Malaria Consortium Welcomes Clinton-Museveni Pledge to Eliminate Diarrhoeal Deaths in Uganda

Press Release
Entebbe, Uganda 20 July 2012: Malaria Consortium welcomes the pledge by President Bill Clinton and President Yoweri Museveni today to increase support to reduce the 14,000 annual childhood deaths caused by diarrhoea in Uganda. At this critical time for achieving the Millennium Development Goals and reducing child mortality by 2015, scaling up high impact health interventions must be a priority.

Malaria Consortium, an international NGO working in Uganda was invited to participate in the “Scale-Up Diarrhea Treatment – Cut Down Child Mortality” event hosted by the National Medical Stores, the Uganda Ministry of Health and the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Entebbe today.

Ministry of Health policy in Uganda is to treat diarrhoea using Oral Rehydration Solution and Zinc; however patients still fail to use this potentially life-saving treatment. Malaria Consortium, at the event, committed to conducting much needed research on understanding community perceptions and behaviour concerning diarrhoea as a health problem. The data gathered from this research will support the Ministry of Health and partners to improve diarrhoea prevention and treatment communication campaigns, and diarrhoea treatment approaches.

‘Malaria Consortium is happy to see that diarrhoeal deaths are receiving global, and now, national attention with political commitment,’ says Malaria Consortium Uganda Country Director Dr. Godfrey Magumba, who met with decision-makers before the event. ‘We are working to save children’s lives in Uganda, and treating diarrhoea as part of an integrated approach is a key strategy for achieving this.’

In Uganda, 40% of all deaths in children under five are caused by diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria. Children often show more than one symptom and need to be treated with antimalarials, antibiotics for pneumonia and Oral rehydration solution for diarrhoea.

In an effort to reduce these easily preventable deaths, Malaria Consortium is working with the Government of Uganda to implement a holistic approach to childhood disease control called Integrated Community Case Management, diagnosing and treating children at community level to achieve maximum impact. 


 The Ministry of Health programme trains and supports volunteer community health workers, called Village Health Team members, to conduct health promotion activities, diagnose and treat diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria, recognise danger signs in newborns and under-fives and refer to nearest health facility. This strategy is expected to reduce childhood deaths from these diseases by 65 per cent, bringing diagnosis and treatment closer to home, where, in the past, poverty and distance limited access to quality health services.


“Continuing with business as usual is not an option if we want to achieve the Millenium Development Goals in Uganda in the near future,” says Dr. Karin Källander, who coordinates a Malaria Consortium project conducting research to support the scale up of quality Integrated Community Case Management in Uganda. “Scaling up coverage of essential medicines to sick children to 80 percent through the ICCM strategy could lead to 20,000 lives saved; it can make a huge difference.”

UNESCO’s Shameful Award

Press Release
Legal Questions, Human Rights Concerns Surround Obiang Prize

(Paris, July 16, 2012) – UNESCO’s decision to issue a controversial prize sponsored by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea is disappointing and irresponsible, seven civil society groups said today. A ceremony to award the prize is scheduled for July 17, 2012, in Paris. Obiang, in power for 33 years, leads a government known for corruption and repression.

In a divisive 33-18 vote with 6 abstentions, UNESCO’s governing Executive Board approved a renamed prize on March 8 under the name UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences and pressed UNESCO’s Director-General, Irina Bokova, to move quickly to award it. 

That vote disregarded the advice of UNESCO’s legal office, which said that the prize could not be implemented, according to the organization’s own rules, due to discrepancies surrounding the source of the funding.

“It is shameful and utterly irresponsible for UNESCO to award this prize, given the litany of serious legal and ethical problems surrounding it,” said Tutu Alicante, director of the human rights group EG Justice. “Beyond letting itself be used to polish the sullied image of Obiang, UNESCO also risks ruining its own credibility.”

