aid disasters

U.S. Food Aid Declines, Despite TwoYear 53% Funding Increase

Although U.S. food aid funding has increased by 53 percent over the last two years, a Government Accountability Office report on Wednesday said that during the same time period, the “amount of food delivered to address emergencies abroad fell 5 percent,” the Washington Independent reports. “GAO is citing as a culprit a U.S. law requiring that almost all international food aid be grown domestically a boon to American agribusiness rather than purchased closer to the disaster, an approach known as local and regional procurement,” according to the publication (Lillis, 9/30).

World Bank Grants Zimbabwe $74M For Agriculture; Farmers Union Warns Of Grain Deficit

The World Bank on Wednesday said it plans to give Zimbabwe a $74 million grant to revive the countrys agriculture sector, Agence FrancePresse reports. David Rohrbach, a senior agricultural economist at the World Bank, said, “We are dealing directly with NGOs. We are following suit with what other donors have done to help Zimbabwe. We are not yet at a stage to deal with government directly but we consult them” (9/30).

In related news, “Zimbabwes farmers unions on Wednesday warned the country could face another grain deficit in the next season due to poor preparations and lack of funding, despite government projections of the biggest harvest yet,” Reuters reports. The article examines the countrys challenges in agriculture (Banya, 9/30).

Washington Times Examines U.S.Backed ITN Network

The Washington Times examines Netmark, a U.S.backed project, which “over the past decade … has sold 50 million insecticidetreated mosquito nets in African countries plagued by malaria” (Franchineau, 10/1).

Guardian Examines How To Decrease Maternal Mortality

The Guardian examines a recent Lancet study, which found that the “lives of a third of the women who die in childbirth could be saved if a cheap and common drug to prevent haemorrhage, together with antibiotics, were readily available in their villages” (Boseley, 10/1).

Japanese Drug Co. Joins Effort To Fight Chagas Disease

The Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai Inc. on Tuesday announced it would partner with the nonprofit organization Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative in an effort to develop new treatments for Chagas disease, “a tropical parasitic disease that threatens 100 m[illion] people in the Caribbean and Latin America,” the Financial Times reports. “European and increasingly US companies have become involved in partnerships with nonprofit groups for an increasing range of drugs and vaccines, including for malaria and tuberculosis,” the newspaper writes, adding, Eisai represents one of the first Japanese groups to join this effort (Jack, 9/29).

Vancouver Sun Examines Work Of NGO In Congo

The Vancouver Sun examines the success of a small nongovernmental organization (NGO) called HEAL Africa that delivers holistic care to the people of Congo “with Congolese staff drawn from every local tribe.” Though the “$7millionayear NGO” run by a Congolese doctor and his wife “is small by world standards,” it has gained attention for its work with local doctors and outreach to victims of rape, the newspaper writes. The NGO is supported, in part, by the Canadian International Development Agency and the Clinton Foundation (Cayo, 9/30).

This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

“The U.N.s World Food Programme (WFP) appealed on Tuesday for more than $230 million to provide emergency food aid over the next six months for 3.8 million Kenyans affected by deepening drought and high food prices,” Reuters reports (Wallis, 8/25).

The WFP reports that the main maize harvest is projected to be 28 percent below average and that “pasture and water for livestock is dwindling rapidly,” according to VOA News. The agency also says that malnutrition rates are increasing significantly. In some areas, more than 20 percent of people are malnourished, “which is well above the emergency threshold of 15 percent,” VOA News writes (Schlein, 8/25).

Burkard Oberle, WFP Kenya country director, said that at least 260,000 metric tons of food are needed, IRIN reports. WFP is already distributing about 32,000 metric tons of food each month to 2.6 million people (8/25).

VOA News In Kenya, food prices are currently between 100 and 130 percent above normal, according to WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella. “This is a country where obviously many people are buying the majority of their food and spending the majority of their salaries on food,” she said (8/25).

Reuters “Red lights are flashing across the country,” Oberle said in a statement. “People are already going hungry, malnutrition is preying on more and more young children, cattle are dying we face a huge challenge and are urging the international community to provide us with the resources we need to get the job done,” he said (8/25).

The Associated Press published an article examining how the drought is affecting people in Kenya. “The slums, where roughly half the capitals 4 million residents live, are being hit the worst. Taps have run dry and residents often wait for days for trucks to deliver expensive potable water,” according to the AP (Odula, 8/26).

This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

A new study published in a leading medical journal today shows that in Western Cambodia, the parasites that cause malaria have developed resistance to first line drugs, thus reducing their effectiveness and potentially putting at risk the lives of millions of people.

