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The Saker Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
Public InquiryInterested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
Voltaire NetworkVoltaire, international edition
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Where is the 'War on Malaria'? national |
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news report
 Friday April 25, 2003 10:37 by Albo
 Malaria kills 3,000 African children every day and drains billions of pounds from the continent’s economy each year – even though its spread can be easily controlled, a UN agency said today. From IOL Breaking News... ===== Report: Malaria kills 3,000 African children a day Malaria kills 3,000 African children every day and drains billions of pounds from the continent’s economy each year – even though its spread can be easily controlled, a UN agency said today. The parasitic disease kills more than one million people a year in Africa and has developed resistance to chloroquine – the cheapest and most commonly used treatment, said a report by the UN World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children’s Fund. Resistance is also developing to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, the drug routinely used to replace chloroquine, it said. Regardless, the spread of malaria can be controlled and those afflicted with the disease treated for a fraction of the £7.5bn (€10.8bn) malaria is estimated to cost Africa each year, the report said. The most effective treatment for malaria is artemisinin-based combination drugs, it said. Each treatment costs 60p (€0.86) to £1.90 (€2.74). The death of newborn babies can be prevented by giving pregnant women anti-malarial drugs as part of normal prenatal care, the report said. However, government health care spending is low in most African countries - typically less than £9.50 (€13.72) per person a year. Despite the cost of treatment, the spread of malaria can be easily controlled. Malaria is transmitted by mosquitos. Draining puddles and other stagnant water - the breeding ground of the insects – around dwellings can reduce its spread, the report said. Sleeping under nets treated with insecticides can cut transmission by more than half, it said. However, “most of the costs of preventing and treating malaria in Africa today are in fact borne by people themselves,” the report said. And the price of the nets – about £3 each – “still puts this lifesaving technology beyond the reach of” the vast majority of people living on the world’s poorest continent. ==== Makes Saddam's evil regime or the WTC bombing seem pretty tame doesn't it?
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Comments (16 of 16)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16There are other killers too like TB. But because they're in the Third World they don't count.
Too many people in the world anyway.
Totally agree with author "where is the war on Malaria"? You could ask this about any number of things.
But anti-war protestors I think must ask themselves the same question. There has been massive unprecendented world wide protests on the war on Iraq. The plight of the Iraqi people indeed is as devestating as any that is out there. However, it is only one of many, many tragic situations.
Why does the world not protest to the same extent on all the other tragic world issues? Many, if not most which are preventable, and which are being caused by a large extent by our own western governments, banks and companies - most particularly in the U.S. of course.
Why? Why? Why?
The same worldwide mass disgust and pressure must be shown.
I think the work of anti-war protestors has been unbelieveable. But it must equally be applied to all the other preventable trajedies and deaths in this fucked up world of ours.
that is a myth.
It did begin with Malthus, and persisted through the development of eugenics in the Nordic countries, the emergence of genocide as a internal and external policy of Nazi Germany, through the mass marketing of Fertility control pharmaceuticals and on into the AIDS pandemic.
But it is a myth.
I believe it was Brian Lenihan who mused that Ireland could only support at top 8 million people. And the belief that Earth may only support 8 billion has been spread for at least thirty years, but it is a lie.
The planet may not support more than 8 billion people who have a "US" diet, heavy on meat, heavy on emissions, and saturated with chickenshit and drinking coffee every day.
But the planet may support up to 25billion people quite happily if they eat more grain, less meat and fish, and have freedom of movement.
The current population crises is only a crises because the poor of the planet are not allowed cultivate their land for their own needs.
Their Land is used to provide the "West" (a section of the planet with less than a billion people) with its basic food and luxury food goods.
25 billion might be a bit of a pie in the sky figure, it does not take into account the other resources apart from food that a population of that size would consume and the wastes that would have to be dealt with. However, even a moderate re-distribution of "wealth" coupled with a genuine effort on the part of idustrial society to consume in a sustainable fashion would allow for a population in excess of 14 billion; housed, clothed, fed, reasonably educated, with access to healthcare and recourse to law.
This is not some distant unachievable utopia, it is what all the peoples of the earth DEMAND, and to a great extent could be achieved in only a few generations.
does it sound too corny, too sixties?; World peace?
The alternative has been presented to us: the military rule of the industrial transnational corporation, There will be only one and it will fly an american flag.
this course is madness.
