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UN-backed Partners Help DR Congo Introduce Pneumonia Vaccine

4 April 2011 –The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today added the vaccine against pneumonia to its national immunisation programme in a United Nations-backed initiative to drastically improve the chances of survival for children under the age of five.

The expanded programme is supported by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), which brings together governments, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and other key players in global health.

It will initially be rolled out in two of DRC’s 11 provinces as the country steps up the fight against pneumonia, one of the biggest killers of children worldwide, and is responsible for a quarter of all deaths of children under the age of five in the African nation.

DRC’s First Lady, Olive Lembe Kabila, and Health Minister Victor Makwenge Kaput joined parents and health workers in Kinshasa to witness the first child being inoculated as part of the official introduction of pneumococcal vaccine into the national routine immunization programme.

On the same day in Paris, GAVI founding partner Bill Gates launched a European-wide awareness campaign to highlight the extraordinary life-saving opportunity that vaccines represent for donor countries.

Globally, pneumococcal disease, the most common and serious form of respiratory infections, kills over a million people every year – including more than half a million children before their fifth birthday.

It is the leading cause of pneumonia, which is the major cause of death among children under the age of five, contributing to 18 per cent of the mortality of children in that age group.

“Today’s launch is an enormous moment for my country, where too many children die of this terrible disease,” said Mr. Kaput. “Pneumonia causes suffering and death. Therefore we celebrate a wonderful day today.”

Léodégal Bazira, the acting WHO Representative in DRC, said: “The introduction of the pneumococcal vaccine and the systematic immunization of the children could save the life of one in five children dying from respiratory infectious diseases.”

A 2004 study by UNICEF showed that that pneumonia killed at least 132,000 children under the age of five in DRC, making it the second biggest cause of death – after malaria – of children under the age in the country.

“With electricity, roads, and refrigerators in short supply, delivering vaccines to remote health centres in DRC is an enormous challenge,” said Pierrette Vu Thi, the UNICEF Representative in DRC. “Together with its partners UNICEF is committed to ensure that all children in this country have the same access to this life-saving vaccine.”

In the past five months, Nicaragua, Guyana, Yemen, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Mali also introduced pneumococcal vaccines thanks to support from GAVI.

UN News Center

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Chromosome-Dependent Justice: The Pervasiveness of ‘Legal’ Violence Against African Women

John 8:10: When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?”

If you have been to church once in your lifetime, you would probably be familiar with the story behind the verse quoted above. A woman was brought to Jesus to be sentenced for adultery. The men who brought the woman to Jesus emphasized that the woman was ‘caught in (the heat of) the act’, perhaps to demand a more severe sentence from Jesus, which would be death by stoning. Jesus gave the permission to go ahead with a condition: “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” He then bowed down his head. When he lifted up his head some minutes later, only the woman was left standing.

Late last week, we posted an article here about a Ghanaian woman, Amina, who was sexually molested by male students of the Mensah Sarbah Hall of the University of Ghana for stealing a laptop and cell phone from one of the dormitories. Amina was stripped naked, fondled and physically maltreated by the college rogues. According to news sources, the University Police who came to the scene arrested the battered woman and put her into custody while the male accusers were let go.

This was not an isolated case of violence against women and chromosome-dependent justice but a well-rooted tradition of male aggression against vulnerable women in most African communities. The village of Gambaga in Ghana has been a sanctuary for women accused of witchcraft. These women are ostracized and exiled from society by their accusers in a disturbing narrative while the Government of Ghana and local authorities watch on. Most of these women are elderly and through decades of neglect, want and lack of medical care are going through physiological and psychiatric disturbances that require counseling and therapy. However, in the absence help, medical or behavioral, the women are beaten and threatened with death and starvation until they confess to be witches under duress. In November of 2010, we reported the atrocious murder of a 72-year-old woman, Ama Hemmah, who was suspected of witchcraft in Ghana. She was beaten, tripped naked and doused with kerosene and then set aflame by her accusers who were also self-professed spiritual healers. The Foreman for the crusade, Pastor Samuel Fletcher Sagoe, asserted Ms. Hemmah was a witch who wished to do him and his family harm. A Gallup survey in Sub-Saharan African found that the belief in witchcraft is widespread. In the Ivory Coast 95% of people surveyed personally believe in witchcraft. In Ghana, the number is 77%, in Niger 75%, Zimbabwe 63% and South African 46%, just to mention a few. Changing these beliefs is a long journey, but changing the way suspects are treated should be attainable.

The introductory Biblical story suggests that this practice is a prehistoric custom that has lived 1000s of years. In the same vein that the men at Jesus time brought only the woman who was “caught in the act”, the University of Ghana Police apprehended the accused Amina and none of the law-breaking, irresponsible college students. When a person’s chromosomes determine how the law is applied to him or her in our time, Martin Luther King would probably not complain if the color of a person’s skin does the same.