The study, which was funded by the Global Malaria Programme of the World Health Organisation, the Wellcome Trust and the Li Ka Shing Foundation, was the work of researchers from the WellcomeMahidol University Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme, based in Bangkok, Thailand, and colleagues at other research centers, and is published in the 30 July issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, NEJM.

The Research Programme in Bangkok is a collaboration between Mahidol University, Bangkok, and the University of Oxford, supported by the Wellcome Trust. The WHO Programme funds came from grants provided by the Melinda Gates Foundation and the Western Pacific Regional Office.

Malaria is a potentially fatal disease that kills more than a million people every year; mostly young children and pregnant women. The disease is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium that enters the bloodstream or lymphatic system of humans via bites from the parasitecarrying Anopheles female mosquito.

The most deadly form of malaria is caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum which kills 9 out of 10 of the people it infects.

The recommended first line treatment for P. falciparum malaria is combination therapies that use drugs derived from artemisinin which comes from the sweet wormwood plant (Artemisia annua) used by practitioners of Chinese medicine for centuries under the name Qinghaosu.

Drugs based on arteminisin are considered better than other antimalaria drugs like chloroquine and mefloquine because, until now, malaria parasites appear unable to resist it.

However, recent reports from the ThaiCambodian border, where resistance to antimalaria drugs has occured a number of times before, suggest that a strain of malaria parasite is emerging that is resistant to artemisininbased drugs.

The authors decided to investigate this further by conducting two openlabel (that is unlike a blinded trial, doctors and patients knew which drugs they were getting) randomized trials to compared the effectiveness of two antimalaria treatments in two groups of 40 patients.

One group of patients was in Pailin, western Cambodia, and the other was in Wang Pha, northwestern Thailand.

Each patient received the relevant dosage appropriate to their body weight of either artesunate or a combination of artesunate and mefloquine. (Artesunate is an artemisinin derivative). Thus 20 patients in each country received monotherapy (artesunate on its own) and 20 received combination therapy.

The results showed that on average, the patients in Thailand were clear of the parasite within 48 hours, but in western Cambodia it took nearly twice as long for the parasite to clear there it took 84 hours.

Another way to test for drug resistance is to see if the disease recurs after treatment. If the drug is effective, the number of parasites should fall during the treatment period and the infection should clear.

In the trials the researchers found that among the patients in each country who received monotherapy, infection recurred in 6 out of 20 patients in western Cambodia and in only 1 of the 20 patients in Thailand.

Similarly, of the 20 patients in each country who were treated with combination therapy, infection recurred in 2 in Cambodia compared with only 1 in Thailand.

Lead author Dr Arjen Dondorp of the Faculty of Tropical Medicine at Mahidol University told the media that

“Our study suggests that malaria parasites in Cambodia are less susceptible to artemisinin than those in Thailand.”

“This means that it takes longer to kill the parasites,” added Dondorp, explaining that

“Artemisinin should clear the parasites at an early stage, preventing them further maturing and reproducing. When the drugs action is impaired, it becomes more difficult to eliminate the parasites from the body.”

As the artemisinin derivative loses its potency, artemisininbased combination therapies (ACTs) begin to rely increasingly on the weaker partner drug, which increases the chance that resistance will also evolve toward the partner drug.

“This has very important consequences for the lifespan of ACTs. Losing ACTs would be a disaster for malaria control,” warned Dondorp.

Speculating on what may have caused this decrease in suscpetibility, there are a number of possible contributing factors, although the study iteself did not examine them.

One is the fact that western Cambodia has relied on artemisininbased drugs for the last 30 years and was one of the first to use ACTs in 2001.

But unfortunately a big problem is the relatively unregulated private sector from which many patients in the region get their antimalaria drugs, which are often obtained as monotherapies and the treatment courses are often not completed.

Add to this the problem of counterfeit and substandard drugs with insufficient quantities of artemisinin, and you have a high risk scenario for the emergence of drugresistant forms of malaria.

Whatever the reason, there are also signs that artemisininresistance is spreading to other parts of Cambodia and Thailand, and Dondorp says there is no time to waste we have to act swiftly.

“Preventing the spread of resistant parasites when they emerge is crucial,” said Dondorp.

“The use of combination therapies is very important for this. I would like to see a ban on artesunate monotherapy except for specific cases,” he added.

Coauthor Professor Nick White, Chair of the Wellcome Trust SouthEast Asia Programme, said the study points to potentially devastating consequences

“Artemisinins are essential weapons in our war against malaria,” he said, and if they become ineffective

“Elimination of malaria will not be possible and millions of lives could be lost.”

