Monthly Archives: August 2010
Cancer to become the leading cause of death worldwide
17 August 2010
Cancer, projected to become the leading cause of death worldwide this year, has emerged as the costliest disease, costing the global economy nearly a trillion dollars a year, according to a report.
The lost years of life and productivity caused by cancer represent the single largest drain on national economies, compared to other causes of death, including HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases,” the study said.
A separate study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health says cancer, once considered to be a problem primarily in the developed world, is now a leading cause of death and disability in poorer countries.
Almost two-thirds of the 7.6 million cancer deaths in the world occur in low and middle-income countries.
The study proposes raising global awareness of the impact of cancer on developing countries and increasing access to best treatment through procurement of affordable drugs and services as the key ways to check spread of the disease globally.
Read the full article at Business Standard and share your views in our Comments section below.
King 3 rules “˜can apply to nonprofit bodies’
16 August 2010
Although the King 3 report on corporate governance was written generally with companies in mind, it also applies to nonprofit organisations, says the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa.
Although nonprofit organisations do not have commercial objectives, they must also create value for their stakeholders, albeit not measured in direct monetary terms.
“œDonors want assurance that their funding has been employed to promote the objectives of the organisation. They want to know that the funding has been used for the proper purpose,” said Ansie Ramalho, CE of the institute.
“œProfit companies measure their performance in financial terms, while nonprofit companies measure it in terms of achievement of their social objectives. Having said that, profit companies are now required, in accordance with the sustainability principles in King 3, to contextualise financial performance by providing also their social and environmental performance.”
Read the full article at Business Day and share your views in our Comments section below.
Researchers see a positive side to climate change
Local and international researchers, and environmental experts are now predicting a positive side to climate change, apart from the devastating consequences caused by it on humanity.
The IRA director, Prof Pius Yanda, a renowned environmental research professor, said findings showing that snow on top of Mount Kilimanjaro was melting fast due to global warming could be a blessing in disguise.
“œTens of hundreds of tourists and researchers who want to believe by seeing with their naked eyes will climb to the top of the mountain to observe the disappearance of the snow,” he said.
Prof Jennifer Olson, a professor in the geography and communication arts department at Michigan State University in the United States, said changing temperatures in highlands would also be beneficial to maize growers.
“œWarmer temperatures in highlands will raise maize yields, and lower tea and coffee yields,” she said.
Maasai pastoral communities at Loswira village in Monduli District, Arusha Region, told the journalists that a long spell of drought that was experienced in their area in 2009, which was caused by climate change, was also a blessing in disguise.
“œWhen thousands of our cattle were killed for lack of water and pasture following the drought, we bought a new breed of cattle from our colleagues in neighbouring Kenya, which is very resistant to diseases,” said Saibul Julius Ole Mariki, 46, a former village chairman.
Read the full article at The Citizen and share your views in our Comments section below.
New report recognises the power of football in HIV/AIDS prevention
12 August 2010
A new study entitled “œUsing Football for HIV/AIDS Prevention in Africa”, has found that football-based programmes aiming to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS has proved to be very successful.
The question for the researchers was, “œFootball has tremendous convening power, but do football”based programs really make a difference in preventing HIV?” According to the study, the answer is unequivocally “ yes.
Streetfootballworld reports that the study, conducted in the months running up to the World Cup, includes the work of many of streetfootballworld’s network members and hightlights how the work they are doing significantly helps the fight against HIV/AIDS in communities across Africa.
The study shows that the football-based programmes can lead to a great change in behavior, which is the key to HIV and AIDS prevention.
It also highlights that football programmes are successful with audiences that are hard to reach with traditional campaigns and at tackling sensitive issues within the safety of the team. And as football appeals to young audiences, these programmes are reaching those at most risk.
You can download the report as a PDF here
H1N1 and the WHO’s future outbreak response
Following the WHO’s decision on Tuesday to declare the H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic over, several news outlets reviewed the emergence of the virus around the world, exploring how some of the lessons learned from H1N1 could assist the WHO’s handling of future outbreaks.
