This document presents the findings of a modelling study that examined in detail the costs and benefits of tuberculosis (TB) screening plus TB preventive treatment (TPT) in four countries – Brazil, Georgia, Kenya and South Africa – which may serve as examples for other settings with a similar epidemiological context. …
In the midst of a dire need to feed millions of people facing hunger because of drought, Kenya's newly passed Biosafety Act allows for the importation of GM crops - but at what cost? As the most severe drought crisis in 60 years continues in East Africa, a contentious issue …
African countries and donors pledged more than $350 million Thursday at a fund-raiser in the Ethiopian capital to help millions facing starvation in the Horn of Africa's worst drought in decades. The African Development Bank offered $300 million to fund long-term projects, while African states and other private donors pledged …
Famine is set to spread to two new southern Somali regions with millions of people reeling from extreme drought, the top UN humanitarian aid official for the war-torn nation warned on Wednesday. "We are anticipating that two more areas of southern Somalia will be included," Mark Bowden, the UN Humanitarian …
Britain said on August 17 that hundreds of thousands of children could starve to death in Somalia if the international community did not ramp up its response to the famine there, and pledged a further $48 million to aid children and livestock owners. The latest pledge brings Britain's total aid …
The growth of the world's urban population is posing an ever growing challenge to provide city dwellers access to clean water and sanitation, a study released Sunday said. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report - titled Big Cities, Big Water, Big Challenges - was published as delegates assembled for the …
The famine in the Horn of Africa is manmade - the result of artificially high prices for food and civil conflict, the World Bank's lead economist for Kenya Wolfgang Fengler told Reuters Tuesday. "This crisis is manmade," Fengler said in a telephone interview. "Droughts have occurred over and again, but …
Sometimes the British overplay their importance in international affairs, but in the humanitarian crisis in east Africa they have contributed more than most. David Cameron delivered a rebuke to other countries last week for failing to match the UK’s response to famine in the region, while Andrew Mitchell, the international …
The Shabab Islamist insurgent group, which controls much of southern Somalia, is blocking starving people from fleeing the country and setting up a cantonment camp where it is imprisoning displaced people who were trying to escape Shabab territory. The group is widely blamed for causing a famine in Somalia by …
At a streetside kiosk in Isiolo, the price of camel bones for soup has jumped 250 per cent this year to 100 shillings ($1.10) a kilo, straining the pockets of many in the drought-hit eastern Kenyan town. In a bitter irony that illustrates that the food crisis affecting 12.4m people …
The whole of drought- and conflict-wracked southern Somalia is heading into famine as the Horn of Africa food crisis deepens, the United Nations said yesterday. In a report for countries sending aid, the UN's umbrella humanitarian agency OCHA said the "crisis in southern Somalia is expected to continue to worsen …
Every 20 minutes, two laptops from India relay their location to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The location is determined using Google’s geolocation application programming interface (API) and a picture from the laptops' in-built cameras. Two volunteers from India (one from Kolkata), whose identities have been protected …
Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki set fire to five tonnes of contraband ivory on Wednesday, a symbol of his and Africa's renewed commitment to fight poaching. Elephant numbers had started to recover after the ivory trade was banned in 1990, but observers say the rising wealth of east Asian countries has …
The United Nations said Monday that it had started airlifting food aid to rebel-held parts of drought-hit Somalia and that Islamist insurgents had abided by a pledge to allow relief workers free access. The United Nations has described the drought as an emergency, and said some 10 million people were …
The United Nations said on Tuesday it was struggling to keep up with an exodus of hungry Somali refugees and many emaciated children were dying of malnutrition along the way or after arriving in neighboring countries. More than 11 million people in the Horn of Africa now need assistance to …
The lives of half a million children in the Horn of Africa are at risk, international aid agencies said on Friday, as the worst drought in decades forces thousands of people to flee their homes each day. High food prices and the driest years since the early 1950s have pushed …
Kenya's state-run National Safety Authority is set to approve importation of genetically modified maize into the country for the first time to mitigate a looming shortage, its head said on Wednesday. The Kenyan government last week forecast a shortfall in the supply of maize, a staple in east Africa's biggest …