“Artemisinin Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum Malaria.”
Dondorp, Arjen M., Nosten, Francois, Yi, Poravuth, Das, Debashish, Phyo, Aung Phae, Tarning, Joel, Lwin, Khin Maung, Ariey, Frederic, Hanpithakpong, Warunee, Lee, Sue J., Ringwald, Pascal, Silamut, Kamolrat, Imwong, Mallika, Chotivanich, Kesinee, Lim, Pharath, Herdman, Trent, An, Sen Sam, Yeung, Shunmay, Singhasivanon, Pratap, Day, Nicholas P.J., Lindegardh, Niklas, Socheat, Duong, White, Nicholas J.
N Engl J Med, Volume 361, Number 5, pp 455467, July 30, 2009.

Additional source Wellcome Trust .

Written by Catharine Paddock, PhD

Despite increasing danger posed by “al Qaedalinked militants,” U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said Tuesday U.N. aid workers “were not backing away” from the country, Reuters reports. “Intense fighting is making it increasingly difficult to deliver aid in the Horn of Africa country, where U.N. agencies are trying to combat cholera outbreaks and maintain food supplies to 3.5 million hungry people,” the news service writes (Nebehay, 7/21).

Holmes statements came one day after “Somalias hardline Shebab militia raided the offices of the U.N. Development Program, the U.N. Department of Safety and Security and the U.N. Political Office for Somalia in Baidoa and Wajid,” forcing the agency to temporarily suspend its work in Baidoa, the AFP/Google.com reports. U.N. SecretaryGeneral Ban Kimoon on Tuesday condemned the actions of the Somali militiamen while reaffirming the agencys commitment to the people of Somalia (7/21).

In addition to 400,000 people already crowded into shelters, “[a]n estimated 223,000 residents have now left Mogadishu since early May, when the AlShabaab and HisbulIslam militant groups launched attacks against Government forces in the capital,” U.N. News Sevice/allAfrica.com reports. “There is a lack of adequate shelter, sanitation facilities and clean drinking water. The situation has grown worse following recent torrential rains. The lack of sufficient latrines poses a major health risk,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond said.

The WHO is “especially concerned about deadly outbreaks of acute watery diarrhoea, which is on the rise again around Mogadishu after two years of decline,” the news service writes. The regions health centers are also overwhelmed, with “[t]wo of Mogadishus four functioning hospitals … admitting only warwounded patients and trauma patients for emergency surgery” and the closure of several health facilities in the Bakool region due to “insecurity and hostility towards aid workers” (7/21).

Last week, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs appealed for donor help to deal with Somalias growing health crisis (Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, 7/17).

This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Tropical cyclone Nargis made landfall in the Asian nation of Myanmar on May 2, 2008, causing the worst natural disaster in the countrys recorded history with a death toll that may have exceeded 138,000. In the July 2009 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers report on a field survey done three months after the disaster to document the extent of the flooding and resulting damage.

The information which may be the first reliable measurements of cyclone damage in the area could lead to development of computer models for predicting how future storms may impact the geologically complex Ayeyarwady River delta. Those models could be the basis for planning, construction and education that would dramatically reduce future loss of life.

Among the findings of the study the cyclone created a storm surge as much as five meters high topped by twometer storm waves that together inundated areas as much as 50 kilometers inland. Fatality rates reached 80 percent in the hardesthit villages, and an estimated 2.5 million people in the area lived in floodprone homes less than 10 feet above sea level.

“The recorded high water marks serve as benchmarking for numerical models for the complex hydraulic response of the giant Ayeyarwady delta,” noted Hermann M. Fritz, an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Ongoing numerical simulations will allow us to determine flood zones and vulnerabilities for future cyclone scenarios. Based on those, evacuation scenarios and evaluation plans will be derived in collaboration with international partners and the Myanmar government.”

Already, a local nongovernmental organization in the nation has developed a cyclone education program to raise awareness among residents, said Fritz, who was the only international scientist leading a team that surveyed 150 kilometers of the countrys coastline during a twoweek period August 923, 2008.

“The aim of our project was to document the extent of the flooding and associated damage in the delta,” Fritz explained. “Field surveys in the immediate aftermath of major disasters focus on perishable data, which would otherwise be lost forever such as infrastructure damage prior to repair and reconstruction.”

In the flood zone, for instance, the researchers searched for evidence of water marks on buildings, scars on trees and rafted debris as indicators of the maximum water height.

