Blantyre, Malawi - Malawian education authorities Monday blamed a South African printer for “security laxity”, which resulted in the nullification of results of examinations written by 80,000 students after it was discovered that copies of the papers were leaked and sold before hand to thousands of pupils.
“Security laxity compromised the entire printing process,” deputy Education Minister Olive Masanza, said in a statement.
Masanza said this led to one Malawian driver, one of the four sent to collect the papers in four trucks from South Africa, to “illegally obtain some papers which were sold to some schools in the country.
Embarrassed by the scam, President Bingu wa Mutharika, last year launched an inquiry into the leakage.
The students later wrote fresh senior secondary school certificate examinations, the equivalent of O-Levels, to avoid candidates who were exposed to leaked examination papers to have an unfair advantage over their colleagues, who wrote the same examination without any assistance.
Officials at the Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB), which administers examinations, had previously vehemently denied that copies of the question papers were leaked.
However, dozens of people were arrested while selling the exam papers, and the driver, who was identified as Mcnight Kaliza, was prosecuted and jailed for over two years.
In 2000, similar examinations were cancelled when some papers were leaked and sold on the streets, prompting former President Bakili Muluzi to fire MANEB's chief executive Meria Nowa-Phiri.
Monday, 4 August 2008
Orphans from Malawi visits Taiwan
Thirty five orphans from Malawi accompanied Dharma Master Hui-li to Taiwan Sunday to thank their Taiwanese benefactors and perform around the island.
Dharma Master Hui-li is a Buddhist missionary and charity worker who has specialized in caring for children orphaned by parents with AIDS.
Master Hui-li has founded an orphanage in Malawi with help from Taiwan's foreign ministry and donations from Taiwanese citizens who sponsored more than 2000 children over the years. Right now, about 200 children live at the orphanage.
The children on the tour will meet their sponsors and perform songs in both their native language and in Chinese.
Dharma Master Hui-li is a Buddhist missionary and charity worker who has specialized in caring for children orphaned by parents with AIDS.
Master Hui-li has founded an orphanage in Malawi with help from Taiwan's foreign ministry and donations from Taiwanese citizens who sponsored more than 2000 children over the years. Right now, about 200 children live at the orphanage.
The children on the tour will meet their sponsors and perform songs in both their native language and in Chinese.
Celtel Malawi changes name to Zain
One of the major mobile firms in Southern African country Malawi, Celtel on Friday changed its name to Zain a move which according to the firm is expected to bring in more goodies.
The mobile firm which has over 1 million customers also changed its red colours well known with Celtel as well as its tag of “Making life better” to maroon with a tag line of “A wonderful world.”
Zain Malawi Managing Director Fayaz King said the rebranding of the firm from Celtel to Zain underlined their ambition to become top 10 global mobile telecommunications company by 2011.
King described the Zain Group, the leading telecommunications mobile provider in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa as one of the fastest growing telecommunications in the world with over 50 million customers.
“Today sees the Zain Group, the leading telecommunications mobile provider in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa re-brand its operations in Africa from Celtel to Zain,” he said.
The mobile firm joins its parent group having marked a phenomenal one million customers early last month.
Zain Group last week announced that for the first half of this year, it has recorded consolidated revenues of US$ 3.488 billion, an increase of 26 percent compared to the same last year.
The Zain brand is wholly owned by Mobile Telecommunications Company KSC, which is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange.
The mobile firm which has over 1 million customers also changed its red colours well known with Celtel as well as its tag of “Making life better” to maroon with a tag line of “A wonderful world.”
Zain Malawi Managing Director Fayaz King said the rebranding of the firm from Celtel to Zain underlined their ambition to become top 10 global mobile telecommunications company by 2011.
King described the Zain Group, the leading telecommunications mobile provider in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa as one of the fastest growing telecommunications in the world with over 50 million customers.
“Today sees the Zain Group, the leading telecommunications mobile provider in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa re-brand its operations in Africa from Celtel to Zain,” he said.
The mobile firm joins its parent group having marked a phenomenal one million customers early last month.
Zain Group last week announced that for the first half of this year, it has recorded consolidated revenues of US$ 3.488 billion, an increase of 26 percent compared to the same last year.
The Zain brand is wholly owned by Mobile Telecommunications Company KSC, which is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange.
