Category: Medical

Pastoralists in Kajiado County have welcomed the introduction of a livestock insurance scheme program aimed at cushioning them from losses occasioned by the prolonged drought.

The program that is sponsored by the World Bank in conjunction with the State Department of Livestock will enable enrolled pastoralists to pay a subsidized premium.

The World Bank Board of Directors in June 2022, approved $327.5 million to cushion pastoralists in four countries; Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia from the impacts of drought.

A total of 250,000 households in Kenya are expected to benefit from the project representing 1.6 million pastoralists and their dependents.

In Kajiado County, 30,000 households are set to benefit from the livestock insurance scheme project.

Twenty thousand households will have their livestock insured for free courtesy of the World Bank while 10,000 others will pay a highly subsidized premium.

At Mzee Justus Lemaiyan’s homestead in Il Bissil, Kajiado Central, heaps of livestock carcasses litter his compound.

Lemaiyan 69, sits pensively outside his manyatta looking at the carcasses of his 152 herd of cattle that have succumbed to the drought.

He revealed that he has only been left with three cows which might die any time as he cannot afford to buy hay to feed them.

“The drought has been so severe, I had 155 cows and many sheep but I am now left with only 3 which I am struggling to feed. It has not rained here for the last 3 years and the situation is getting severe,” he said.

Lemaiyan said the Livestock Insurance Scheme was timely as it will cushion him against the loss of his livestock.

Joseph Kilowua, a pastoralist from Maili Tisa, reiterated Lemaiyan’s sentiments adding that the livestock insurance program will give hope to thousands of pastoralists who have lost their only source of income to the ravaging drought.

Kilowua revealed that he had lost 86 cows to the drought and was now left with nothing after selling two that survived.

Another herder, James Kishoyian noted that the Livestock Insurance program was long overdue and pastoralists should come on board as it is a long-term solution to the perennial drought.

Governor Joseph Lenku last week announced that pastoralists to benefit from the insurance scheme had been grouped into clusters to ensure no one is left out.

The eight clusters are: Iloldokilani, Kaputiei, Keek-Onyokie, Kuku, Matapato, Merrrueshi, Olgulului, and Olkeriai.

“Identification of households to benefit from the insurance scheme is being conducted by Livestock officers, Chiefs and village administrators to ensure that the people who get the free livestock insurance are the most deserving, including those who lost substantial numbers of livestock,” Lenku had said.

The Governor urged the pastoralists to take up the insurance immediately as it is one of the long-term measures put in place to cushion them against incurring massive losses.

Source: Kenya News Agency

BAMAKO— A World Health Organization doctor abducted in Mali has been freed, local authorities said on Saturday.

“Diawara Mahamadou, a WHO support doctor with the regional health directorate in Menaka, was released on February 2,” said a health official in the town of Menaka in northern Mali. “He is doing well.”

A regional official said the WHO medic had been freed not far from Gao city, further west. “He told us he was not mistreated,” he said.

It was unclear who had taken the doctor hostage, he added.

Since 2012, Mali has been in the grip of a serious security crisis and violence, including kidnappings of foreigners and Malians, is common.

Motives range from ransom demands to acts of reprisal.

Doctor Diawara, who has worked for the WHO in Menaka since early 2020, providing medical care to often isolated communities at risk of insecurity and violence.

In October 2022, the WHO quoted the surgeon as saying: “A patient is a patient… Our job is to go where people are and need health care.”

After several years in Gao, also in eastern Mali, Diawara asked to be assigned to Menaka, near the border with Niger, where more than 25,500 displaced Malians lived as of last October.

They were located across six sites in precarious conditions and with limited access to health care.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

GENEVA — The U.N.’s main AIDS program says thousands of children are dying from HIV/AIDS because, unlike adults, they do not receive treatment for the deadly disease.

HIV/AIDS is no longer an automatic death sentence. People infected with the disease can live a normal lifespan, provided they receive treatment and care. Unfortunately, there is a glaring disparity between the way children and adults with HIV/AIDS are treated.

UNAIDS spokeswoman Charlotte Sector says 76 percent of adults have access to treatment but only half of children living with HIV are receiving lifesaving treatment. She says children account for 15 percent of all AIDS deaths, despite making up only four percent of all people living with the disease.

“Last year alone 160,000 children were infected with HIV,” Sector said. “So, what is happening is that 12 countries are coming together in Africa because six countries in sub-Saharan Africa represent 50 percent of those new infections.”

She says a global alliance led by UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF has formed to close the huge gap. She says 12 African countries have joined the alliance. Sector says health ministers from eight countries will launch the initiative next week in Tanzania.

“So, not only is it getting children on treatment, but it is mostly trying to stop vertical transmission,” Sector said. “Now what is vertical transmission? It is the mother passing on HIV during pregnancy, during delivery or during breast feeding because most of those transmissions are taking place during breastfeeding.”

Spector says efforts to contain the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa mainly have been centered on getting adults on treatment, as the main transmitters of the virus. In the process, however, she says the needs of children have been overlooked.

“So, what happens is suddenly there is a realization that we have forgotten all these children, and there is a forgotten generation of children,” Sector said. “So now, there has been a scramble to kind of close that faucet, if I may say, of getting to the children before they are even born or after they are born.”

The global alliance will run for the next eight years until 2030. During that period, it aims to close the treatment gap for pregnant and breastfeeding adolescent girls and women living with HIV, prevent and detect new HIV infections, provide access to testing and treatment, and end the social barriers that hinder access to services.

Source: Voice of America