In a July 12 letter to delegates opposed to the prize, Bokova said that a legal opinion issued following the Board vote concluded that concerns remained but that she is nevertheless required to adhere to the Executive Board’s decision and implement the prize. In a July 13 response, the delegates protested that “UNESCO has a legal and fiduciary duty” to fully resolve the funding questions “so that there is no cloud of illegality hanging over the prize.”

It remains unclear if Obiang, who has pushed this prize as part of a major effort to improve his global standing, will attend the award ceremony, as foreseen in the program for the event. The prize was first approved in 2008 as the “UNESCO-Obiang prize.” His name was dropped from the award in the face of outrage from prominent African and Latin American intellectuals, writers, journalists, Nobel Prize Laureates, scientists, health professionals, and civil society groups who criticized the president’s poor human rights record and alleged involvement in money laundering.

Ongoing corruption investigations of members of the Obiang family in France, Spain, and the United Statescontribute to questions over the source of the prize’s funding. On March 5, Association SHERPA and Transparency International France requested that French judges extend France’s corruption investigation to include Obiang’s $3 million donation for this prize.

Serious allegations of corruption and money-laundering on a grand scale by the president or his family and close associates are now being examined by multiple judicial bodies internationally. 

Obiang’s eldest son and presumed successor, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, known as Teodorín, is wanted under an international arrest warrantissued by French judges on July 10 in connection with the case in France. 

In a move that may have been an attempt to grant Teodorín immunity from prosecution, Obiang appointed his son to be Equatorial Guinea’s deputy permanent delegate to UNESCO in October 2011. 

In May, Obiang also named Teodorín to be Equatorial Guinea’s second vice president, a post not foreseen under the country’s constitution. Teodorin’s lawyer in France contends that the arrest warrant “is null and void because of Mr. Obiang's status” as second vice president.

French authorities have twice raided a lavish residence used by the Obiang family in Paris and seized large quantities of luxury goods valued at tens of millions of Euros belonging to Teodorín.

In a separate investigation, the United States Department of Justice has filed complaints that provide detailed allegations that Teodorín abused his prior government post as Minister of Agriculture and Forestry to extort and launder money to finance more than $300 million in high-end purchases between 2000 and 2011, including properties in Brazil, France, South Africa, and the United States with a total value of US$133 million, and $45 million in art by Renoir and other master painters.

Lawyers for Teodorín in France and the US have disputed the claims against their client.
Teodorín’s lifestyle and the prize’s stated goal of “contributing to improving the quality of human life” contrast sharply with conditions in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, where poverty, human rights abuses, and corruption are widespread and social services are inadequate, the civil society groups said.

In contrast to UNESCO’s core mandate to protect and promote media freedom and information sharing, free expression and press freedom are routinely curtailed in Equatorial Guinea. The government also fails to publish basic information related to government budgets and spending.

“Ordinary people in Equatorial Guinea have never shared in the country’s wealth or their leaders’ fancy lifestyles,” Alicante said. “If they celebrate anything as they languish in poverty, it won’t be the UNESCO prize. It will be Teodorín’s arrest warrant.”

The statement was issued by the following organizations:
Association SHERPA
Committee to Protect Journalists
Corruption Watch
EG Justice
Global Witness
Human Rights Watch
ONE
For more EG Justice reporting on Equatorial Guinea, please visit:http://www.egjustice.org

Used cooking oil to fuel your car

By Esther Nakkazi

Imagine using waste cooking oil blended with diesel to fuel your car?

Pure fuels East Africa Ltd, a pioneer producer of biodiesel in the region based in Mombasa has switched to waste cooking oil from Jatropha to offer a cheap, environmentally friendly and renewable alternative that will keep East African economies green.

“We stopped using Jatropha because it proved expensive to transport from Arusha and to remain profitable, so we have focused on used cooking oil which we are collecting from hotels and restaurants,” said Daniel Mugenga, managing director, Pure Fuels (E.A) Ltd.

In its new marketing strategy, Pure Fuels (E.A) now focuses on production of the biodiesel through engaging sub-contractors who are encouraged to buy their GXP-200 processor and collect waste cooking oil from hotels and restaurants.