Malawi parliament reconvenes Monday over delayed budget
Blantyre, Malawi - The budget session the Malawi parliament reconvenes in the capital, Lilongwe, to discuss and consider the 2008/09 national budget Monday, over a month after the budget was supposed to be in place.
The budget session was suspended 20 June after the opposition, which dominates the 193-member parliament, insisted that the budget could not be discussed unless all members of parliament who defected from opposition parties to join President Bingu wa Mutharika's newly-founded Democratic Progress Party (DPP) are expelled from the House, according to the constitution.
Mutharika quit the former ruling United Democratic Front (UDF), on whose ticket he ironically won the 2004 general elections, after falling out with his mentor-turned-enemy, former President Bakili Muluzi.
Mutharika said he quit the UDF because its leaders, including Muluzi, opposed his tough anti-corruption policy.
Since then there has been acrimony between Mutharika's minority government and the opposition leading to the opposition blocking all government bills in parliam e nt, including the 2008/09 budget.
President Mutharika has since decreed that Monday's budget session would only be for 10 days and if the budget was not passed after that he would be forced to rule by decree.
But the opposition has described President Mutharika's threats as "traits of dictatorship".
George Mtafu, the UDF Leader in Parliament, said Mutharika's decision to convene parliament was irregular since it was the sole responsibility of the Speaker of Parliament to do so and determine its duration.
"Bingu is flauting the Constitution and we cannot allow him that luxury," he said, adding "Malawians have chosen pluralistic democracy."
Deputy president of the opposition Peoples Progressive Party (PPM) Mark Katsonga Phiri said Mutharika should have waited for a negotiated settlement in the clergy-led mediation talks.
The clergy, led by head of the Catholic Church in Malawi, Archbishop Tarcizius Ziyaye, is trying to broker a solution to the current political impasse.
Analysts say the current session may not yield much as both sides do not want to compromise on their positions.
The delay in passing the budget is threatening the government's much-touted farm input subsidy programme and preparations for the forth-coming May 2009 general elections.
The budget session was suspended 20 June after the opposition, which dominates the 193-member parliament, insisted that the budget could not be discussed unless all members of parliament who defected from opposition parties to join President Bingu wa Mutharika's newly-founded Democratic Progress Party (DPP) are expelled from the House, according to the constitution.
Mutharika quit the former ruling United Democratic Front (UDF), on whose ticket he ironically won the 2004 general elections, after falling out with his mentor-turned-enemy, former President Bakili Muluzi.
Mutharika said he quit the UDF because its leaders, including Muluzi, opposed his tough anti-corruption policy.
Since then there has been acrimony between Mutharika's minority government and the opposition leading to the opposition blocking all government bills in parliam e nt, including the 2008/09 budget.
President Mutharika has since decreed that Monday's budget session would only be for 10 days and if the budget was not passed after that he would be forced to rule by decree.
But the opposition has described President Mutharika's threats as "traits of dictatorship".
George Mtafu, the UDF Leader in Parliament, said Mutharika's decision to convene parliament was irregular since it was the sole responsibility of the Speaker of Parliament to do so and determine its duration.
"Bingu is flauting the Constitution and we cannot allow him that luxury," he said, adding "Malawians have chosen pluralistic democracy."
Deputy president of the opposition Peoples Progressive Party (PPM) Mark Katsonga Phiri said Mutharika should have waited for a negotiated settlement in the clergy-led mediation talks.
The clergy, led by head of the Catholic Church in Malawi, Archbishop Tarcizius Ziyaye, is trying to broker a solution to the current political impasse.
Analysts say the current session may not yield much as both sides do not want to compromise on their positions.
The delay in passing the budget is threatening the government's much-touted farm input subsidy programme and preparations for the forth-coming May 2009 general elections.
Tiny bank serves thousands
Opportunity Malawi purchased a butcher's stall in the marketplace and has turned it into a mini bank branch.
Malawi (MNN) ― A tiny bank in a former butcher shop is serving thousands of people right in the center of the marketplace of Blantyre, Malawi.
Only four people staff the mini-branch of the Opportunity International Bank of Malawi (OIBM), which opened in March 2007. It is already in high demand: over 3,000 people have already opened savings accounts, some of them from cities as many as 100 kilometers away. It also offers loans and insurance to clients.
