Health - Nigeria

Millions of mosquito nets are given out fight to malaria in Africa, yet many faced with hunger use them as fish nets, creating potential environmental problems. Video by Ben C. Solomon on Publish Date January 24, 2015. Photo by Uriel Sinai for The New York Times.

NEW YORK TIMES   by Jeffery Gettleman                           Jan. 25, 2015

BANGWEULU WETLANDS, Zambi --Across Africa, from the mud flats of Nigeria to the coral reefs off Mozambique, mosquito-net fishing is a growing problem, an unintended consequence of one of the biggest and most celebrated public health campaigns in recent years.

The nets have helped save millions of lives, but scientists worry about the collateral damage: Africa’s fish.

kpmg.com

How does Ebola affect business and the economy in Africa?

We are one world; we are affected by the wellbeing of our neighbours and our business partners…
The stories of human suffering coming out of West Africa are staggering. The human cost of this strange disease, immense. The fall-out of the epidemic is not just health-related. It is also economic.

KPMG Africa has collaborated across our healthcare practices in West, East and Sub-Saharan Africa to explore the impact of Ebola, both on the affected countries as well as on the businesses of some of our key clients.
Despite the recent economic growth in these countries, the inherent weaknesses that persist in these healthcare systems have been exposed by the outbreak.

The negative impact of the outbreak on the economies of these countries has less to do with direct costs of dealing with the disease, than the costs of aversion behaviour.

For three countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, just recently able to bask in the rays of political and economic stability, the economic damage is depressing.

Commentary: The CDC fumbled initial communications about Ebola transmission but recovered. What about next time?

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT  by Jim McKay                                                              Jan. 13, 2015

It would be interesting to see what would happen if there was another Ebola scare in the U.S. The answer might depend on when it happened and perhaps where the person became infected. But chances are the health infrastructure would handle it, and perhaps respond to another infectious disease outbreak much better, having had the experience that the recent Ebola episodes provided.

That experience included hiccups and communication errors that resulted not in panic but disagreement on the part of some in the health community and alarm in the public. One target of criticism is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which was confident from the beginning in expressing that hospitals throughout the U.S. were ready to handle Ebola cases and messaging to the public about the difficulty of transmission of the infection. The CDC chose not to participate in this discussion....

NEW YORK TIMES  by Somini Sengupta                                                  Jan. 7, 2015

....Now, Ebola is battering three fragile countries in Africa and with it, the W.H.O.’s standing — in large part, Dr. Chan’s critics say, because she let governments around the world steer the agency to fit their own needs, instead of firmly taking the helm as the world’s doctor in chief.

Diplomacy is an inevitable, even necessary, part of running the world’s main health organization, vital to getting fractious countries to cooperate for the sake of global health, her critics acknowledge.