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INSIDE AFRICA
African Health Issues
Aired September 1, 2007 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FEMI OKE, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Hello. I'm Femi Oke. This is INSIDE AFRICA, your weekly look at life and issues on the continent. On the show today, we'll examine major health issues in three countries, South Africa, Kenya and Somalia.
We'll talk to the executive director of Medecins sans Frontieres USA about the sharply declining access to medical care in and around war-torn Mogadishu. And we'll check out the simple solution Kenya has found for a big health problem, malaria.
First we begin in South Africa, where the health minister finds himself under fire as AIDS activists demand the reinstatement of a former deputy. As Robin Kerner reports, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang may not be as popular as her dismissed deputy, but she has the president's backing.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Funerals are a way of life for many here. Up to 1,000 South Africans die each day from HIV/AIDS. So, bearing the dead is a sadly familiar experience, and so to are constant cries for the government to do more for those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
AIDS activists are angry that the popular deputy health minister, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was fired by President Thabo Mbeki last month. She was widely credited with revitalizing the country's HIV/AIDS campaign.
Mbeki fired her saying she failed to work as part of a team and that she had taken an unauthorized business trip to Spain. This as he continues to back the controversial health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, fueling a popular perception that the president and his government are failing those who are ill.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we unfortunately do not have is a sense of urgency and major concern emerging from the leadership, especially the political leadership.
CURNOW: Academic Goler Lamontu (ph) believes the president's support for the health minister is misplaced.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really more about political solidarities and political loyalty than actually responding to the concerns of the people of this country.
CURNOW: The president's own views, which have questioned the link between HIV and AIDS have been condemned by many in the medical community. His skepticism is reportedly shared by the health minister. She has openly criticized the use of life-saving antiretroviral drugs and her championing the use of vegetables to treat HIV earned her the nickname Dr. Beetroot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She is a joke. And an embarrassment to South Africa. And what happened, for example, in Canada at the HIV/AIDS conference when she was talking about beetroot and lemon and garlic as the treatment for HIV/AIDS. And South Africa was the laughingstock of the world.
CURNOW: Despite the constant controversy surrounding her, the health minister's spokesperson says Tshabalala-Msimang is fit for the job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have made progress on various fronts, both in the area of HIV, TB, malaria and various other areas and I think the programs are going well and most probably because of her leadership.
CURNOW: A leadership that continues to measured by the number of those dying. Robyn Curnow, CNN, Johannesburg, South Africa.
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OKE: The dismissed deputy health minister, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, was widely praised by South Africa's AIDS community. A short time ago I spoke with Mark Haywood from the South African HIV and AIDS heath group, the Treatment Action Campaign. I asked him why she was so popular.
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MARK HAYWOOD, TREATMENT ACTION CAMPAIGN: The deputy health minister is a person of great integrity and I think the difference between her and many other politicians in South Africa and around the world is that she speaks the truth and when she sees something that she considers to be a crisis, she calls it a crisis. So, for example, when she visited a hospital in one of the provinces of South Africa, just before she was dismissed, after there had been an expose about very large numbers of babies dying in that hospital, she called it a national crisis and you're not meant to call things a national crisis if you're a Cabinet minister because I guess it reflects back on you and back on the government and the government's failures to address the issues. So she has been a little bit of a running saw to government but we think that this is not an issue that government should have been afraid of, because this is a new government that is meant to be committed to truth and to dealing with the legacies and the ravages of poverty and inequality that came out of apartheid.
She has also, of course, been very, very frank on the issue of HIV. She's publicly taken an HIV test, which is something President Mbeki has always refused to do. She's publicly rallied to the call to provide people with AIDS with access to antiretroviral treatment, which of course for many years President Mbeki resisted on the grounds that the drugs were poisonous.
So there has been a very, very marked contrast in the political styles of the deputy health minister and the other members of the Cabinet so that perhaps did give way to her dismissal but I still think that to call it just a media frenzy or a media invention is mistaken.
OKE: To come from the government's point of view, President Mbeki has written about this whole situation quite recently in a quite defensive way. And he claims that the media are treating the deputy health minister as some kind of superheroine, that she's not entirely responsible for South Africa's HIV/AIDS policy. How do you respond to that?
HAYWOOD: Well, again, President Mbeki is misadvised. I work very closely with the government. In fact, I'm the elected deputy chairperson of South Africa's National AIDS Council and have been involved in writing the national AIDS plan over the last six months and I can tell you that the deputy health minister did play a significant part, as I said, she created the environment where scientists collaborated with doctors who collaborated with government, who put together a AIDS program that is probably one of the most ambitious in the world.