Even though it is located in one of the poorest countries in the world, the bank averages 18 account openings and 30 transactions per day. 70 percent of its clients are women. They no longer have to make expensive, risky trips to the main branch of the bank in Limbe, because the mini-branch is located right in the area where they live and work.
Almost 100 percent of the bank's loans are repaid on time. Tabia Chibale, who runs a small business making and selling necklaces, plans to pay off her loan before the end of its eight-month term. If she does, she will be able to take out a larger loan and expand her business.
"It's a great bank," she said. "I have 100% [higher] profit now than before."
The mother of three girls, Chibale travels to Zimbabwe twice every month to purchase raw materials for her business.
Mrs. Jabalasa, who buys and sells potatoes, believes her money is safer in the bank than it was when she hid it in her home. She recently opened her very first savings account after learning about the bank from friends.
Malawi is an extremely poor country, with 76 percent of the population living on less than one dollar per day. Almost 14 million people live in Malawi, and tens of thousands of them die of HIV/AIDS every year, according to the CIA. Opportunity International has over 17,000 active loan clients in the country.
Opportunity International-U.S. strives to reach the world's poorest people through its micro-enterprise development programs.
Malawi (MNN) ― A tiny bank in a former butcher shop is serving thousands of people right in the center of the marketplace of Blantyre, Malawi.
Only four people staff the mini-branch of the Opportunity International Bank of Malawi (OIBM), which opened in March 2007. It is already in high demand: over 3,000 people have already opened savings accounts, some of them from cities as many as 100 kilometers away. It also offers loans and insurance to clients.
Even though it is located in one of the poorest countries in the world, the bank averages 18 account openings and 30 transactions per day. 70 percent of its clients are women. They no longer have to make expensive, risky trips to the main branch of the bank in Limbe, because the mini-branch is located right in the area where they live and work.
Almost 100 percent of the bank's loans are repaid on time. Tabia Chibale, who runs a small business making and selling necklaces, plans to pay off her loan before the end of its eight-month term. If she does, she will be able to take out a larger loan and expand her business.
"It's a great bank," she said. "I have 100% [higher] profit now than before."
The mother of three girls, Chibale travels to Zimbabwe twice every month to purchase raw materials for her business.
Mrs. Jabalasa, who buys and sells potatoes, believes her money is safer in the bank than it was when she hid it in her home. She recently opened her very first savings account after learning about the bank from friends.
Malawi is an extremely poor country, with 76 percent of the population living on less than one dollar per day. Almost 14 million people live in Malawi, and tens of thousands of them die of HIV/AIDS every year, according to the CIA. Opportunity International has over 17,000 active loan clients in the country.
Opportunity International-U.S. strives to reach the world's poorest people through its micro-enterprise development programs.
INSPIRE: Cate Campbell
This towering 16-year-old is one of our best swimming hopes at Beijing.
Three days before her 16th birthday, Cate Campbell was giving an interview at Santa Clara, outside San Francisco, where she had just downed American pool-sprint queen Natalie Coughlin. Former Olympic 200m butterfly champ Mel Stewart, working for a swimming news website, was asking Campbell how she stayed grounded given the rocket-ride she had taken to the top of her sport in less than a year.
“I’m just an average 15-year-old,” the Australian insisted. “I go to school, I clean out the chickens’ cage, I wash dishes…”
The look on her interrogator’s face at the mention of chickens was priceless. His eyes bulged as he spluttered: “Did you just say you clean out the chickens’ cage?”
Campbell was completely unfazed: “It’s a rather disgusting job, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.” And that’s our newest swimming sensation – down to earth, wise beyond her years, doesn’t shirk the hard stuff, and not the least bit average.
Even Bob Bowman, coach of the world’s best swimmer, Michael Phelps, is impressed with Campbell. “She’s amazing,” he says. “She has a beautiful stroke and I have never seen anyone pass Natalie like that in 50m.”
In Australian sporting terms, Campbell could be the best thing to come out of Africa since George Gregan. Born in Malawi, the eldest of five children, Campbell spent her first nine years in Blantyre, a former colonial city named for the Scottish birthplace of explorer Dr David Livingstone. Siblings Bronte (now 14), Jessicah (12), Hamish (10) and Abigail (seven) followed.
