Day: October 20, 2017

President Salva Kiir opened South Sudan’s first-ever kidney hospital Thursday in Juba, calling it a breakthrough for the country’s medical care.

The facility — a welcome positive sign in conflict-torn South Sudan — is to provide free services to all kidney patients in the country, including foreigners who have been residing there for at least six months.

However, the government has not explained how it will pay for the services. Oil production is the country’s main revenue-producer, and output remains far below normal as the country endures its fourth year of a civil war.

The Al Cardinal group of companies, headed by investor Asraf Seed Ahmed, built the hospital, which boasts 10 dialysis machines and the capacity to treat at least 50 patients a day, although no transplants will be performed for the time being.

As Asraf turned over management of the hospital to the government Thursday, he called on Kiir to ensure that the hospital remains well-staffed and continues to provide free care to all patients.

“Mr. President, I want this center to be taken care of. If this center is managed well, it means citizens will get good services. I call upon all the organizations and foreign embassies here to work and provide for the other needs of South Sudanese citizens,” Asraf said.

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony, guests clapped and women ululated as Kiir said citizens can now receive “first-class treatment right here at home.”

“They will no longer have to travel abroad for diagnosis and long-term care,” he said.

Dr. Maker Isaac, director of Juba Teaching Hospital, said the new facility will receive 20 patients each month, but the overwhelming majority of kidney patients will be referred to other countries for treatment.

Isaac said a large number of South Sudanese patients suffered from suspected kidney diseases, many of whom died because there were no facilities available to treat or diagnose the disease.

“People die in front of us and we believe this death can be prevented simply by cleaning the blood of the patient, but we were unable to do anything. We just watch them die,” he told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.

“Now, kidney patients can receive treatment, free of charge. This will make a very huge impact in the care of the patients in South Sudan,” Isaac said.
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A malaria outbreak has killed at least four people at a refugee camp in northwestern Kenya, according to local residents and health officials.

Hundreds of people have come down with the infectious disease at the Kalobeyei refugee complex in Kenya’s Turkana County.

“Already four to six people have died due to malaria,” Galama Guyo, a health care professional at Kalobeyei, told VOA’s Horn of Africa service. “Weekly, we report more than 200 malaria cases, especially people with low body resistance [immunity].”

Health care providers do not have enough drugs to treat patients, and there is no major hospital in the area, so some patients have to travel to up to 30 kilometers for treatment, he said.

The type of malaria hitting the camps is plasmodium falciparum, one of four types common in the Horn of Africa, said Guyo.

The U.N. refugee agency is tracking the situation at Kalobeyei and the nearby town of Kakuma, says the agency’s communication director in Nairobi, Yvonne Ndege.

“Our health partners have mobilized some resources to ensure they procure enough drugs and diagnostic kits to treat the increased cases of malaria that we have seen in Kakuma and Kalobeyei,” she said. “UNHCR is also planning to provide additional drugs to help address the situation.”

Located in a very arid region, Kalobeyei hosts thousands of African immigrants, mostly from Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.
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The World Health Organization reports pneumonic plague is continuing to spread at an alarming rate in urban areas of Madagascar and greater effort is needed to bring this deadly disease under control. Latest figures put the number of suspected cases at 1,153, including 94 deaths.

Health agencies are worried at how quickly this disease is spreading so early in Madagascar’s plague season, which runs from September to April.  The disease usually infects some 400 people a year. But this year, with six more months to go, the number of suspected cases is nearly three times higher than normal.  WHO Regional Emergency Director for Africa, Ibrahima Soce Fall, says the spread of the disease is faster because pneumonic plague, which is transmitted from person to person, has moved from the remote rural areas to congested urban areas. It is mainly found in the capital Antananarivo and the port city of Toamasina.

Nevertheless, Fall tells VOA he is confident WHO in coordination with the Ministry of Health and other agencies will be able to contain the disease in short order. He says WHO has provided enough antibiotics to treat 5,000 patients and to protect up to 100,000 people who may have been in contact with an infected person.

“This can be controlled relatively quickly if we manage to improve the contact tracing as we are doing right now,” said Fall. “So, with the teams who are already used to contact tracing and putting all contacts under antibiotic prophylaxis, we can prevent the disease. I am confident that with the strong team we have on the ground, in common with some partners coming and more health workers, we will be able to revert very quickly the trend.”

Fall cautions, though, it will be important to remain vigilant after transmission is over. He notes stopping the transmission of the plague does not mean the risk is gone. He says the virus is still in the country, and while people continue living in poor, unsanitary conditions, the disease is likely to recur.

 
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Astronauts went spacewalking Friday to provide some necessary focus to the International Space Station’s robot arm.

The main job for commander Randy Bresnik and teacher-turned-astronaut Joe Acaba was to replace a blurry camera on the new robotic hand that was installed during a spacewalk two weeks ago. The two men were supposed to go spacewalking earlier this week, but NASA needed extra time to rustle up the repair plan.

Sharp focus is essential in order for the space station’s robot hand to capture an arriving supply ship. The next delivery is a few weeks away, prompting the quick camera swap-out.

Orbital ATK, one of NASA’s commercial shippers, plans to launch a cargo ship from Virginia on November 11.

Acaba was barely outside an hour when he had to replace one of his safety tethers, which keep him secured to the orbiting outpost and prevent him from floating away.

Mission Control noticed his red tether seemed frayed and worn and ordered Acaba to “remain put” with his good waist tether locked to the structure as Bresnik went to get him a spare.

