to have a great impact in the reduction of child deaths. Much more needs to be done in the Congo, and many other developing nations where the cost of anti-malaria treatments continue to remain out of reach for parents.

In Sierra Leone villagers battle malaria in their communities, by administering free malaria testing and providing treatments in those rural areas where the healthcare system has thus far been unable to cope with such needs. While in the Philippines’ the malaria battle advances, as authorities declared 22 of 81 provinces have remained malaria free over the last five years.

As in all the for mentioned countries, the fight over malaria is far from over on many countries, as obstacles remain in the effort to see that global eradication is met by 2010, including economic hurdles, traditional beliefs, population movements and limited access to rural areas.

Introduced in 2003 Kenya’s free secondary education is now plagued by supply problems. The sudden and dramatic increase of students is causing a strain on resources, and the result is a lack of teachers, CONGO: Arrest over abduction of indigenous family’s child
books and adequate facilities, leaving many to question the quality of children’s education. While many improvements and hurdles need to be made, most agree that any education is better that no education.

Aid workers freed after Chad issues pardon French officials on Tuesday freed six aid workers convicted of kidnapping more than 100 Chadian children, following an official pardon from Chad’s President Idriss Deby on Monday. The six had said they wanted only to help place orphans from Darfur, but the children turned out to be from Chad, most of them with still at least one living parent. For more on the story see the following Video ClipSyndicate, BBC , Associated Press

Young and old Tibetans disagree on virtue of nonviolence, as the bloody protests over the past few weeks have shown the widening generation gap. The majority of the elder generation continue to embrace nonviolence, however the younger generations are increasingly moving away from this view and moving towards a more physical approach. “I want peace, but when you are pushed so much, you finally strike back,” said Jigshe Tsering, one of many young activists who say they are tired of not reacting forcefully to China’s abusive ways.

Measles kills 165 children, the outbreak in northern Nigeria’s Katsina state has killed 165 children in the last three months and infected more than 3,000 children, according to health officials.

In the Congo there has been a groundbreaking arrest over abduction of indigenous family’s child. The High Court in southwestern Congo has indicted Omer Gapa, a former local council official on charges of a kidnapping 19 years ago of a child from an indigenous family. Accused of taking a 6 year old girl in 1989 of which her ware abouts have never been discovered.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed a proposal for outreach centers throughout South-East Asia to promote the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). “The new center, and its local and regional affiliates, will provide continuity for your initiatives,” he said in a video address to a meeting on achieving the MDGs held by the ASEAN in Bangkok. In reaching the MDGs, Ban stated that South-East Asia has made progress in reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty and the number of children who die of preventable causes. The region has also successfully raised primary school enrollment. However, progress remains uneven between countries and across indicators; income disparities have grown, too many young children are underweight and the environment is threatened, he stated.

Human rights groups sue Ghanaian government over detained refugees , for “gross violation” of the rights of Liberian refugees in reaction to the simmering stand-off over repatriations. Some 630 refugees, mostly women and children, are being detained under heavy police guard following their arrest by the Ministry of Interior on March 17. Of these refugees, 16 have already been stripped of their refugee status and deported to Liberia. The refugees were arrested for holding a protest to draw attention to what they said were unfair condition under which they would be repatriated.

Action Against Hunger’s nutritional surveys indicate alarming rates of malnutrition in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia: more than 12,500 children under five years of age are at risk of severe acute malnutrition. AAH, whose teams run and support nutritional activities in Monrovia, has launched an appeal for funding. AAH/ Action Contre la Faim’s (ACF) latest round of nutritional surveys shows extremely disturbing results that indicate a significant nutritional crisis in Grand Monrovia: of the 800 children weighed, measured, and examined, 17.6% (Z-score) were suffering of acute malnutrition, above the 15% threshold that defines a nutritional crisis. The data indicate that some 12,500 children under 5 years of age are in danger.

Namibian flood victims need more than $1 million of assistance, where floods falling recent above-average rainfall have displaced tens of thousands of people and sparked fears of a surge in infectious diseases. More than 65,000 people could eventually be displaced by the floods, UNICEF said in an update issued this week. UNICEF said it was particularly concerned about the risks faced by orphans and other vulnerable children given that northern Namibia is one of the country’s most densely populated area’s and its HIV rates range from 20 to 40 per cent.

‘Slaves’ saved from Italian circus, two teenage Bulgarian sisters have been rescued by Italian police from a circus in which one of them is said to have been forced to swim with piranhas. Police say that while the 19-year-old sister had to swim in a transparent tank, the 16-year-old had snakes draped across her body and suffered bites. Four members of the family have been freed from what has been described as a “circus of horrors” south of Naples. Three men have been arrested and charged with holding them in slavery.

10,000 health workers stop polio in one of most dangerous places on earth, according to the WHO. Polio appears to have been wiped out from Somalia, the World Health Organization and its partners in the fight against the paralyzing disease said Monday. The “landmark victory” was the result of thousands of health workers and volunteers vaccinating more than 1.8 million Somali children under five years old, said the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which also includes UNICEF, Rotary International and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

103 children from Abéché return to their families, four and a half months after the French charity, Zoe’s Ark was accused of child trafficking. Eighty-three of the 81 boys and 22 girls left the Abéché orphanage in Eastern Chad where they had been put up by UNICEF and the Ministry of Social Action since 26 October 2007.

UNICEF sends emergency education supplies to Zambia, as part of its emergency response to assist flood affected schools. UNICEF, has flown in 58 schools-in-a-box, each box contains enough supplies for 100 children.

In 1993 the World Health Organization declared TB a global health emergency, developing the Stop TB Partnership. In 200o new cases of TB began to emerge which were drug resistant, elevating TB to epidemic proportions for the next four years, as some 20% of TB cases where resistant to standard treatments.