Even if the Campbells didn’t have a backyard swimming pool, water was destined to figure largely in their early lives – land-locked Malawi is more than 20 per cent water thanks to the enormous Lake Malawi. Father Eric is a keen sailor and mother Jenny, “who chucked us into the water as soon as possible”, is a former national-level synchronised swimmer.
Campbell spent weekends at Lake Malawi where the children swam and sailed and kept an eye out for angry hippos. “There used to be a rogue hippo that would hang around and attack people and eat the villagers’ crops, until they shot it,” she recalls.
It was an outdoorsy life of bushwalks and bonfires, but eventually the family decided Australia offered a better future and emigrated when Cate was nine. They moved to Brisbane and rented a house in Indooroopilly, walking distance from the local swimming club.
“When we got to Australia we were amazed at how crowded everything was – people were living on top of each other,” says Campbell. “We were also amazed at how clean it was in the streets, and how well everything worked and operated. We were lucky if we had one traffic light that worked in Blantyre.
“I remember school being a bit daunting because I’d been home-schooled until then. But I never really had any trouble fitting in. I think people talked to me because I had a weird accent, which I don’t any more, thank God.”
To hasten the fitting-in process, the elder children were enrolled in the local swimming club, where Simon Cusack and his 1968 Olympian father, Robert, were coaching. Simon Cusack recalls the Campbell children walking into the pool area in their “African home-made clothes”. He immediately noticed and approved of the children’s self-sufficiency. “Australian children are mollycoddled these days, and the thing that kills the talent is that they are soft,” he says. “It’s not that they can’t handle a 70km-a-week beating, it’s that they can’t handle not being able to attain an instantaneous short-term goal. In bringing them up this way, we have almost sacrificed what they need to be successful.
“Cate went through hip operations (she tore her hip playing handball at age 11) and other setbacks and her parents made very little fuss. It was more, ‘Get over it, we don’t have the time to mollycoddle you.’ Their attitude was just to muck in and get the job done. It’s hard to know if it’s nature or nurture, but the next child, Bronte, is very similar in maturity. Their mother is a no-fuss lady, very focused, and their dad is a bit of a larrikin who doesn’t give them too much sympathy.”
Campbell says she was “very lazy” at the start of her swimming career and it was initially her sister who inspired her to commit to the sport. “Bronte is very driven and she would pull me out of bed to go training,” she says. “I’d slack off and skip laps. Then she reaped the rewards of doing the work and that made me put my head down and work hard.
“I have always wanted to do something special with my life. I think I have always had the dream of being an Olympian.”
Even on appearances, Campbell is special. She is, as she notes, “amazingly tall”; she reached six feet (183cm) before she turned 16 and thinks there is a centimetre or so to go: “I used to be like a stick insect, all arms and legs.” Still slender, she’s proud to have put on a layer of muscle, which is powering her to ever greater heights. She’ll make her Olympic debut in Beijing and is likely to come home with at least one medal. The sport regularly produces teen prodigies but in sprint races, generally regarded as the province of mature competitors, her progress is unprecedented.
While Campbell declares modestly that she is living in world record-holder Libby Trickett’s shadow “and trying to catch her”, the reality is that, at the rate she is improving, Campbell might well be the greatest threat to Trickett’s gold-medal ambitions in the 50m and 100m freestyle. Despite the competition, Trickett has generously provided guidance and inspiration to the teenager. “Her height and her leanness are a great advantage for her; she has very little to pull through the water,” observes the much-shorter Trickett.
But the swimmer knows that Campbell’s presence could spur her own performance: “One of the reasons I’ve achieved what I have is the amount of competition in my own back yard. It doesn’t allow me to take it easy – my place on the team is never certain.”
Campbell finished second to Trickett in both sprint events (50m and 100m) at the Olympic trials in March and will combine with her to lead the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay that is defending the gold medal.
At the US grand prix in June, Campbell moved even closer to Trickett’s standard, setting personal best times of 24.13sec in the 50m and 53.30sec in the 100m. She is now the third-fastest woman in history in both events and she has barely begun. Hence the need for grounding. “Everything needs to be taken in moderation,” Campbell says. “I need to live as normal a life as I can for an elite athlete.”
