Lack of water threats lives in Rwampara

  Lack of water threats lives in Rwampara

By Hope Mafaranga

 People in Rwampara,  Mbarara district are sleeping on empty stomach due to lack of water. The most affected areas are Kashuro, Kyankyere and Kiyonga.

 Alfred Bikitwoho are resident of Kashuro says that the three villages share one spring and queue is too long to bear.

“When someone goes to fetch water at 3pm, he/ she will return after midnight when all children and the rest of the family members are a sleep,” he said.

He said the spring which was constructed  in 1984 to serve a small population can no longer do serve them because the household has grown from 200 in 1984 to over 800 now.

 He said that the challenge of water is time wasting and people have resorted to taking and using unsafe and clean water.

In a desperate move, James Nuwagaba has dug a 40fit pit to tap water that flows during rain seasons.  Nuwagaba who termed the water scarcity as a “curse” said that the area has been neglected by government and other stakeholders and as result people even spends a week without bathing.

“I am too desperate to save my family and animals from this curse of water scarcity.   Most of us here take weeks without bathing. ,” Nuwagaba said.

Before Nuwagaba concluded his statement, the Kashuru LC 1 chairman Geoffrey Begumanya interjected saying that: “You cannot fail to get water for cooking and drinking and you get water for bathing!

Begumanya appealed to government to put an engine and a reserver to pump water from the valley to the uphill to an end of suffering of the people there.

“We are gathering money as local people but we can’t raise 800m needed to put a gravity scheme, we urgently need government’s intervention before we die,” he said.

Begumanya also said that the water scarcity has also affected  the standard  of education and children’s performance, urging that they send children to fetch water and take a day to come back.

“Our children no longer go to school because they have to assist families to search for water,” he said.

Begumanya was on Wednesday speaking during a community dialogue that was organized by HEPS Uganda at Kashuro primary school, Ndeija Sub-county, in Mbarara district.

 The Executive Director of HEPS Uganda, Rosette Mutambi said that the issue is not only a water issue but also a health one.

She said that people of that area suffer from water borne disease and appealed government to address it..

“ The issue of health is threat to people’s lives because they suffer from water borne diseases which they should not have if at all they had safe and clean water. As a result, government spends much on drugs more than preventing the diseases,” she said.

The Mbarara Assistant Water Engineering Officer, Engineer Joseph Mucunguzi said  that people travel for more than 5 miles in search of water , adding that the only alternative is to pump water from the only one water point  which is located  in deep valley so that the people  in the mountains can get access to water.

He however explained that to pump the it, the district needs about sh 800m to construct a reserver which is too expensive to for the district.

“We acknowledge that people here are suffering but we a the district we cannot afford the gravity water scheme for them because we have to hire a consultant, surveyor  to see is possible to have water pumped. But gravity water scheme is  too expensive and the government of Uganda cannot afford it unless we get donors,” he said.

However the MP Rwampara Vincent Kyamadidi said sad that they have failed to managed to manage the problem because the place is too hilly.

“Water pumping is not realistic in this area because of its terrain. I am encouraging people to construct tanks and develop a culture of harvesting water rain. Otherwise we will continue sleeping hungry and suffering waiting for the government to pump water uphill,” Kyamadidi said.

 End.

Global Fund Targets $15 Billion to Effectively Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced a goal of raising US$15 billion so that it can effectively support countries in fighting these three infectious diseases in the 2014-2016 period.

 The Global Fund is determined to accelerate the gains achieved in recent years against AIDS, TB and malaria through strategic investment in programs that can save millions of lives and tens of billions of dollars in future costs. While acknowledging the challenging fiscal environment in many countries, the Global Fund and its partners point to the remarkable value for money that investing in health provides.

“We have a choice: we can invest now or pay forever,” said Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund. “Innovations in science and implementation have given us a historic opportunity to completely control these diseases. If we do not, the long-term costs will be staggering.”

President Joyce Banda of Malawi, a leader in efforts to prevent and treat infectious diseases in Africa, said that raising money for the Global Fund was essential to defeat AIDS, TB and malaria.

“The progress we have made with the support of Global Fund and has shown us what we can do when we come together,” said President Banda. “Defeating these diseases is a shared responsibility. African countries are doing their utmost to provide human and financial resources for the health of their people. But we need strong support of the Global Fund to succeed.”

The Global Fund is convening a donor’s conference in Brussels on 9 and 10 April to present an overall needs assessment for the 2014-2016 period and an update on results and impact from recent years, which have helped achieve dramatic success in fighting AIDS, TB and malaria. Donors will be invited to a once-every-three-years pledging conference, known as the Global Fund’s Fourth Replenishment, in late 2013.