Since its inception in 2008, the company has been processing biodiesel and has used its experience to develop a simple and efficient multi-feedstock processor the GXP-200, which can process vegetable oils, animal fat, used cooking oils or a mixture of them all.

It processes 200 litres of biodiesel per 8 hours and sub-contractors are encouraged to produce a minimum of 200 litres per week, which has been calculated to enable them break even in less than 6 months and also grow the market with increased biodiesel output.

The GXP-200 costs Kshs.99, 000 inclusive of VAT and although it is an easy to use technology, one of the challenges the team faces is people thinking it is complicated because to most of them ‘it is the first time ever they have heard of biodiesel and its production’ said an employee from Pure Fuels E.A.

But fortunately, the target market is fairly informed about the product and is growing demand. For instance last month, the company had further success after acquiring a contract with a leading bus shuttle service that operates within the Nairobi central business district as well as an independent fuel station chain in Mombasa, which are buying 130,000 Liters of biodiesel for a start.

This was on top of existing customers whose demand is the entire stock of 20,000-30,000 Liters per month. In the out-grower model they are using now, sub-producers are key but these have to buy the GXP-200 processor, source their own used cooking oil, seed oil or animal fat as the company supplies you with the know-how and chemicals.

It has also partnered with the Equity Bank, Bank of Africa to offer financing to prospective sub-contractors.

The current price for the finished biodiesel is between Kshs.64-70 per litre depending on the quantities supplied. For now the company is only offering a buyback guarantee for Kenya sub-producers but will expand soon to Uganda.

“At least through this model are able to know the profitability of collecting that particular diesel other than traveling over 50 kms expecting 1000 litres of used cooking oil only to find that only 200 litres of it is available,” said Mugenga.

And it is not only this uncertainty that has made the company change its strategy. At its inception, Pure Fuels targeted the use of Jatropha, which it was importing from Tanzania but it proved too expensive to meet their target of 10-20 percent less than the price of conventional fuel. 

The idea was to have a 20:80 ratio of diesel and biodiesel in the blend.

Now switching to cooking oil, Pure Fuels targeted the youth to become sub-contractors in an effort to reduce unemployment among the youth, women and people with disabilities.

“We assumed the youth would readily jump on board but our biggest market has come from middle aged individuals with established careers who use it a second income earner,” said Mugenga.
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Uganda Scientists 'Peanuts' salary rise

By Esther Nakkazi

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni this time fulfilled his promise to increase scientists’ salaries to motivate them and keep them home.

In the 2012/13 Budget, all scientists received a 10-30 percent salary increment including science teachers in Universities and post-primary institutions in a total amount of 290 billion ($II5 million) to be dispensed.

Studies done so far, have indicated that Uganda is currently experiencing high levels of brain drain as critical personnel, especially scientists seek for greener pastures not only in developed countries but also in other African countries mostly to Rwanda.

And the World Bank Migration and Remittance fact book 2011 confirms that there are about 750,000 Ugandans working abroad.

Scientists in Uganda blame the exodus of their colleagues on the lack of a good working environment, poor research infrastructure, unavailability of long-term benefits and opportunities for promotion. They accuse the government of insensitivity to their needs and failing to provide sufficient salaries.

This time round Museveni made his promise come true. During the State of the Nation Address ahead of the Budget he said, 'scientists are the only public servants that deserve higher pay because they contribute decisively to the economy and their contribution is unique. We cannot replace nor replicate them.'

According to Museveni, Uganda scientists who have finally woken up from a ‘long slumber’ are needed for a knowledge-based economy such as making cars, making computers, adding value to agricultural products and fabricating machines.

But scientists have called the increment ‘peanuts’ and wondered if this time the promise would manifest on their bank accounts since this is not the first time Museveni has talked about an increment.

“The president has many times promised us a pay rise. This is a group of people that can help the economy generate more revenue,” said Peter Ndemere Executive Director of Uganda National Council for Science and Technology.