“Swine flu has killed more than 18,449 people and affected some 214 countries and territories since it was uncovered in Mexico and the United States in April 2009, according to WHO data,” Agence France-Presse writes. “After petering out in Europe and the United States before their winter flu season was over, in recent months swine flu has affected parts of South Asia and ‘limited areas’ of tropical South and Central America, as well as Africa for their second season. “¦ But unlike 2009, when A(H1N1) ousted most other types of flu viruses around the world, known seasonal viruses now are prevalent and even dominant in countries such as South Africa.”
AOL News explores some of the major criticisms of the WHO’s handling of the H1N1 outbreak, which the news agency writes, “was marked by a frenzy, massive financial losses and charges of mismanagement.” H1N1 highlighted the “dearth of access” that populations living in developing countries had to H1N1 vaccines and medicines to mitigate the symptoms of the flu, as well as unresolved issues with the WHO’s “six-stage pandemic alert system” and “the International Health Regulations [IHR], which outline the response capacities necessary among member countries.”
Read the full article at the Kaiser Foundation.
SA’s matrics up to mark
South Africa’s matrics are on par with their counterparts in the US, Europe and Asia, according to a report released yesterday by the education monitoring body Umalusi and by Higher Education SA, in terms of curriculum and examinations.
Umalusi’s senior manager for qualifications, curriculum and certification, Liz Burroughs, said the study on which yesterday’s report was based compared qualifications, not pupil performance.
“[It indicates] that our exams are sufficiently demanding and their level of difficulty is sufficient when compared to others,” she said.
Department of Education spokesman Granville Whittle said the report confirmed the department’s assertion that “the National Senior Certificate is a high-skills, high-knowledge curriculum that compares well to the best in the world”.
Read the full article on Times Live.
New EIA regulations now in effect in South Africa
4 August 2010
South Africa’s new environmental impact assessment (EIA) regulations came into effect on Monday, which the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) said started the official implementation process of a new regime aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of EIAs.
The DEA said that the new regulations introduced an approach where impacts associated with the sensitivity of the receiving environment are treated with more care – this was achieved through the introduction of a Listing Notice dedicated to activities planned for predefined sensitive areas.
The lists of activities requiring environmental authorisation prior to starting have also been revised. This was a major focus of the amendment process as the EIA system was overburdened by large numbers of applications associated with insignificant activities.
EIAs were aimed at identifying, assessing and investigating potential environmental impacts both positive and negative associated with certain activities and developments.
Read the full article at Engineering News. The amendments to the regulations could be accessed on the Department’s website.
Ageing with HIV: The hidden side of world’s Aids crisis
3 August 2010
The world will face a mighty social and medical challenge as millions of people with HIV survive into old age, the world AIDS forum has heard.
The problem is only now becoming apparent as the first generation living with the human immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV) head towards their 60th birthday and beyond, thanks to the lifeline of antiretroviral drugs, say specialists.
These survivors are mainly in western nations, where the precious therapy first became available from 1996.
But they will soon be followed by millions of counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa and other poor countries where the drug rollout started in the middle of the last decade.
That these men and women should have stayed the course is itself a stunning testimony to antiretrovirals and, say some of the survivors themselves, something of a miracle.
Lisa Power, policy director with the British AIDS charity the Terrence Higgins Trust, said that even though people with HIV were living longer, their quality of life was often darkly overshadowed by worry.
Her organisation carried out a questionnaire of 410 people with HIV aged more than 50 living in Britain, which was then followed up with 40 in-depth interviews.
The respondents were likelier to be unemployed than healthy counterparts and had meagre savings, often because they had expected to die before they got old and so had never put money to one side.
“In the future we are going to see patients living decades, and we are going to have to figure out ways of getting them to a healthy old age,” said Margaret Hoffman-Terry of the American Academy of HIV Medicine.
Read the full article at AFP.