Cusack is also intent on ensuring she grows up with wings at her heels, but no stars in her eyes. He is protective of her in the public eye, but in private he delivers reality checks. “Cate hasn’t been treated any differently as she’s become more successful, outside the pool or in,” he says. “The biggest mistake is to turn them into princesses, where they think they should be treated differently.”
The coach adds that Campbell has the knack of thriving under pressure: “That’s the hardest thing to find – the ones who can step up under pressure. As a little kid Cate wasn’t a standout, but she had a never-say-die attitude and was quietly determined to improve. We’ve had to change so much due to her hip injury – a lot of her development has been off the cuff, going on what I see on the day and gut instinct rather than the textbook. She does much less volume than other swimmers and she’s very adaptable to any situation.”
Natural equilibrium has served Campbell well: “I like to be put under a bit of pressure. It gets my adrenalin going and my heart pumping.” This is certain to happen at the Olympics when Campbell stands up against the world’s best sprinters, including Trickett, Coughlin, German champion Britta Steffen and 41-year-old American Dara Torres.
“I’m just going for the experience,” she insists. “I don’t have any real pressure on me. I’m not the favourite. I’m 16 and I have a long swimming career ahead of me. If I perform well I’m going to be so pleased and if I don’t, well, I will learn from the experience.”
Cusack’s instinct is to dampen expectations of Campbell lest this creates too much pressure, but he can’t hide his excitement about her prospects: “We haven’t seen the best of Cate yet. I wouldn’t like to be racing her, that’s for sure.”
Three days before her 16th birthday, Cate Campbell was giving an interview at Santa Clara, outside San Francisco, where she had just downed American pool-sprint queen Natalie Coughlin. Former Olympic 200m butterfly champ Mel Stewart, working for a swimming news website, was asking Campbell how she stayed grounded given the rocket-ride she had taken to the top of her sport in less than a year.
“I’m just an average 15-year-old,” the Australian insisted. “I go to school, I clean out the chickens’ cage, I wash dishes…”
The look on her interrogator’s face at the mention of chickens was priceless. His eyes bulged as he spluttered: “Did you just say you clean out the chickens’ cage?”
Campbell was completely unfazed: “It’s a rather disgusting job, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.” And that’s our newest swimming sensation – down to earth, wise beyond her years, doesn’t shirk the hard stuff, and not the least bit average.
Even Bob Bowman, coach of the world’s best swimmer, Michael Phelps, is impressed with Campbell. “She’s amazing,” he says. “She has a beautiful stroke and I have never seen anyone pass Natalie like that in 50m.”
In Australian sporting terms, Campbell could be the best thing to come out of Africa since George Gregan. Born in Malawi, the eldest of five children, Campbell spent her first nine years in Blantyre, a former colonial city named for the Scottish birthplace of explorer Dr David Livingstone. Siblings Bronte (now 14), Jessicah (12), Hamish (10) and Abigail (seven) followed.
Even if the Campbells didn’t have a backyard swimming pool, water was destined to figure largely in their early lives – land-locked Malawi is more than 20 per cent water thanks to the enormous Lake Malawi. Father Eric is a keen sailor and mother Jenny, “who chucked us into the water as soon as possible”, is a former national-level synchronised swimmer.
Campbell spent weekends at Lake Malawi where the children swam and sailed and kept an eye out for angry hippos. “There used to be a rogue hippo that would hang around and attack people and eat the villagers’ crops, until they shot it,” she recalls.
It was an outdoorsy life of bushwalks and bonfires, but eventually the family decided Australia offered a better future and emigrated when Cate was nine. They moved to Brisbane and rented a house in Indooroopilly, walking distance from the local swimming club.
“When we got to Australia we were amazed at how crowded everything was – people were living on top of each other,” says Campbell. “We were also amazed at how clean it was in the streets, and how well everything worked and operated. We were lucky if we had one traffic light that worked in Blantyre.
“I remember school being a bit daunting because I’d been home-schooled until then. But I never really had any trouble fitting in. I think people talked to me because I had a weird accent, which I don’t any more, thank God.”
To hasten the fitting-in process, the elder children were enrolled in the local swimming club, where Simon Cusack and his 1968 Olympian father, Robert, were coaching. Simon Cusack recalls the Campbell children walking into the pool area in their “African home-made clothes”. He immediately noticed and approved of the children’s self-sufficiency. “Australian children are mollycoddled these days, and the thing that kills the talent is that they are soft,” he says. “It’s not that they can’t handle a 70km-a-week beating, it’s that they can’t handle not being able to attain an instantaneous short-term goal. In bringing them up this way, we have almost sacrificed what they need to be successful.