It is the first time that the pay rise will be honored, if it is, after a million times of Museveni declaring a rise for the scientists. Immediately, he came to power in 1986 he pledged to raise scientists pay and even though the past two budgets speeches of 2010 and 2011 he was at it.

During all the innovations launches, his signature speech is a pay rise for scientists with the most recent during the launch of the Makerere University’s pioneer electric car, Kiira EV.

“I highly welcome the idea but this government is known for backtracking on its promises. I will only celebrate if the long-awaited increment is finally reflected on my pay cheque”, said Ninsiima Daniel a young research assistant at Makerere University Agriculture Research Institute Kabanyolo.

“Everything is theoretical. You forego a lot of things while training to become a scientist only to earn peanuts,” said Professor Eriabu Lugujjo head of Department of Electrical Engineering at Makerere University.

Professor Lugujjo said he manages to get by “.....digging. I engaged in farming long ago, because I know that if you solve the basic needs you can read sensibly.”

But Museveni has since warned that Uganda is not like Europe advising that many public servants have land at home and can grow food to supplement the now small salaries until the situation improves.
“When we build the base of our economy, we shall all be better off,” he said. “I still await patriotic offers about the voluntary salary cuts.”

One of the reasons the implementation of the pay rise delayed, was because 'he' was facing a lot of ‘resistance’ in the Government as officials still wanted salaries to be based on protocol and not one’s profession and contribution to the economy'.

Ministry of Finance officials argued that the scientists pay rise should be based on how important they are to the growth of the economy. So ultimately the scientists will get wages depending on their productivity. What have Ugandan scientists produced? There are no innovations!, remarked an official in Finance ministry.

But the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA) officials said Uganda has a lot of innovations and products from scientists. The varieties of maize, beans, banana, cassava, sweet potato, cowpea, potato, groundnuts currently being grown in Uganda have been developed - courtesy of the efforts of Uganda scientists.

They said Uganda would also have very little milk and beef in the country if disease and pest control packages including nutritional packages developed by scientists were not available.

“This tendency to take scientists efforts for granted is an issue that requires a total reboot of the minds of our policymakers,” said Dr. Charles Mugoya, the head of Biotechnology and Biosafety program at ASARECA.

“We should not confuse and equate the inadequate capacity in the country to upscale locally developed technologies and innovations developed by scientists to lack of scientific innovations,” he said.

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Biotechnology Crop Development in Africa

Press Release: African Agricultural Technology Foundation

Dr Denis T Kyetere, the Executive Director at the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), today said that improved seeds and other farm technologies are best bet for enhanced agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where smallholder farmers make up 70 percent of people that depend solely on agriculture for livelihood and suffer most challenging farming problems. 


Speaking at the 2012 ‘Bio International Convention: the Global Event for Biotechnology’ in Boston, MA, USA, Dr Kyetere also said that smallholder farms also have lowest farm production costs and any investment will be visible and impactful. The use of improved technologies will result in higher and better yields, labour savings and will also allow for possible crop diversification and address production constraints such as insect and weed pests, drought, diseases, and soil degradation and protection of the environment. ‘I believe the greatest impact, benefit and return on investment will be realised at smallholder level,’ he said.

However, while agricultural biotechnology advances rapidly in the developed world, developing countries are struggling to keep pace for various reasons including human and institutional capacity challenges, lack of familiarity with the biotech product development process, and difficulties in navigating cumbersome regulatory processes.

‘We are calling on the private sector to partner with the public sector to contribute to the development and delivery of biotechnology tools to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa to help overcome some of these challenges. The private sector can contribute their technologies, knowhow and even funding. Other key areas include capacity strengthening in areas such as stewardship, product development and deployment and participating in policy development debates where they can share their experience with governments.’ Dr Kyetere added.

Despite these challenges, there is increased and encouraging biotech activity in Africa. Awareness on the potential of modern agricultural biotechnology in the region is on the increase with various countries already applying various tools. South Africa, Burkina Faso and Egypt already have developed commercialised genetically modified (GM) crops. In addition, six countries have enabling biosafety laws in place that allow the safe development and commercialisation of GM products.