So she is certainly somebody who has been exemplary in her conduct and who has played a very significant part in bringing South Africa to a new point in the way it deals with the AIDS epidemic and that is why I guess there is such a controversy and such a furore over her dismissal.
OKE: As a member of the Treatment Action Campaign, the TAC is actually calling for the reinstatement of the deputy health minister. If that doesn't happen, what are we looking at for the future of South Africa's HIV/AIDS policy. Has this made a permanent mark?
HAYWOOD: Well, I think it's been a watershed and a turning point in South Africa's political history and in its AIDS policy. I personally doubt that President Mbeki will reinstate the deputy health minister for political reasons. That being the case, South Africa has to pick up the pieces because we can't afford to allow this to become a permanent setback.
The AIDS epidemic in South Africa kills a thousand people per day. A thousand people are newly infected with HIV per day. The social impact on our communities, on families, is a very grave social impact so we can't allow it to throw us back permanently but I guess people are going to find it a lot more difficult without the kind of political governmental leadership that she offered which inspired a lot of people.
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OKE: And that was Mark Haywood of the Treatment Action Campaign.
The United States is warming to a new approach in the global fight against HIV and AIDS. Top U.S. health officials say the Bush administration's anti-AIDS program will begin providing funds to make circumcision available to African men. Recent studies conducted in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda have show that circumcised men are 60 percent less likely to contract HIV then uncircumcised men. Top U.S. officials called the research, and I quote, highly convincing and in fact, I remember doing a story about Uganda trials, there were some men who were circumcised, some men who weren't circumcised and the trial was abandoned halfway through because the men who weren't circumcised, it was deemed unethical not to give them the circumcision because it was so helpful to prevent HIV and AIDS.
Meanwhile, CNN has created a way for viewers to reach out to people around the world who need help. If you want to get involved, just visit cnn.com/impact and there you'll find CNN stories and links to charitable organizations dealing with refugees and homelessness, poverty, health, children, animals and natural disasters. I think we covered all of the stuff that you could possibly want to do.
Now, you can also find out how to donate your own time, supplies or money. Again, you just need to go to cnn.com/impact.
Now, Somalia is in the midst of a serious healthcare crisis. After the break, we'll hear from the executive director of Medecins sans Frontieres in the United States about the impact of continued violence on access to medical care in and around the capital.
Also, coming up later in the program, Kenya takes a bite out of malaria. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A huge condom recall is underway in South Africa where free condom distribution is a key part of the effort to fight HIV and AIDS. The Health Department says a batch of condoms manufactured by Latex Surgical Products failed several quality tests. Two company directors and an official with the Bureau of Standards face corruption and fraud charges. The recall affects 20 million condoms.
The South African government has approved Hewlett-Packard's alternative approach to black empowerment. The computer giant plans to set up a training institute for black employees instead of selling 30 percent of its South Africa operation to black investors. HP is the first multinational firm to win approval for an alternative empowerment proposal.
And Ugandan officials say thieves are putting a drain on coffee export profits. The Uganda Coffee Development Authority says some 400 tons of coffee worth $1.2 million have been stolen from containers bound for the United States and Europe since May.
OKE: Good to see you again. Now the aid group, Medecins sans Frontieres has issued an urgent call to the warring parties in and around Mogadishu. They're asking to allow civilians unhindered access to medical treatment. The organization, also known as Doctors without Borders says almost daily bombings and shootings have caused a steep decline in already limited access to medical care this year.
A new MSF report estimates that about 250 hospital beds are still in service and 800 that had been available at the beginning of January. It also says six hospitals surveyed have lost most of their doctors, down from 53 to about a dozen.
And malnutrition rates are soaring among thousands of displaced people who have fled the violence. Nicholas Detorrente, executive director of Medecins sans Frontieres in the United States joined us a short time ago to put the report into perspective.
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NICHOLAS DETORRENTE, MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA: You imagine a child with pneumonia or woman with an obstructed delivery or someone that has a shrapnel wound. They really have a very hard time leaving their home and then trying to get medical assistance because of this generalized insecurity and then they have very, very few facilities that they can turn to to seek for medical attention. And that's really the combination of these two things that's really, really worrying us today.
OKE: One of the problems that your team has noted is the lack of respect for medical staff. Where does that come from?
DETORRENTE: Well, there's really generalized insecurity, is the main, the fundamental thing. Armed men can come to anybody's home at any time. Our staff is caught up in that. Medical staff. All medical staff is caught up in that as much as the civilian population. And medical facilities have not been killed in the fighting. There has been damages to hospitals and medical facilities and that's really what the problem is here. That there is really no respect for the movement of medical organizations to assess needs to set up operations. We were very frustrated about the level of our own services that we're able to provide in the city. We should be able to have much more emergency services, surgical services.