While wealthy nations pursue drugs to treat baldness and obesity, depression in dogs, and erectile dysfunction, elsewhere millions are sick or dying from preventable or treatable infectious and parasitic diseases.1 It's called the 10/90 gap. Less than 10% of the worldwide expenditure on health research and development is devoted to the major health problems of 90% of the population.
read the rest at:
http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2002/may/lewis_p22_020513.html
Date: May 12, 1997
Number of clinical cases per year: 300 million to 500 million
Number of deaths per year: 1.5 million to 2.7 million, about 4 percent to 5 percent of all fatalities
Rank among major infectious diseases in mortality rates: 3rd (after pneumococcal acute respiratory infections and tuberculosis)
Occurrence: 90 percent of all cases in sub-Saharan Africa; two-thirds of remaining cases in six countries: India, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Colombia, Solomon Islands (in descending order)
Population affected: 2.4 billion people, about 40 percent of the world's population
Estimated global annual direct and indirect costs (including lost labor) in 1995: $2 billion
Estimated worldwide expenditure on malaria research, prevention, and treatment (1993): $84 million
Estimated worldwide expenditure per malaria fatality (ca. 1990): $65; as compared with HIV/AIDS, $3,274 and asthma, $789
Sources: World Health Organization, Wellcome Trust
I'm not sure if I would support the extermination of all viruses, but malaria and other '3rd world diseases' I think should be attempted to be 'wiped out'.
That MAYBE we are even willing to discuss the matter of population. Of course that DOES depend upon whther we are actually willing to take a hard look at reality instead of wearing ideological blinders. And whether we are willing to face possibly verty unpleasant facts, like the possibility when we crunch the numbers the answer won't be 12 billion or even the 6 billion we have now but say 2 billion adn we're in real trouble.
Some realities are.....
1) Meat eating in the rich part of the world is a minor factor because these represent as small percentage of the total human mouths. And much of what you hear is bullshit from the (otherwise well meaning) animal welfare folks. There are good ethical reasons for vegetarianism but "facts" like 10# of GRAIN for 1# of meat isn't one of them because it simply isn't true. 10# of VEGETABLE MATTER isn't the same as 10# of human edible grain. A 1000# steer does NOT get fed 200 bu of grain during its lifetime, not even in the most "feedlot" intensive method of raising them. You won't believe me so look it up for yourselves in any of the standard "livestock mamagemnt" texts.
2) Existing grain production is not sustainable. We are getting the hgh yields commonly achieved by massive inputs of fertilizers created via petrochemicals, "mining" of fossile reserves of chemical sources, etc. And don't forget WATER. Again much existing production depends upon pumping dry the aquifers whihc will soon be depleted.
3) The reality is that we are faced with an "equation" where some of the terms involve choices we must make. How much of the environment should be left for all the non-human species of the planet? What IS a reasonable "standard of consumption" below which we would consider people to be "deprived" no matter how fairly distributed? What IS the long term sustainable production available from whatever portion of the environment we decide is the fair "human share"?
Please, I am NOT saying that inequitable distribution isn't a problem, just that we mustn't ASSUME (because of ideology) that fixing this means "no problem remaining". Nor that the rich humans shouldn't be eating a heck of a lot less meat, just that we mustn't ASSUME that fixing this makes all our problems go away, or even that NO MEAT is the optimum human food production point -- NOTE: In MY bioregion that would not be the case since while there is plenty of rainfall, less than 5% of the land is suitable for grain production but perhaps 80% could support grazing and cattle/sheep do not REQUIRE much if any grain -- humans feeding grain to cattle is a relatively recent development, just the last few hundred years.
Is there a reason to WANT a human population larger then what we have now? Is it desirable to fill the planet with humasn to the exclusion of all other forms of life we "have no USE for"? If we could support more humans by "terraforming" the entire planet, should we? (say in my bioregion, changing all these hill slopes into terraces which COULD then grow grain).
"Meat eating in the rich part of the world is a minor factor because these represent as small percentage of the total human mouths." I wouldnt agree that meat eating in the west is only a minor factor.. well lets be specific..meat OVEReating. As usual its not the number of consumers, its the obscene amounts that these consumers gorge and waste, ever have a look in one of those locked skips at the back of a McDonalds, chock full of MEAT. Cooked and chucked if un-sold after 10mins. In the US most of that meat is produced by the usual imperialist methods of the TNC in south america.
How much indiginous rainforest is cleared every year, turned over to cattle grazing, subsequently denuded and left sterile and useless...for what ..to grow burgers for obese westerners. The result of this highly wasteful enterprise is ecological disaster. The deforestation exposes the soil, and eventually (we all know the chain of events so i wont bore you) the net result is climatic change.. desertification...displacement etc etc NOT good for the support of indiginous populations. It is exploitation of other peoples natural resources so we can stuff our gut so full of red meat and fat that we suffer from disgraceful levels of obesity and nutrition related diseases. It just isnt a sustainable activity. Its the same as Coffee or tea, cash crops, bad for the local economy, bad for the consumer, Good for the transnational corporations and it keeps the third world workers under the yoke of what can only be a sort of NAFTA-brokered slavery.