“Nargis washed away entire settlements, often without leaving a single structure standing, which forced us to focus on evidence left on large trees,” added Fritz, who has studied other natural disasters in Asia, Africa and the United States. “High water marks were photographed and located using global positioning system instruments. Transects from the nearest beach or waterway to the high water marks were recorded with a laser range finder.”

The survey team documented soil erosion of as much as one meter vertically and more than 100 meters horizontally. Highlighting the loss of land was a golden Buddhist stupa originally constructed on dry land that was left 150 meters offshore following the storm. Cyclone Nargis also scoured several drinking water wells, leaving them in the beach surf zone and depriving survivors of safe water supplies.

While the storm surge and waves werent unusually high, the impact may have been worsened by the lack of nearby high ground for evacuation and loss of coastal mangrove forests that could have slowed the storm waves, Fritz said. Structures in the area were not built to survive cyclones, and there was no evacuation plan for the area where people had no previous experience with such storms.

Those finding point to recommendations, including implementation of a cyclone education program, development of flood and vulnerability maps, construction of cyclonesafe buildings to serve as shelters, implementation of an improved warning system, and planning for evacuation, Fritz said. Partial reconstruction of the mangroves that had been removed for agriculture and fuel could also help protect the coastline.

The expeditions itinerary was planned based on unofficial damage reports, physical storm and cyclone track data, satellite imagery, numerical model benchmark requirements and experience gained in surveying other disasters. The group traveled to the country by cargo boat and did most surveying from the vessel.

The research was in part supported by the Pyoe Pin Programme of the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom. The program is also sponsoring detailed modeling and a follow up study being done at Georgia Tech by Fritz and Christopher Blount, one of his doctoral students.

A Category 4 storm, Nargis was the eighth deadliest cyclone recorded worldwide. It is one of seven tropical cyclones generated in the Bay of Bengal that had death tolls in excess of 100,000. With damage estimated at more than $10 billion, the storm is the most destructive ever recorded in the Indian Ocean.

Fritz hopes the work done by the survey team which also included Swe Thwin of the Myanmar Coastal Conservation Society and Moe Kyaw and Nyein Chan of the Mingalar Myanmar NGO will ultimately help reduce the human cost of major cyclones.

“In the 21st century with modern communication and all that has been learned about cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, there is no need for 138,000 people to be killed by a storm like this,” Fritz said. “With adequate planning, education and shelters, it should be possible to reduce fatality rates from future cyclones by at least one order of magnitude.”

Source
John Toon

Global warming will likely mean more unpredictable weather, scientists say, and a new study by researchers at the University of Georgia pins down, possibly for the first time, how drought conditions in an areas fall and winter may effect tornado activity the following spring.

The study, published recently in the journal Environmental Research Letters, is specific to Georgia and the Southeast, but further study could reveal patterns that might make this more general including the already tornadoprone Great Plains.

“Our results suggest that there is a statistically significant reduction in tornado activity during a tornado season following drought the preceding fall and winter,” said Marshall Shepherd, a meteorologist and lead author of the study. On the other hand, wet autumns and winters examined in the study had nearly twice as many spring tornado days as drought years did.

The research gives hope that one day meteorologists and climatologists may be able to predict the severity of a spring tornado season the way they now do for hurricanes. Other authors of the paper were Thomas Mote, also of the University of Georgia, and Dev Niyogi of Purdue University. Shepherd and Mote are in department of geography in UGAs Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

The genesis for the research was the severe Atlanta tornado in March 2008, and Shepherds interest in how tornadoes form during severe drought years.

While such tools as Doppler radar have increased our ability to “see” tornadoes as they form, predicting a tornado seasons potential severity has remained elusive. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected in 2007 that the frequency and severity of droughts may increase over time, but very little is known about drought conditions affect the frequency or intensity of severe weather hazards such as tornadoes.

To help understand how fall and winter weather might affect spring tornado seasons, the research team acquired the historical database of severe thunderstorms and tornado occurrences from 19512006 from the Storm Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They also analyzed storm data reports from the National Climactic Data Center and meteorological drought conditions using historical rain gauge and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Using a number of tools of scientific analysis, the team primarily focused on tornado activity from MarchJune in Georgia and the Southeast. What they found was shocking, Shepherd said, yet plausible.

On average, wet autumns and winters presaged nearly twice as many spring tornado days in the study area as prior drought seasons. Springs following wet winters and falls were also five to six times more likely to have multiple tornado days than antecedent drought years.