“Cate went through hip operations (she tore her hip playing handball at age 11) and other setbacks and her parents made very little fuss. It was more, ‘Get over it, we don’t have the time to mollycoddle you.’ Their attitude was just to muck in and get the job done. It’s hard to know if it’s nature or nurture, but the next child, Bronte, is very similar in maturity. Their mother is a no-fuss lady, very focused, and their dad is a bit of a larrikin who doesn’t give them too much sympathy.”
Campbell says she was “very lazy” at the start of her swimming career and it was initially her sister who inspired her to commit to the sport. “Bronte is very driven and she would pull me out of bed to go training,” she says. “I’d slack off and skip laps. Then she reaped the rewards of doing the work and that made me put my head down and work hard.
“I have always wanted to do something special with my life. I think I have always had the dream of being an Olympian.”
Even on appearances, Campbell is special. She is, as she notes, “amazingly tall”; she reached six feet (183cm) before she turned 16 and thinks there is a centimetre or so to go: “I used to be like a stick insect, all arms and legs.” Still slender, she’s proud to have put on a layer of muscle, which is powering her to ever greater heights. She’ll make her Olympic debut in Beijing and is likely to come home with at least one medal. The sport regularly produces teen prodigies but in sprint races, generally regarded as the province of mature competitors, her progress is unprecedented.
While Campbell declares modestly that she is living in world record-holder Libby Trickett’s shadow “and trying to catch her”, the reality is that, at the rate she is improving, Campbell might well be the greatest threat to Trickett’s gold-medal ambitions in the 50m and 100m freestyle. Despite the competition, Trickett has generously provided guidance and inspiration to the teenager. “Her height and her leanness are a great advantage for her; she has very little to pull through the water,” observes the much-shorter Trickett.
But the swimmer knows that Campbell’s presence could spur her own performance: “One of the reasons I’ve achieved what I have is the amount of competition in my own back yard. It doesn’t allow me to take it easy – my place on the team is never certain.”
Campbell finished second to Trickett in both sprint events (50m and 100m) at the Olympic trials in March and will combine with her to lead the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay that is defending the gold medal.
At the US grand prix in June, Campbell moved even closer to Trickett’s standard, setting personal best times of 24.13sec in the 50m and 53.30sec in the 100m. She is now the third-fastest woman in history in both events and she has barely begun. Hence the need for grounding. “Everything needs to be taken in moderation,” Campbell says. “I need to live as normal a life as I can for an elite athlete.”
Cusack is also intent on ensuring she grows up with wings at her heels, but no stars in her eyes. He is protective of her in the public eye, but in private he delivers reality checks. “Cate hasn’t been treated any differently as she’s become more successful, outside the pool or in,” he says. “The biggest mistake is to turn them into princesses, where they think they should be treated differently.”
The coach adds that Campbell has the knack of thriving under pressure: “That’s the hardest thing to find – the ones who can step up under pressure. As a little kid Cate wasn’t a standout, but she had a never-say-die attitude and was quietly determined to improve. We’ve had to change so much due to her hip injury – a lot of her development has been off the cuff, going on what I see on the day and gut instinct rather than the textbook. She does much less volume than other swimmers and she’s very adaptable to any situation.”
Natural equilibrium has served Campbell well: “I like to be put under a bit of pressure. It gets my adrenalin going and my heart pumping.” This is certain to happen at the Olympics when Campbell stands up against the world’s best sprinters, including Trickett, Coughlin, German champion Britta Steffen and 41-year-old American Dara Torres.
“I’m just going for the experience,” she insists. “I don’t have any real pressure on me. I’m not the favourite. I’m 16 and I have a long swimming career ahead of me. If I perform well I’m going to be so pleased and if I don’t, well, I will learn from the experience.”
Cusack’s instinct is to dampen expectations of Campbell lest this creates too much pressure, but he can’t hide his excitement about her prospects: “We haven’t seen the best of Cate yet. I wouldn’t like to be racing her, that’s for sure.”