Spacewalking astronauts always have more than one of these crucial lifelines in case one breaks. They also wear a jetpack in case all tethers fail and they need to fly back to the space station.

This was the third spacewalk in two weeks for the space station’s U.S. residents. Bresnik performed the first two with Mark Vande Hei.

As they ventured out, Bresnik noted they were flying over Puerto Rico.

“Get out of here,” replied Acaba, the first astronaut of Puerto Rican heritage.

Acaba’s parents were born there, and he still has family on the hurricane-ravaged island.

“There’s a whole line of people looking up and smiling today as you get ready to head out the door,” Bresnik said.

Friday’s spacewalk should be the last one for the year. Early next year, astronauts will replace the hand on the opposite side of the 58-foot robot arm, Canada’s main contribution to the space station. The original latching mechanisms are showing wear and tear since the arm’s launch in 2001.

 The 250-mile-high complex is currently home to three Americans, two Russians and one Italian.
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The parliament of Australia’s second largest state passed legislation Friday to allow terminally ill patients to seek medical help to end their lives, a bill that is expected to act as a catalyst for the rest of the country to adopt similar laws.

Any resident of Victoria state older than 18, with a terminal illness and with less than 12 months to live can request a lethal dose of medication, the bill permits. Anyone that is too ill to administer the dosage can ask for a doctor to help.

Many countries have legalized euthanasia or physician-assisted deaths, including Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and some states in the United States.

Federal government opposed

But Australia’s federal government has opposed legalizing euthanasia even though the remote Northern Territory became the first jurisdiction in the world to do so in 1995.

The federal government enacted its own legislation to override the Northern Territory law in 1997 under rules allowed by the constitution. State law cannot be overridden.

The passage of the bill in Victoria is expected to herald assisted death legislation in other Australian states.

“It is a landmark moment. Other states are likely to follow. We have seen this in other jurisdictions and I expect once politicians see how the system works, they will adopt similar models,” said Ben White, director of the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology.

Divisive issue

The issue has divided lawmakers and medicinal professionals.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews introduced the bill after his father’s death from cancer in 2016.

An opponent of the legalization, Michael Gannon, president of the Australian Medical Association, which represents medical practitioners, said state law should not change because of the death of Andrews’ father. He later apologized for the comment.

Members of the state assembly debated the bill through the night in a 26-hour session that ended with approval by 47 votes to 37.

The legislation needs the approval of Victoria’s senate, though analysts expect it to pass into law.

The legislation will not come into effect for 18 months to allow time to properly implement the assisted dying process.
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Air pollution in New Delhi hit 18 times the healthy limit Friday under a thick, toxic haze after a night of fireworks to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali, despite a court-ordered ban on their sales.

Residents of the sprawling Indian capital, which ranks among the world’s most polluted cities, complained of eyes watering and aggravated coughs as levels of PM 2.5, tiny particulate matter that reaches deep into the lungs, rose alarmingly.

Air quality usually worsens in New Delhi ahead of Diwali, the festival of lights, and the Supreme Court temporarily banned the sale of firecrackers, aiming to lessen the risk to health.

​But many still lit fireworks across the capital late into the night, either using old stocks or buying them from neighboring states.

Some environment activists said the court order was poorly enforced and firecrackers were still available to celebrate one of north India’s biggest festivals.

Air quality off charts

An index of air quality had crossed the “hazardous” limit of 300 on Friday, the most severe level on a U.S. embassy scale of measurement which rates a reading of 50 as good and anything above that as a cause for concern.

Some parts of Delhi such as Mandir Marg showed an air quality reading of 941, close enough to the level of 999 beyond which no readings are available. The index measures concentrations of PM 2.5, PM 10, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide among other indicators.

A hazardous level is an alert in which everyone may experience ill effects and are advised to stay indoors.

Apart from the firecracker ban, the Supreme Court also ordered diesel generators and a power plant to be shut down to try to reduce the pollution. The Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority also ordered some brick kilns to close and a halt to the burning of rubbish.

Last year was worse

Dipankar Saha, a scientist at the government’s Central Pollution Control Board, said the still weather had also played a part in the toxic haze hanging over the city.

But pollution levels were better than at last year’s Diwali when crop burning in nearby states and firecrackers combined.

“It was going to be hard to beat last year’s level in any case,” he said.
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Pollution is the world’s No. 1 killer, a new study says, causing more premature deaths than war, terrorism, natural disasters, cigarettes and disease.

A new study in the medical journal Lancet said pollution, both outdoor and indoor, killed about 9 million people in 2015, or one out of every six deaths.

“Pollution threatens fundamental human rights, such as the right to life, health, well-being, safe work as well as protections of children and the most vulnerable,” co-author Karti Sandilya said.

Developing countries

The study said the overwhelming majority of pollution-related deaths come in developing countries where the authors say leaders are more concerned about building their economies and infrastructure than environmental regulations.

Bangladesh, China, Haiti, India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Sudan are some of the most affected countries.

But one of the study’s authors, Richard Fuller, said pollution is tied to slow economic development in wealthy and poor nations.

Conservative estimate

“There is this myth that finance ministers still live by, that you have to let industry pollute or else you won’t develop. What people don’t realize … people who are sick or dead cannot contribute to the economy. They need to be looked after,” Fuller said.

The study said the figure of 9 million premature deaths a year is a conservative estimate and that the actual number is likely to be much higher.

A separate World Bank study has said slashing pollution must be a priority, saying that solving this problem would lead to solutions to other crises, including global warming and malnutrition.
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