Working together with technical partners at WHO, UNAIDS, Roll Back Malaria and the Stop TB Partnership, the Global Fund formulated a needs assessment that demonstrates that raising US$15 billion would lead to a transformative effect in the incidence and death rates of HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria.

When combined with other funding, including an estimated US$37 billion from domestic sources in implementing countries and US$24 billion from other international sources, a US$15 billion contribution to the Global Fund would allow the collective work to address 87 percent of the global resource needs to fight these three diseases, estimated at a total of US$87 billion.  

Reaching the Global Fund’s goal, together with other funding, would mean that 17 million patients with tuberculosis and with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis could receive treatment, saving almost 6 million lives over this three-year period. This level of funding would prevent millions of new cases of malaria, and would save approximately 196,000 additional lives each year than with current funding levels by preventing a resurgence and renewed epidemic of malaria.

It would also mean preventing more than one million new infections of HIV each year – saving billions of dollars in care and treatment for the long-term. Antiretroviral therapy could become available to more than 18 million people in affected countries by 2016, up from 8 million in 2012.

Overall, effective funding means that collective efforts can turn what scientists call high-transmission epidemics into low-level endemics, essentially making them manageable health problems instead of global emergencies.

The new funding model recently launched by the Global Fund can achieve greater impact by encouraging ambitious programs and by focusing interventions and financing for specific populations. By reaching highly vulnerable, marginalized and stigmatized groups, including young women, sex workers, people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men and prisoners, more programs will maximize impact while advancing human rights.

The new funding model also strives to align investments in HIV, TB and malaria with national health strategies while strengthening health systems and serving as a platform for promoting the health of a person rather than only combatting specific diseases.

“We can defeat these diseases by working with partners,” said Dr Dybul. “Collectively, we know what has to be done, and we know how to do it. But we have to work together to succeed.”

 Ends.

This is crazy:Step-mum forces stick into girl's private parts

KAMULI - A six-year-old girl in Kamuli district was admitted in Kamuli Mission Hospital after her step-mother forced a stick into her vagina and it got stuck in the lower abdomen.

Shadia Kuboota met her ordeal recently, when her step-mother, Madina Nanangwe, 22, flogged her, spread her legs apart then forced a stick into her private parts.

Kuboota, is undergoing treatment in the Intensive Care Unit, where sympathisers are flocking in to check on her.

Milton Waiswa, the spokesperson in the CID office said Nanangwe, committed the offense in Bulowoza village in Iganga district.

Nanange first took the child to her parent’s home in Nawangaiza, Kamuli district. She claimed the child had been defiled by an unknown person.

Her unsuspecting parents advised her to report the matter to the Police, where she was cleared for medical examination.
http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/640698-step-mum-forces-stick-into-girl-s-private-parts.html
 

Press Release:Mulago Hospital installs multibillion Heart operation unit as President calls for direct procurement of specialized equipment

President Yoweri Museveni has said government will support Mulago hospital to directly procure urgently needed equipment to operationalise the newly installed multibillion Heart Operation theatre unit worth over Shs 10bn (US$ 4.5Million).

The President was today meeting officials from Mulago hospital led by the Minister of State For Primary Health Hon. Sarah Opendi, the Director general of Health Services Dr. J.R Achieng, the Executive Director of Mulago Hospital Dr. Byarugaba Baterana, the Executive Director Mulago Heart Institute Dr. John Omagino, the Head of Cardiac Surgery Dr. Peter Lwabi and a team from the Agha Khan Foundation led by Dr. Raj Jutley.

The unit that is fully equipped with a cardiac catherization unit has been installed with the personal support of President Museveni. If fully operational, it has the capacity to facilitate 1000 operation procedures per year which if referred abroad would cost the country in the excess of US$20million be year.

‘They should speed up the process of having the unit fully functioning. This will save a lot of lives and money. If you could also stop heart, brain and kidney treatments from abroad, we can save a lot of money,” he said.

The President also said he would look into the issue of the structure of the Ministry of Public Service to ensure that it accommodates special human resource requirements of specialized staff to work in the unit and also consider their terms to retain them.

The Director of the Heart Institute Dr. John Omagino hailed President Museveni for his support in installing the unit describing it as a gold mine for the country that will go a long way in improving the health of Ugandans and saving millings of dollars wasted on travel abroad for treatment.

“The country has been losing US$20 million per year, but if this unit is here, it will only cost US$4million saving the country US$16milling in costs. We have requested the President to support us to do direct procurement for the specialized equipment to operationalise the unit because if subjected to PPDA rules, it will cause delays through unnecessary competitions,” he said.