For students in higher education to strip a suspected thief naked, insert their fingers into her private parts, fondle her breast and make fun of it on video is difficult to comprehend. I expect it to carry a more severe punishment that the theft because it was an assault on the woman’s personality and the dignity of more than 50% of human population. Our society needs to realize that illegality will never solve the problem evil.

I implore you to join hands in raising a loud voice against violence towards women in our society. Amina, Ama Hemmah and any of 1000s of the women in the Gambaga Witches Sanctuary could be my sister and your mother.

If you are interested in joining to fight these evils, please send an email to info@talkafrique.com or editorial@talkafrique.com find out how you can help.

We are sending a petition to the University Authorities and other influential sources to press the University to bring the rogues to justice immediately. Please click HERE to sign the petition.

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Warriors in Pink: Women in African Politics-Video

Dora Akinyuli, Nigerian Political Candidate

With the exception of few isolated cases, the participation of women in African politics is marginal but things are beginning to change, somehow. Currently, women constitute 49% of the parliament in Rwanda, the highest percentage in world rankings of women in national parliaments. The world average is about 15% women.

The video below shows how some women in Nigeria are hoping to change the statistics in the West African country.

“Study after study has shown that there is no effective development strategy in which women do not play a central role,” says UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. When women are fully involved, he notes, the benefits are immediate – families are healthier and better fed and their income, savings and investments go up. “And what is true of families is also true of communities and, in the long run, of whole countries.”

[youtube]IHoZZ1RVEAU&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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French take over Abidjan airport

BBC News

France has sent extra troops to Ivory Coast’s main city, Abidjan, and taken control of its airport.

It comes as fighting continued between forces loyal to the UN-recognised president, Alassane Ouattara, and his rival, incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

The city’s pro-Gbagbo TV station called for people to mobilise against the French ‘”occupation”.

An adviser to Mr Ouattara said his forces were preparing a final push to depose Mr Gbagbo, AP reports.

France has sent an extra 300 soldiers to Ivory Coast, military spokesman Thierry Burkhard said, taking the total French force to about 1,400.

The airport had been secured by UN troops since Friday, but the French move meant the airport was now able to re-open, Mr Burkhard said.

He said there were no immediate plans to start evacuating foreigners.

More than 1,500 foreigners are sheltering in a French army camp.

They include about 700 French nationals, some 600 Lebanese citizens and 60 Europeans of assorted nationalities, French media report.

‘Lives at stake’

Ivorian state TV, which is controlled by Mr Gbagbo, accused the French troops of preparing a genocide like the one in Rwanda in 1994, when more than 800,000 people were killed.

A strap line on state TV on Sunday read: “[French President Nicolas] Sarkozy’s men are preparing a Rwandan genocide in Ivory Coast. Ivorians, let us go out en masse and occupy the streets. Let us stay standing.”

Mr Sarkozy has called a cabinet meeting for Sunday afternoon to discuss the crisis in Ivory Coast.

On Saturday, heavy artillery fire was heard in Abidjan as the two sides fought for key sites including the presidential palace, the headquarters of state TV and the Agban military base.

Four UN soldiers were seriously wounded when special forces loyal to Mr Gbagbo fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a UN armoured personnel carrier.

Duekoue ‘massacre’

The west of Ivory Coast has also seen vicious battles between rival militias and ethnic groups. On Saturday, the Caritas aid agency said its staff had found the bodies of hundreds of people in Duekoue, and estimated that 1,000 may have died.

The killings occurred between 27 March and 29 March in the Carrefour district, which was controlled at the time by fighters loyal to Mr Ouattara, spokesman Patrick Nicholson told the Associated Press.

“Caritas does not know who was responsible for the killing, but says a proper investigation must take place to establish the truth,” he said.

Most of the 1,000 peacekeepers based in Duekoue had been protecting about 15,000 refugees at a Catholic mission there, Mr Nicholson added.

The International Committee of the Red Cross put the death toll at about 800, while the UN said more than 330 people were killed as Mr Ouattara’s forces took over Duekoue, most of them at the hands of his fighters. However, more than 100 of them were killed by Mr Gbagbo’s troops, it added.

Sidiki Konate, a spokesman for Mr Ouattara’s government, said that while some people had been killed in the fighting between the two sides in recent days, there had been no deliberate killings of Gbagbo supporters.

ICRC staff who visited Duekoue on Thursday and Friday to gather evidence said the scale and brutality of the killings were shocking.

Tens of thousands of women, men and children have fled the fighting.

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Zambia: Pregnant Woman Strips Naked to Prove Her Innocence in Stealing Charge

Business at Senama market in Mansa District came to a halt last evening when a pregnant woman stripped naked in the market shelter after she was accused of stealing a Fifty Thousand Kwacha by her fellow trader.

