Lilongwe, Malawi (PRWEB) August 4, 2008 -- Malawi is reaching fever pitch as it prepares for the biggest musical festival ever to hit Africa's warm heart - the Music Crossroads InterRegional Festival (IRF). This one-of-a-kind annual event combines music, people and humanitarian efforts to bring together the best young talents from Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi for southern Africa's greatest music competition.
Lilongwe is covered from head to toe in bright festival posters heralding the coming IRF which will kick-off on the 7th and 8th of August with the Malawian National Finals, building up to the pinnacle event - the Music Crossroads InterRegional Grand Final - on the 9th and then cooling of with a community festival at Salima (near Lake Malawi) on the 10th.
This is a big year for Malawi, as not only are they to host the IRF but as they have been the reigning Music Crossroads champions for two years running, having won in Maputo (2006) with Konga Vibes and Harare (2007) with Body Mind and Soul. Hopes are high and they will definitely be looking to take the title for a third year in a row. Music Crossroads Malawi national coordinator Mathews Mfune assures that they have got the goods to take it all the way. The Malawians will certainly not have it easy though, as for the past year up and coming artists from Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe have been furiously training and competing with only two groups being selected from each country to represent their nation at the prestigious IRF Grand Final.
What these artists are competing for is, as they say, worth more than gold. It is a once in a lifetime chance to launch their international musical careers, the lucky break they have all been working for. The winner of the IRF Grand Final will receive a Music Crossroads European Tour of over 10 different countries, professional training and an album recording, setting them firmly on the road to fame. Body Mind & Soul last year's laureates have recently returned home from their whirlwind tour and are set to make a special appearance at the festival before beginning preparations for their 2009 US Tour.
Renowned bassist and world musician Manou Gallo (Ivory Coast/ Belgium) will also be in Malawi to give tomorrow's stars the insights they will need to face the challenges and trials of making it professionally in the international music industry. Other international guests include Maslow (Ireland) and Oh Hollie Neverdays (Sweden), both selected through similar programs, they will both perform throughout the festival.
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Global fight against AIDS gets tough
BEIJING, Aug. 5 -- About 33 million people across the world are infected with HIV that causes AIDS, and 2 million die of it each year.
Many developing countries combating AIDS are facing dire shortages of qualified doctors and nurses because they leave for developed countries where they get paid many times more.
Hitting the AIDS virus with drugs before it breaches a widely recommended threshold of damage to the immune system can have major benefits for patients.
The AIDS epidemic in the US is far worse than previously thought, the government has said, releasing new findings that show about 56,300 people are infected with HIV every year - a startling 40 percent jump from the earlier estimate of 40,000.
These findings and suggestions were issued before and at the global AIDS conference that began in Mexico City on Sunday. About 20,000 scientists, policymakers and grassroots workers will deliberate ways to check the spread of the disease.
"We need to help 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, said in Mexico City.
The dearth 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 UN AIDS agency UNAIDS, corroborated Massaquoi at the conference, where international agencies, health officials, scientists, pharmaceutical companies and NGOs will over the week discuss ways to stop the epidemic.
"Three million people (globally) have access to drugs, but 6 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."
The guidelines on early treatment of AIDS were published at the start of the six-day conference.
At present, under recommendations honed after antiretroviral drugs were introduced 12 years ago, doctors are generally advised to put a patient on the famous triple "cocktail" after HIV has made significant inroads into the immune system.
The threshold varies, but the typical recommendation now is to start drugs when there are fewer than 200 to 250 CD4 cells - key immune cells that are ravaged by the virus - per ml of blood because it will minimize the drugs' toxic side effects and gain time.
Officials in the U.S. said the new AIDS figures represent improved assessments and are not evidence that infection rates are going up.
But the news had AIDS advocacy groups in Chicago calling for additional funding to combat the outbreak among gay men and African-Americans, among whom cases of infection are increasing the fastest, as a study shows. Advocates called for a national strategy to combat the epidemic, too.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the findings before the start of the international AIDS convention, and said they represent a more accurate picture of an epidemic that "is worse than previously known" and show how significant the threat of HIV/AIDS remains.
Many developing countries combating AIDS are facing dire shortages of qualified doctors and nurses because they leave for developed countries where they get paid many times more.
Hitting the AIDS virus with drugs before it breaches a widely recommended threshold of damage to the immune system can have major benefits for patients.
The AIDS epidemic in the US is far worse than previously thought, the government has said, releasing new findings that show about 56,300 people are infected with HIV every year - a startling 40 percent jump from the earlier estimate of 40,000.
These findings and suggestions were issued before and at the global AIDS conference that began in Mexico City on Sunday. About 20,000 scientists, policymakers and grassroots workers will deliberate ways to check the spread of the disease.
"We need to help 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, said in Mexico City.
The dearth 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 UN AIDS agency UNAIDS, corroborated Massaquoi at the conference, where international agencies, health officials, scientists, pharmaceutical companies and NGOs will over the week discuss ways to stop the epidemic.
"Three million people (globally) have access to drugs, but 6 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."
The guidelines on early treatment of AIDS were published at the start of the six-day conference.
At present, under recommendations honed after antiretroviral drugs were introduced 12 years ago, doctors are generally advised to put a patient on the famous triple "cocktail" after HIV has made significant inroads into the immune system.
The threshold varies, but the typical recommendation now is to start drugs when there are fewer than 200 to 250 CD4 cells - key immune cells that are ravaged by the virus - per ml of blood because it will minimize the drugs' toxic side effects and gain time.
Officials in the U.S. said the new AIDS figures represent improved assessments and are not evidence that infection rates are going up.
But the news had AIDS advocacy groups in Chicago calling for additional funding to combat the outbreak among gay men and African-Americans, among whom cases of infection are increasing the fastest, as a study shows. Advocates called for a national strategy to combat the epidemic, too.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the findings before the start of the international AIDS convention, and said they represent a more accurate picture of an epidemic that "is worse than previously known" and show how significant the threat of HIV/AIDS remains.
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