The health officials were also concerned that despite training the specialized staff to work in the unit, they have lost many of them to greener pastures abroad because the Civil service structure does not accommodate such specialized staff because their terms are general and do not attract or retain staff.

Dr. Omagina said they proposed that funding for the facility can be agreed upon to allow for the improvement of the remuneration of specialist workers.

“Each patient has been spending about US$20,000 on transport, hotel bills and meals. We estimate the cost of medical to be about US$8000-US$10,000. If we can agree per patient tariff of only the medical figure here then we can factor in the remuneration for staff,” he said.

The hospital is also exploring collaboration with the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi and the Aga Khan Foundation.

High Forest Depletion Irks Environment Minister

High Forest Depletion Irks Environment Minister

By Hope Mafaranga

In Fort Portal

The Minister of State for environment, Flavia Nabugere has decried the high levels of forest depletion in Kyejonjo and Kyegegwa districts.

The two districts are surrounded by central forest reserves and wetlands which have all been encroached on by members of the community. The forest reserves include Itwara, Matiri, Muzizi, Kibengo and Ibambara and the Kyerenga wetland.

Touring Matiri Central Reserve, Nabugere tasked Luke Onzima, the Kyenjojo district forest officer to explain what his office is doing to curb the destruction of the forests.

He said that forest office should work closely with the police to enforce environmental laws

However Onzima told the Minister that they are failing to protect the forests from depletion, because of lack of funds for the natural resources department. He says that department is allocated inadequate funds which are meant to monitor enforcement of the environmental laws.

 Nabugere was in Kyenjojo district to launch the Kyerenga wetland Management Plans aimed at conserving the wetland which is shared by Kyenjojo and Kyegegwa districts.

The management plans were supported by two NGOs, Joint Effort to Save the Environment (JESE) and CARE Uganda. They are aimed at protecting the wetland which has been encroached on by communities and is nearly facing extinction.

Nabugere urged the local leaders, technical persons and the local communities to ensure the plans are implemented and not just on paper. She thanked JESE and CARE U for designing the plans efforts they have set up to conserve the environment.

 End

Heath workers team up to fight TB

Every second someone in the world gets infected with the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. One third of the world’s population, around 2 billion people, already has this TB bacterium in their body.

It is for this reason that health workers in western Uganda goes knocking on doors of congested slums once a week to convince suspected tuberculosis (TB) patients to visit referral hospitals and submit a sample of their sputum.

The health workers have been doing this for the past three years in a bid to fight and prevent TB in the most congested slum areas of Kisenyi in Kabarole district, Biafra in Mbarara district and Nyendo Senyange in Masaka district. They set up tents as sputum collection centers to serve and counsel people from there.

They work with local leaders in the slums to mobilize and sensitize community members the dangers of TB and urge them to diagnose for the disease. They also use local radio stations to call people to come have them tested.

“We as health workers identified this cause and recognizes the effect of TB in congested slums and we want to save the people from getting this disease,” Dr Ronald Muhame, the in charge of Kibito health IV in Kabarole district said.

He said the group gets assistance from districts and local leaders. The samples are sent to the National TB and Leprosy Program (NTLP) whose overall functions are to establish country wide quality diagnosis and treatment services for TB and Leprosy and to coordinate the implementation of TB and Leprosy control activities. It also have specialized laboratories to test for TB.

TB remains a major public health problem in Uganda. According to the 2009 WHO Global TB Report, Uganda is ranked 16th among the 22 high burden countries. In addition, the country has an emerging multi drug resistant TB (MDRTB) problem.

Dr John Muhumuza who coordinates the group says that they also offer HIV/AIDS testing and counseling services to slum dwellers, saying that TB is common among people living with HIV and is the leading cause of death among HIV positive patients.

Dr Muhumuza expressed fear that despite their intervention, the level of infection has not gone down which he attributed to lack of treatment adherence of TB patients.

“Most people do not want to test while others refuse to adhere to the treatment which results into extremely drug-resistant (XXDR) TB,” he told Key Correspondent.

Dr Rhoda Tuhaise a TB expert said that four of the 12 patients detected with totally TDR, TB recently were from Biafra slum in Mbarara district.

She said that poor ventilation, lack of sunlight, dampness in the environment that favours the growth of TB bacteria in slum areas.

Stigma and challenge TB patients face

Those people who do develop tuberculosis face an exhausting disease. Treatment takes months and in many countries like Uganda people with TB face a huge social stigma. The disease often leads to loss of income and isolation.

Among them is Ronald Tukamubona, 35 who started TB treatment last month, used to visit private clinics but his problem was not solved.

A taxi driver Mbarara, Tukamubona lost his job because of absenteeism. He was off and on at his work place and he was weak most of the time until job that was demanding.