In regards to the growth of populations, I think what is the issue is allowing populations to grow to their natural potentials, what is comfortably sustainable by the provision of basic human rights.
Haven't had time to read all your comments yet, but from what I have read, very well said, and thanks for the statistics.
In a way I am very much to read on further at what you have said as this sort of info. just scares the hell out of me.
The world has got to wake up - FAST.
Gallimhead, do you really believe that? You really believe that there is ANYWHERE on this planet where allowing the people of that bioregion "their rights" would lead to being able to support a GREATER population than now exists there?
Please, start simple and analyze your own bioregion first. Decide on whatever YOU consider a reasonable "standard of consumption" for the Irish people. Decide on what percentage of the environment should be returned to the wild (you have very little left). Decide on what the food production would be on the available farmable land -- not forgetting the necessary rotation of legumes to keep the Nitrogen level up, etc. Water you don't need top worry about too much in your climate. Fuel you do (or how do you keep warm in winter, etc.). Go ahead an assume a totally equitable distribution.
OK, how many people does that come to? Is that more or is it less than what you've got there now? Do the same calculation for other bioregions if you like. Are you REALLY finding any places which would be "underpopulated"?
The world population has soared from 2 billion to over 6 billion precisely because we humans learned how to tap the accumulated fuel, water, and fertitlity (mined chemicals) which were built up over many millions of years. That has ALSO allowed some humans to live ridiculously extravagently. But the point is that THIS level of inputs is NOT sustainable. Once we can no longer "mine the past" production will drop to the "steady state" level.
YES -- solving the problem of inequitable distribution is very important because that does play a role in deciding how many humans. So at a given level of consumption "for the masses" maybe it's two billion if divided fairly rather than just one billion if unfairly. YOU think that the answer will be MORE than the existing 6 billion. I don't believe that because I lack your religious faith (eliminating capitalism will solve everything). So I actually try "crunching the numbers". I try imagining varuious ways we might choose to live and seeing how many people that comes out to. PLEASE try it for yourself.
If 95% of malaria occurs in sub-Sahara Africa then I would assume it is an African problem not a world problem. Why can't Africans for once do something about this themselves? Drain those swamps. Get rid of those pools of water around every village. Wipe out the breeding grounds of the mosquitos. Can't these people do this for themselves?
Yes, yes we know all about the money that is being wasted on arms etc. We know the West eats too much. Never the less, can't these Africans do ANYTHING for themselves? If they had the money we have would they be any different from us? Of course not so let's stop blaming the people in the West for all the ills of the world!
Nigeria has so much oil wealth. It has much more dosh than Ireland. Trouble is, it is being ripped off by the corrupt elite who have just managed to get their man re-elected. With all the money that is sloshing around Nigeria all of Africa could be sorted within months. Time to get rid of the greedy bastards, home grown, who are ripping off that sad continent. They don't need help from the West.
Africa. Sort yourself out!
25 billion is a conservative figure based on re-alocation of 3 trillion ($ or € with Kyoto) planetary GDP a year over a fifteen year period.
This of course yawn, yawn requires re-thinking the USA defecit.
It neccesitates freeing all Health and Food patents.
All food and health related intellectual property and changing the nature of fiscal participation in global Health needs.
Waste products are mostly recyclable and their reclycling is vital to the change in attitude to finite fossil fuel resources and therefore finite fossil fuel byproduct resources.
you might say Gaillaimhed (gra for gailleamh) that 25billion human population is a conservative estimate on Earth's potential humanity at the close of the 21st century.
It is certainly one I prefer to the slightly short of 5 billion resulting from the current direction of ecosytem and biosphere destruction guaranteed by the non application of 3 trillion (€ or $ but with Kyoto).
The botom line :
human influence on the planet has increased faster than human population, though carrying capacity is ultimately determined by natural constraints, the role of human choices about lifestyle and consumption in determining how many people the earth can sustain within those constraints.
the real problem with human population growth is not biological, but societal. A fundamental conflict exists between economics and ecology; economists believe growth to be essential, leading to increased consumption, while ecologists say growth is inherently limited.
Id love to see your numbers, ill have a dig around and maybe we can have a citation fight...
Ps.. I am not a religious adherent to 'the elimination of Capitalism', please try not to infer so much from so little.