The 2011 Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops produced by the International Service for the Application of Agri-biotech Applications indicates that there is increased biotech research around important staples in Africa such as cowpea, cooking banana, rice, maize, cassava, sorghum, and sweet potato. There is also greater attention and interest towards intelligent crops that can utilise natural resources to ensure environmental conservation; produce enough food – such as water use efficiency, nitrogen use efficiency, tolerance to stress such as salt, drought and heat.

In addition to the above, resolutions and actions have been taken at continental, sub-regional and country levels to provide general direction, support policy decisions and action and contribute to R&D activities. This activity has also recognised biotechnology as offering options to food security.

‘However, there are immediate challenges to overcome so as to advance biotechnology development in SSA – these includeemerging regulatory/biosafety frameworks that may delay smallholder farmers from accessing the tools of biotechnology and prevent them from enjoying the benefits that this may bring to their farming productivity,’ said Dr Kyetere. Some biosafety policies could serve as a disincentive to introducing technologies to smallholder farmers.

Dr Kyetere also noted that misinformation and controversy regarding biotech is a hindrance to public acceptance of biotech in the region. The process of bringing biotech to SSA is also riddled with trust issues as skepticism of private sector involvement in humanitarian projects through public private partnerships (PPPs) is expressed. Further, insufficient government funding for research contributes to slow growth of biotechnology on the continent.

‘In order to support biotech crop development in less developed markets like Sub-Saharan Africa there is need to nurture and initiate efforts that contribute towards creation of an enabling policy environment for the development of such innovative technologies,’ said Dr Kyetere, adding that biotech research programmes benefit from enabling activities that deal with intellectual property, licensing, technology stewardship, regulatory science, communication and issues management, market linkages and research, and development management and coordination.

Currently working in 8 countries in SSA, AATF facilitates access and delivery of affordable agricultural technologies for use by smallholder farmers in Africa. Priority areas for the Foundation include addressing targeted agricultural constraints facing these farmers which include the impact of climate change in agriculture; pest management; soil management, nutrient enhancement in foods; improved breeding methods; and mechanisation. These are addressed through the access, development and deployment of accessible, transferable, adaptable and proven technologies.

Projects that AATF currently participates in include: Striga control in maize; development of insect-resistant cowpea; improvement of banana for resistance to banana bacterial wilt; biological control of aflatoxin; development of drought tolerance in maize; and development of nitrogen-use efficient, water-use efficient and salt tolerant rice varieties for use by smallholder farmers in SSA.

East African ICT Budget Allocations and Priorities for 2012/2013

CIPESA Press Release Information and Communication Technology, a sector recognised as crucial to social and economic development by the East African Community (EAC), received meagre budget allocations for 2012/2013 in most of the regional grouping’s five member countries - Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. East Africa is a leader in adoption of mobiles, and, led by Kenya, in adoption of mobile money and a string of technological innovations. The figures allocated by the different states, and the (non)-mentions of the ICT sectors in the spending blueprints for the coming year, seem to indicate that most EAC governments have surrendered the role of developing the ICT sector to private players - if they ever quite had the baton. The Rwanda government, taking notable strides in promoting ICT infrastructure investments and enabling usage by citizens, put no figure to the sector's portion of its US$ 2.32 billion budget. Uganda's US$ 6.4 million ICT sector allocation is the highest in the last three years but represents a mere 0.13% of the budget. Among the priorities for Kenya’s more than US $17 billion budget were implementing the new public sector reforms and the country’s new (2010) constitution, and funding the upcoming general elections. But it still made, by regional standards, a far larger allocation to ICT. Tanzania, one of the region’s top misers as far as allocation to the ICT sector is concerned, increased duty on mobile telephone airtime, taking it to a league Uganda has for long dominated, where telephone services are taxed steeply. In this June 2012 briefing paper, the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) takes a peek into the East African ICT budget allocations and priorities for 2012/2013. Read the full brief here http://bit.ly/LrSZlA

Maternal health drug misses in health facilities

By Esther Nakkazi

A life saving drug for women with obstetric and gynecologic complications, Misoprostol, is about to expire in Uganda government stores, which will undo the gains in maternal health achieved so far.