Global AIDS conference begins in Mexico City
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Many developing countries that are combating AIDS are facing dire shortages of qualified doctors and nurses as healthcare workers leave for developed countries where they are paid many times more.
"We need to assist poor countries to train more health staff, provide commensurate salaries to enable them to live better lives and carry out their work," Moses Massaquoi, medical coordinator with Medecins Sans Frontieres in Malawi, told Reuters at a global AIDS conference in Mexico City.
The shortage of medical staff leaves HIV patients untended, to die without drugs that can keep them alive and healthy even if they do not offer a cure. Treating AIDS patients requires dedicated training, and most countries with a huge burden of the disease simply do not have enough of such professionals.
Peter Piot, executive director of the U.N. AIDS agency UNAIDS, echoed Massaquoi's comments at the conference, where international agencies, health officials, scientists, pharmaceutical companies and nongovernmental groups will discuss ways to stop the epidemic over the coming week.
"Three million people (globally) have access to drugs, but six million do not. AIDS is far from over," Piot said.
"There is a need to expand treatment to those who do not yet have treatment."
In Malawi, where 12 percent of the population of 12 million is infected with HIV, a nurse who cares for AIDS patients earns $3 a day.
Massaquoi said it was little wonder why half of those who need treatment, or 141,000 people, have not been able to get drugs.
"These people are uncared for because of the terrain of the country, and there are not enough resources to provide services," he said.
In Lesotho, 54 percent of nursing posts in public clinics and 30 percent in hospitals are vacant, while nearly a quarter of its 1.8 million people are infected with HIV. Malawi has fewer than 100 trained AIDS doctors, while it needs up to 400.
Dr. Pheello Lethola, an HIV and tuberculosis specialist in Lesotho, said international agencies and donors tend not to see healthcare workers as being essential factors in the effort to stop the spread of AIDS.
"You need healthcare workers to administer the drugs. Without healthcare workers, drugs are useless," she said.
Over the past 10 years life expectancy in Lesotho has fallen from over 50 to 35, Lethola said.
"Average life expectancy in Malawi has fallen from 62 to 39 mainly due to AIDS. With fewer staff, it also means that people with other diseases are also not being taken care of," Massaquoi said.
UNAIDS says 33 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, and 2 million die of it each year.
"We need to assist poor countries to train more health staff, provide commensurate salaries to enable them to live better lives and carry out their work," Moses Massaquoi, medical coordinator with Medecins Sans Frontieres in Malawi, told Reuters at a global AIDS conference in Mexico City.
The shortage of medical staff leaves HIV patients untended, to die without drugs that can keep them alive and healthy even if they do not offer a cure. Treating AIDS patients requires dedicated training, and most countries with a huge burden of the disease simply do not have enough of such professionals.
Peter Piot, executive director of the U.N. AIDS agency UNAIDS, echoed Massaquoi's comments at the conference, where international agencies, health officials, scientists, pharmaceutical companies and nongovernmental groups will discuss ways to stop the epidemic over the coming week.
"Three million people (globally) have access to drugs, but six million do not. AIDS is far from over," Piot said.
"There is a need to expand treatment to those who do not yet have treatment."
In Malawi, where 12 percent of the population of 12 million is infected with HIV, a nurse who cares for AIDS patients earns $3 a day.
Massaquoi said it was little wonder why half of those who need treatment, or 141,000 people, have not been able to get drugs.
"These people are uncared for because of the terrain of the country, and there are not enough resources to provide services," he said.
In Lesotho, 54 percent of nursing posts in public clinics and 30 percent in hospitals are vacant, while nearly a quarter of its 1.8 million people are infected with HIV. Malawi has fewer than 100 trained AIDS doctors, while it needs up to 400.
Dr. Pheello Lethola, an HIV and tuberculosis specialist in Lesotho, said international agencies and donors tend not to see healthcare workers as being essential factors in the effort to stop the spread of AIDS.
"You need healthcare workers to administer the drugs. Without healthcare workers, drugs are useless," she said.
Over the past 10 years life expectancy in Lesotho has fallen from over 50 to 35, Lethola said.
"Average life expectancy in Malawi has fallen from 62 to 39 mainly due to AIDS. With fewer staff, it also means that people with other diseases are also not being taken care of," Massaquoi said.
UNAIDS says 33 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, and 2 million die of it each year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
