Tag: Malawi

Measles Vaccination Works in the Developing World

A study published this month in The Lancet should settle once and for all whether or not vaccination of disease is a worthwhile goal to achieve in the developing world. There has been some skepticism over whether or not poor nations possessed the infrastructure to carry out large scale vaccination programs.

The study looked at World Health Organization efforts to vaccinate for measles in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South AFrica, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

Over four years, WHO and national health agencies vaccinated almost 24 million children in those seven countries. The study found that as a result of the vaccination programs, total cases of measles in those countries fell from 60,000 in 1996 to less than 200 in the year 2000. Total deaths dropped from 160 in 1996 to zero in 2000.

Vaccination can work even in extremely poor countries.

Source:

Measles vaccine’s African success story. Corrine Podger, The BBC, May 3, 2002.

FAO Warns of Famine Risk in Southern Africa

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned in February that parts of southern Africa are at serious risk of famine over the next few months that could threaten as many as four million people.

The famine threat is greatest in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, of course, has seen its crop production cut in half thanks to the confiscatory and anti-democratic policies of Robert Mugabe.

Malawi has suffered from flooding the past couple years which has waterlogged crops and reduced yields. Food is available in Malawi, but the poverty levels there often make it impossible for people to obtain food.

In Zambia, too, flooding caused a 24 percent decrease in harvests in 2001 as compared to 2000.

Source:

Famine stalks Southern Africa. The BBC, February 19, 2002.

Life Expectancy in Africa Continues Decline

Africa is the only region, to my knowledge, in which the life expectancy has been declining over the past two decades, and it looks like the life expectancy there will continue to decline for the forseeable future.

According to a recent conference on African population issues held in Ethiopia, average life expectancy in Africa has declined by almost 15 years over the past two decades. The biggest culprit is infectious disease. AIDS and other infectious diseases are pushing life expectancy to extremely low rates in several African countries.

In both Botswana and Malawi, for example, life expectancy is below 40 years according to UNAIDS. By 2005, according to the recent conference, life expectancy for Africa as a whole be only 48 years, compared to 74.9 and 81.2 years for European men and women respectively.

Source:

Life expectancy still falling in Africa. The BB, February 11, 2002.

Bill to Criminalize Marital Rape Creates Controversy in Malawi

The BBC reports that a bill that make marital rape illegal is causing a great deal of controversy in the African nation of Malawi. Under Malawi’s current law, rape is nonconsensual sex with a member of the opposite sex who is not one’s spouse. Forcible sex with one’s spouse is not illegal.

Seodie White of Women in Law in South Africa told the BBC,

Courts have generally viewed rape, as created under the penal code, as not applying to married couples. And, based on our cultural beliefs, the consent to marriage has been recognised as automatic consent to sex even when the woman does not feel like it.

White’s assessment of the situation is confirmed by Malawi Supreme Court judge Duncan Tambala who the BBC reported as saying that making forcible sex within marriage a crime would be inconsistent with the concept of marriage itself.

“By entering into marriage each spouse is taken to have consented to sexual intercourse with the other spouse during the existence of his or her marriage.” Tambala said. “Marital rape, spousal battering and emotional abuse are not offences under domestic law.”

The proposed bill would punish marital rape with a minimum of 6 years in jail, but men interviewed by the BBC and African Eye News Service claimed the law would harm Malawi’s anti-AIDS effort and destroy families.

Source:

Row over Malawi marital rape bill. The BBC, December 26, 2001.

Marital rape is impossible. Brian Ligomeka, African Eye News Service, December 20, 2001.