Right now we are barely able to have three clinics functioning in the city on an outpatient basis in very difficult conditions. So there's really a very big frustration about not being able to do more.
OKE: One of the things that Medecins sans Frontieres actually does, as well as offering medical support and aid is talk out about injustices and suffering. Who are you trying to get this report to and what difference is it going to make.
DETORRENTE: Well, really, this is addressed to all of the parties in the conflict. All of the groups that are fighting in Mogadishu today. We really need to raise an alarm about how bad things have become and we need to get respect for medical workers, medical facilities, respect for ordinary civilians and their right to seek and receive treatment, the sick and the wounded have to be able to get medical attention and this applies not just for the people inside, trapped inside the city but also for the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands who have fled the city and are continuing to flee and we have to - we are trying to take care of some of them in cases outside of Mogadishu and these are displaced people and their situation is very dire, indeed, as well, and so people inside, who are trapped inside the city in the fighting, but also those who have fled and are not receiving enough assistance and whose conditions are deteriorating by the day.
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OKE: And that was Nicholas Detorrente, executive director of Medecins sans Frontieres in the United States.
Just ahead on Inside Africa, kudos for Kenya. A success story in the fight against malaria. And all it took was a safety net.
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OKE: Here is a look at some of the headlines on the continent this week. The United Nations has appealed for more than $20 million in aid for Sudan flood victims. That is on top of more than $30 million already provided. Devastating floods have left at least 200,000 people homeless and the UN says another 265,000 people may be affected by new flooding.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon says he's concerned about wise intentions in Sierra Leone ahead of next week's run-off presidential election. President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has threatened to declare a state of emergency if clashes continue between supporters of the two top parties. Last month the country had its first presidential and parliamentary elections since UN peacekeepers left in 2005.
Nelson Mandela says his new statue in London's Parliament Square stands as a symbol for all people who resist oppression. The 89-year-old former South African president attended the unveiling ceremonies and he was recognized as one of the greatest world leaders of his era. His likeness stands alongside statues of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill.
Mandela looked good out there in Parliament Square in London.
Now sometimes the simplest solutions can have the biggest impact on a problem. And that seems to be the case in Kenya which is winning praise from the World Health Organization for its efforts to combat malaria. The government launched a campaign two years ago to distribute insecticide covered mosquito nets and as Christian Purefoy reports, the program is getting impressive results.
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CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Margaret Okenye (ph) watched protectively over her six children. She has already buried one two year old daughter in an unmarked grave, a victim of malaria. And she is determined not to lose another.
Every night for the last three years she has protected her children with mosquito nets handed out for free by the Kenyan government.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): If it were not for the bed nets, so many of the children could have died.
PUREFOY: Margaret is not alone in her gratitude. The World Health Organization says bed nets have reduced childhood malaria deaths by 44 percent. The nets are infused with an insecticide that repels and kills mosquitoes. Older nets have to be washed and retreated every six months, something most families were unable to do.
But the secret of the recent success lies in a small insecticide tablet dissolved in water. Its effects last for five years, keeping the children healthy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Since the children are not sick they go to school and I have more free time for myself and I can do some jobs that earn me money, so I earn more because of the bed nets.
PUREFOY: In Margaret's local hospital, malaria accounts for 75 percent of cases. And many people return several times a month for treatment.
Against malaria, prevention is better than a cure. Not only are these children bedridden with its effects, but some treatments have terrible side effects and eventually the malaria parasite will develop a resistance to the cure.
However, despite the success of the treated nets, experts insist the fight against Africa's biggest killer is long from over.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is a big challenge for everybody, so we have to go out there and keep saying "malaria, malaria, malaria," it still exists, it's there.
PUREFOY: But tonight, all across Kenya, many more children are having a safer night's sleep. Christian Purefoy, CNN, Kusumu (ph), western Kenya.
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OKE: Ethiopia is about to celebrate a major milestone, the millennium. The country follows the Julian calendar which means the year 2000 begins on September 12 there and we'd like your input on the story. Now whether you are an Ethiopian or just visiting Ethiopian for the party, please send us your photos and videos from the festivities.
So all you have to do is go to cnn.com/insideafrica and click on the iReport logo. And there you will see instructions on how to upload your material. And after you get the instructions perhaps you can tell me and of course, we always invite (inaudible), send us photos and videos from many other stories happening in Africa as well.
Now you can also drop us a line with your comments to insideafrica@cnn.com. That's insideafrica@cnn.com. And we'll try to read some of them on the air.
I think that's enough homework for one weekend. I look forward to seeing you again next week here on INSIDE AFRICA. I hope that you'll let our program be your window to the continent.
I'm Femi Oke, and until the next time, take care.
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