“We do not suggest that soil moisture or precipitation the previous fall and winter exert a direct control on which individual storms will spawn tornadoes,” said Shepherd. “But these longterm seasonal relationships in the study area are striking.”

Correlating historical records and tornado activity has been difficult at best for scientists over the years. For one thing, the National Weather Service did not implement its watch and warning system until the mid1950s, and only with advent of advanced radar techniques and ground examination of storm sites have researchers been able to say categorically that a certain storm even was a tornado. Also, studies linking tornadic activity with the El Niño cycle have been contradictory.

While it clearly seems that wet falls and winters lead to more severe spring tornado seasons, antecedent seasonal drought scenarios in north Georgia were almost never associated with abovenormal tornadic activity the following spring over the 50years period of the study.

The results for north Georgia were essentially replicated for the larger region encompassing Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. For this entire region, a stunning 75 percent of years characterized by meteorological drought in falls and winters had belownormal tornado seasons in the spring.

While the new study, which was supported by grants from NASA, offers strong clues about how spring tornado seasons form, the authors urge caution in interpreting the findings until the analysis is repeated for other locations.

Just how the connection works between fallwinter rainfall and spring tornado seasons remains unclear. One possibility is that the atmosphere uses soil moisture “memory” from the fall and winter to modify conditions suitable for severe weather. A related hypothesis is related to “soil moisture” pockets and storm initiation.

Source
Marshall Shepherd

The Guardian examines the recent U.S. commitment to continue support for the development of Nigerias health and education sector by Anne Fleuret, Nigerias acting mission director of USAID. At the conclusion of two USAIDfunded projects in Nigeria, Fleuret said the HIV/AIDS programs were created six years ago “to empower communities.” She added, “We envisioned so many things and we have substantially achieved that vision. We have provided support from the community level to the legislative level.”

According to the Guardian, one of the programs supported the creation of a staff “who created publicprivate partnerships to leverage funds from the private sector to expand HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care and support activities.” The other supported the delivery of “high quality services in health and basic education … in 51 Local Government Areas in five states Bauchi, Nassarawa, Lagos, Abuja and Kano.”

“About 40 new policies have been developed; over 8,000 health workers and 25,000 teachers trained; more than 100 health facilities upgraded; and over N4.6 billion leveraged as cost share funds,” Flueret said, adding, “We are committed to continue to work with Nigeria to improve health and education outcomes” (Muanya, Guardian, 6/18).

This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Satellite observation of cloud temperatures may be able to accurately predict severe thunderstorms up to 45 minutes earlier than relying on traditional radar alone, say researchers at the University of WisconsinMadison Space Science and Engineering Center.

Scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) have developed a way to measure temperature changes in the tops of clouds to improve forecast times for rapidly growing storms.

“The value of detecting and analyzing these changes is that we can get up to a 45minute jump on radar detection of the same storm system. A nowcast becomes a forecast,” says CIMSS scientist Wayne Feltz.

Clouds start cooling long before radar can identify them as storms. As a warm cumulus cloud grows and expands upward into higher altitudes, it will rapidly cool. Rapid cloudtop cooling indicates that a cloud top is rising into the frigid upper reaches of the atmosphere and can reveal the formation of a severe storm.

Cloud temperatures can be measured by the wavelengths of light they radiate in the nearinfrared and infrared frequencies. Current geostationary satellites satellites that stay over the same location on Earth over the U.S. can discern five different bands in these frequencies, each band revealing a different state of cloud development. Looking down from space, the satellite can determine whether the cloud top consists of liquid water, supercooled water or even ice.

By running highspeed fiveminute satellite scans through a carefully designed computer algorithm, the scientists can quickly analyze cloud top temperature changes to look for signs of storm formation. “We are looking for transitions,” says Feltz. “Does the cloud top consist of liquid water that is cooling rapidly? That could signal a possible convective initiation.”

Feltz and other CIMSS colleagues, including Kris Bedka and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientist Tim Schmit, demonstrated their “Convective Initiation Nowcast” and “Cloud Top Cooling Rate” products at NOAAs annual Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT), held May 4June 5 at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

The HWT is designed to accelerate the transition of promising new meteorological insights and technologies into advance forecasting and warnings for hazardous weather events throughout the United States.

“The Hazardous Weather Testbed brings in outside experts in all areas, a melting pot of people to encourage collaboration and interactions and proposal opportunities,” Feltz says. “The point of this is working with forecasters in the field the Weather Service, the Storm Prediction Center, the Hurricane Center whoever is interested in looking at more advanced satellite products.”

Source
Wayne Feltz