The woman decided to strip naked after she failed to convince her accuser that she had not stolen the money.
The duo was selling vegetables at the market when they picked up a quarrel after one of them lost a K 50,000 and accused her friend of stealing the money.

ZANIS reports that after a prolonged argument, the woman who accused her counterpart of having stolen the money demanded that her friend produces all the money she had so that she could identify her K 50, 000 note.

It was at this point that the accused woman decided to strip naked in the full view of people who had gone to watch them argue and those that went to buy assorted items.

She told ZANIS that that she stripped naked to show her accuser that she did not steal her money. One of the on lookers who sort anonymity said it was shameful for a woman to resort to stripping naked in presence of men and children at the market.

She said it was unjustifiable for the accused woman to remove all her clothes in public even if she was pressurized by her friend.

Meanwhile, other women expressed displeasure at the event but condemned the woman who had accused the other of stealing the money for not listening to her friend’s explanation.

They said it would be more important for the women in question to settle their wrangles at the police station than reaching the extent of stripping naked in public.

Lusaka Times

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Kelly Clarkson Visits an Orphanage in South African

Celebrity Singer Kelly Clarkson boosted the spirits of a group of underprivileged children by visiting an orphanage during a charity trip to Cape Town, South Africa.

The singer met the residents of the House of Hope, an organization which looks after abused and forsaken children most of whom are infected with HIV.

The hit actress discussed her experience in a post on Facebook.com, writing, “I just got back from Africa and had so much fun! I got to hang with the House Of Hope kids and go on a mini safari with some friends and family. I love South Africa! I love those kids even more.

“If you don’t know, House of Hope is an orphanage in South Africa that I got involved with a little over a year ago. They house around 30 kids right now and have had a rough life but you wouldn’t know it because they are the greatest kids with the best hearts, laughs, and smiles!”

HIV stereotypes remain the biggest barrier in containing the spread of the disease and celebrity interaction with HIV patients play a big role in combating the stigma

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A Woman from Chad Bites Her Cheating Partners Organ

Fatah Alhassan

A 35-year-old never-married woman has bitten off her new boyfriend’s sexual organ during sexual intercourse in a remote village in the African country of Chad.

The woman, Hawa,  had never heard of anything called oral sex was asked to perform it on her experienced partner whose wife had traveled on a business trip to Malaysia and took the opportunity to ask the mistress for the service.
Everything was going well until the man’s cell phone which was in his pocket ranged. The unexpected sound of the phone which was just inches away from the woman’s mouth caused a shock which accidentally led to her biting off the man’s organ.

No charges have been pressed against the woman yet and the man, Idisu,  has not yet made any public statement. He is said to be recuperating in a community clinic outside the village of Altonodji. Doctor say the injury is not life threatening but it is not yet clear whether the cheating husband can embark on such mission again in the future.

Fatah Alhassan, Altonodji, Chad
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The Way Libya May Go Next

Obama has spoken, Sarcozy has made up his mind, NATO has taken the lead; all in a bid to get the common enemy they called Maoummar Gaddafi out.  But rebels fighting from Benghazi flank are crude in their approach as they lack regimental command structure. They have demonstrated that they want to take-over power, taking the advantage of the No-Fly-Zone clause of the UN resolution 1973. But Gaddafi troop are reclaiming areas like Adjabya and Sirte, earlier acclaimed to have overrun by the rebels, as more Libyan refugees in their thousands invading the small Italian Island of Lampedusa, Egypt and Tunisia, to escape the crisis.

While the rebels beat a retreat in the face of fierce attacks from Gaddafi’s troops, the prominent actors and top decision-makers in the regime are defecting to the opposition’s side.  Moussa Kuossa, Ghaddafi foreign minister made a surprise entrance into UK, two days ago, and he was followed by others. Most of the defectors were staunch supporters of the tyrannical rule of Gaddafi all these years. Gaddafi is a mean man, he knows what the end would be sooner or later, thus; he would left no stone unturned in dealing with those he referred to as ‘cockroaches, rats, and drug addicts’. Whatever anyone thinks, the end is near for Gaddafi; either he gives way for peaceful transition or he faces humiliation as did Iraqi-once -strongman, Saddam Hussein.

Whatever the stakes are, there is every likelihood that those men bombing and firing missiles from war planes would have to come down; do some infantry job to keep Gaddafi men in check. Or they have to negotiate a soft-landing plank for Gaddafi to step aside. Anything short of this would still give the Libya maximum ruler more opportunity, to kill thousands of the civilian population the No-Fly-Zone is to protect. Because the 1973 is vague and open, various interpretations are being derived from it to achieve a specific purpose. Why is the UN resolution 1973 clause not being applied in Barhain, Syria or Yemen?