According to the WHO an estimated 1.5 million people died from TB in 2006, with an additional 200,000 deaths from HIV-associated TB. TB is curable if detected early and correctly treated, however multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), HIV-associated TB, and weak health systems continue to pose major challenges in the fight against TB world wide.

The Stop TB Partnership set the Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis, which has aimed to save some 14 million lives between 2006 and 2015. However the WHO claims that Worldwide efforts to confront TB are making progress, but too slowly.

The WHO estimates that around 4.8 billion US dollars is needed to effectively control TB in developing and lower to mid-income countries in 2008 alone. Currently there is some $ 1 billion ear marked for MDR-TB and XDR-TB, however that leaves a substantial gap in funding, of some $ 2.5 billion, which includes $ 500 million gap for MDR-TB and XDR-TB.

Related links:
Tuberculosis: topical overview
WHO program on TB
Stop TB Partnership official World TB Awareness Day 2008 site
Global tuberculosis control 2008 - surveillance, planning, financing - The WHO’s twelfth annual report on global tuberculosis control
Anti-tuberculosis drug resistance in the world report
The Global Response Plan
The Global Response Plan factsheet
Tuberculosis Drugs - Sixth Invitation for Expressions of Interest, May 2005 - UNICEF

The global fight against tuberculosis is proving difficult, with the deadly disease spreading as cases go undetected in India and China, the World Health Organization warned Monday. Tuberculosis killed some 1.7 million people in 2006, and an estimated 9.2 million people were infected that year, the WHO said in its annual report on the disease.

Pakistan set to complete world’s largest health campaign, as a massive countrywide effort to immunize 64 million Pakistani children against measles is set to achieve its goal in April. Health officials are immunizing children at schools, hospitals and outreach facilities.

German Court Upholds Muslim Headscarf Ban in Schools, as they announced it would uphold a ban on Muslim teachers wearing headscarves in schools in the state of Baden-Württemberg. A state administrative court of appeal in the city of Mannheim ruled teachers cannot cover their heads in the classroom — at least not if they do so for religious reasons. The court’s decision overturned an earlier ruling in 2006 by a lower court, which decided in favor of a teacher who had converted to Islam. The teacher, who had worn a headscarf since 1995, took her case to court after the school board in the state capital of Stuttgart ordered her to stop wearing a headscarf in the classroom.

How can world’s poor better be part of global market? The world’s poorest people, almost by definition, typically have little stake in the goods and services offered in the global marketplace — a fact that arguably hurts both them as well as companies that would like to have more customers. In this essay, Christian Seelos, director of the platform for strategy and sustainability at IESE business school, writes about how corporations more effectively can reach the poorest of the world.

Gaza Humanitarian Crisis Worst in 40 Years, according to a report sponsored by eight British-based aid agencies and human rights groups has described the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip as the worst in 40 years. And a senior UN official has warned that the entire infrastructure there is close to collapse.

Drive to boost girls’ education in Egypt has started its 2008 arm of the initiative begun 8 years ago. The program started in 2000 with a goal of creating some to build over 1,000 “girl-friendly” schools in seven provinces. From 2003-2007 the initiative targeted villages and hamlets in the provinces of Bani Suef, Assiut, Al-Menia, Al-Fayyoum, Sohag, Al-Beihera and Al-Guiza, which had a disparity between boys and girls attending school gender gap of between 5 and 15.7 percent. Thus far some 1,063 schools have been built and with 27,784 students enrolled. “…by 2015, we hope no Egyptian girl will be out of school”.

Madagascar ratifies statute establishing International Criminal Court (ICC), the independent, permanent court that tries people accused of the most serious crimes, such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Malagasy Government deposited its instrument of ratification to the statute on March 14, according to a news release issued by the ICC.

Georgian street children and caregivers trained to deliver life saving aid, as more than 75 street children and 150 social workers and teachers in four regions in Georgia are equipped to deliver life-saving assistance thanks to recent trainings on emergency care conducted by World Vision. The trainings are provided by the “Learning the Principles of First Emergency Care” project, which aims to increase the capacity of street and at-risk children aged 10-16 in Tbilisi, Telavi, Kutaisi and Batumi, as well as among social workers of various youth centers and institutions, to avoid risks and dangers to their health and wellbeing.

Forced labor big part of globalization’s dark side, with over 12 million people worldwide are estimated to be trapped in a massive global market of forced labor that sees workers duped into near-slavery situations, Newsweek reports. These workers have little legal recourse and may have to work decades to pay off brokers who promised them high-earning jobs.

WHO survey shows heavy tobacco use among India’s young, the report shows that about 17% of school-age children in India use tobacco. More than one-third of school personnel also use some form of tobacco, mostly cigarettes, shows the survey, part of a global poll carried out in 140 countries.

Young Tibetans look past Dalai Lama’s recommendations, as the Dalai Lama’s support of peaceful engagement with Chinese to achieve Tibetan goals is not shared by many young Tibetans who believe more drastic, even confrontational action is needed. Yet even among the most radical Tibetan activist groups, respect for the leader is nearly universal.

In a statement issued by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon’s message on World Water Day targeted a lack of political will as the main reason for failure to achieve basic sanitation.  However with today is marked to bring awareness to the plight of some  2.6 billion people world wide who are without proper sanitation facilities and clean drinking water.

What can proper sanitation and hygiene do:

UNICEF and UNDP will hold a ground braking event, ‘Stand up for those who cant sit down’, today in NYC’s Central Park;

Please see the official World Water Day site, and yesterdays post for more information, resources and ways you can help those in need of clean water and sanitation.