He has no idea that what he was suffering from was TB until he met a group of medical personal volunteers who were testing slum dwellers and grabbed the opportunity to test for the disease

“I lost my job after contracting TB and I was unable to perform my duties, I would cough all and day and night, not until I took sputum test and tested positive for TB. If I had known earlier I would have lost my job”, he said.

"The kind of discrimination I faced from my neighbours made me regret sharing my condition with them; I could not even share the communal toilet with them,”Kabakumba Annette a business woman in Fort Portal said.

Eight months into her marriage, Jolly Nampija was diagnosed with tuberculosis in January. She was hospitalized for a week at Masaka hospital but when she was discharged, her husband asked her to stay at her parents’ place in Kyotera in Rakai district saying he and his family had to travel to Kampala for a wedding and there was no one to take care of her.

For two weeks, her husband did not call to check on her. When her mother took her to her husband’s home, her mother-in-law said they didn’t want her in the house because she had TB.

“My husband wasn’t even ready to face me. My mattress, bed sheets and other belongings had been burned,” Nampija said.

Six months on Nampija has completed her course of TB treatment and was given the ‘all-clear’ by her doctor. “I don’t know if my husband and his family will ever take me back,” she said.

End

Key international forum on plant viral diseases kicks off in Arusha, Tanzania

The 12th International Plant Virus Epidemiology (IPVE) symposium with the theme “Evolution, Ecology and Control of Plant Viruses,” started yesterday, bringing together over 200 scientists and leading experts on plant viruses from 40 countries all around the world.

 Dr Lava Kumar, a virologist with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and chair of the 12th IPVE Symposium said in the next five days the delegates will share experiences and the latest knowledge and technologies to control plant viruses and mull over a global strategy to combat emerging and reemerging plant virus diseases.

They will especially focus on Africa. “The event is very special as it is taking place in Africa for the first time and will therefore devote a lot of time to explore the key challenges facing the continent in tackling the key viral diseases to increase agricultural productivity, food availability, and economic development,” said Kumar.

Dr Elly Kafiriti, the Director of the Naliendele Research Institute, while officially opening the event, noted the negative impact of plant viruses on food security in the continent where they were fueled by poor agronomic practices of resource-poor small-holder farmers.

 Dr Kafiriti, representing Dr Fidelis Myaka, the Director for Research and Development at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives (MAFC), said the Tanzanian government is supportive of all efforts aimed at finding solutions to control plant viruses in the country to improve food security and especially research which provides knowledge and information to policymakers for informed decision making.

He pointed out the examples of the Cassava Brown Streak Disease and Cassava Mosaic Disease which were spreading to new areas in Eastern Africa, ravaging the crop and affecting food security. 

Dr Nteranya Sanginga, Director General, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) of the CGIAR, also speaking at the forum, noted that Africa was changing for the better and so was its leadership. Its future is thus looking bright. However, he said there were a number of challenges that need to be addressed including viral diseases of staple crops such as cassava, banana, and maize using advances in science.

 He said cassava is going to be the crop of the future for Africa, noting that it is not just a food security crop but that it holds immense potential as an income earner as it is a source of industrial raw materials such as glucose and starch. “Cassava production is picking up in Nigeria, Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania.  

Countries are changing from overreliance on maize. The future of this crop in the continent is bright. However, it faces many challenges including the two viral diseases that are a headache to our farmers and policymakers,” he said. “We need science to solve these problems.”Sanginga also emphasized the need to invest in building the capacity of young researchers for the future and said the symposium provided a great opportunity for young scientists and students to learn and interact with experienced researchers from all over the world. 

Other speakers included Dr Joseph Nduguru from the Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute (MARI), also one of the conference organizers. He said that researchers of plant diseases still had a lot of challenges ahead of them as diseases were spreading.

 “We have more to do for the farmers I met at Mukono, Uganda, who lost their entire cassava crop due to CBSD and CMD. There is more to do for farmers of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda who are threatened by Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease,” he added.

Plant viruses are among the major factors that affect productivity and cause vast economic losses to staple crops in Africa and other developing regions across the tropics.

Furthermore, new viruses, new strains of existing viruses, along with changing contexts due to agricultural intensification and climate change are creating new challenges and demanding even greater effort to find novel, effective ways to tackle virus disease problems.

 The meeting is co-organized by IITA, MARI Tanzania, the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) of Uganda, AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center in Arusha, and CORAF under the auspices of the International Committee on Plant Virus Epidemiology (ICPVE). The IPVE is a specialist committee on plant virus epidemiology of the International Society of Plant Pathology (ISPP). The IPVE Committee has previously conducted 11 international symposia in different parts of the world.

Ends