Although, Uganda’s maternal mortality statistics had over a decade gone down from 435 to 310 deaths per 100,000 live births, health officials are afraid that minus Misoprostol, more deaths due to unsafe abortion may occur. In Uganda, unsafe abortions account for 26 percent of maternal mortality, although these are completely preventable.

Misoprostol, a safe technology, has been approved by the World Health Organisation for use in Post Abortion Care (PAC) and is being promoted by the Uganda Ministry of Health.

But at Mulago, the biggest referral hospital in the country and in a number of health facilities except health centre IIIs, there is a shortage of Misoprostol. “We have not been getting Misoprostol for sometime now at Mulago and we are wondering why, said Dr. Charles Kiggundu a consultant gynecologist and obstetrician with Mulago Hospital.

Kiggundu also the vice president of the Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Uganda (AOGU) said, “our interest in this drug is because it stops women from excessive bleeding, which is the most common cause of maternal deaths. When administered it causes the uterus to contract and stops blood loss.”

An official from the National Medical Stores (NMS) who did not want to be named said they have enough stocks of Misoprostol to supply all health facilities but under the pull system, which is user-driven, district health officials have to requisition for it.

Misoprostol, therefore, can now only be found in Health Centre IIIs because they use the push system, which is Ministry of Health driven, where the drugs are supplied irrespective of the need.

Independent analysts said NMS now being profit- driven does not pay a lot of attention to Misoprostol because it is a government drug and has no benefits. It costs only Ushs.300 ($0.1) in public and 15,000 ($6) in private health facilities. 

Health care providers in Uganda administer Misoprostol in high risk pregnancies like for women who birth twins, triplets, more than five pregnancies, those who go through long and obstructed labor as well as women under going surgery.

But recently, they have realized that all women who deliver potentially need Misoprostol including those in the low risk group said Kiggundu. Low risk in this case refers to women having the first baby and those having normal labor.

This, thus, means all the 2 million women who get pregnant in Uganda annually are potential users of Misoprostol, which is now about to expire in government stores. Misoprostrol is also cheap, safe, private, efficient, painless, easy to transport, store and administer even by non-health workers with training, which helps ease up professional health workers time, a much needed resource in poor settings. 

Health officials attending a national conference on unsafe abortion in Kampala last week expressed anger about the absence of Misoprostol in the various health facilities even as women continue to be rushed to them for post abortion care after carrying out unsafe abortions. Abortions are restricted in Uganda and only permitted to save a woman’s life.

Uganda’s abortion rate is among the highest in the world at 54 abortions per 1000 women and its estimated that 26 percent of maternal mortality result from unsafe abortions.

In a 2005 World Health Organization survey, it was estimated that 300,000 abortions occur per year in Uganda. But nearly 85,000 women are treated for complications- most of these are incomplete abortions where the uterus continues to bleed until medical care is sought.

In such circumstances, Misoprostol comes in handy, and it has been demonstrated that if taken orally, only 3 tablets, it can reduce on the bleeding or remove the products of the uterus. It could also be used in early pregnancy termination of abnormal fetus or to save the mother. 

Dr. Collins Tusungwire a senior medical officer with the Ministry of Health said they have taken a number of steps to address the issue of unsafe abortion using Misoprostol. In collaboration with PACE Uganda, in 2011 the ministry got the drug registered for all gynecological indications in Uganda.

It was also put in Mama kits – an all-in-one package that contains everything needed to help provide a clean and safe delivery-but it was withdrawn because women used to use it and not go to health facilities.

Dr. Dorothy Balaba, an official from PACE Uganda said they have increasing accessibility and availability of Misoprostol in the private sector, trained over 2,000 health workers on its use and worked to integrate it in post abortion care services.

As Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State 2009 observed in 2009, “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.”

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