Botswana, located directly north of South Africa, has been victim to epidemics of deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. Prevention and treatment of these diseases is a top priority for Botswana’s ministry of health. Since these diseases have high mortality rates, it is important to look at the root causes and risk factors associated with common diseases in Botswana.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the deadliest common diseases in Botswana and the percent of deaths for which they are responsible are the following: HIV (32 percent), malaria (7 percent), tuberculosis (6 percent), diarrheal diseases (4 percent), cancer (4 percent), pre-term birth complications (2 percent), Ischemic Heart Disease (2 percent), stroke (2 percent) and STDs (2 percent).
The top three common diseases in Botswana — HIV, malaria and TB — are all communicable diseases, meaning that they are transmitted through contact. Communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional diseases comprise the deadliest category of diseases in Botswana. The next two categories of diseases with the highest mortality rates are non-communicable diseases and injuries, respectively. Cardiovascular diseases and cancer account for nearly half of deaths from non-communicable diseases. The top causes of deadly injuries in Botswana are self-harm and interpersonal violence, unintentional injuries and transport injuries, respectively.
Unsafe sex is the most prevalent risk factor for deadly diseases, accounting for about 60 percent of behavioral risk factors for contracting a deadly disease. It is by far the most common risk factor for HIV/AIDs and TB. Unsafe water, sanitation and handwashing habits account for 46.3 percent of environmental risk factors, followed by air pollution accounting for 37.1 percent of environmental risk factors. These are the most common risk factors for contracting diarrheal and infectious diseases. Alcohol and drug use is also a prevalent risk factor for contracting a deadly disease, such as HIV through needle sharing, or for certain injuries.
Several projects have been implemented for disease prevention and treatment, specifically for HIV as it causes almost one in three deaths in Botswana. Areas of focus for the national HIV program include high-quality prevention, care and treatment services; HIV counseling; blood safety and early infant diagnosis.
Evidence-based public health procedures are effecting change in Botswana for preventing HIV. The Botswana Combination Prevention Project evaluates the effect of proven HIV-prevention measures to reduce the number of new HIV infections over time.
Some procedures for prevention and treatment that have decreased the incidence of HIV cases. These include HIV testing, which positively changes behavior, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and antiretroviral treatment for those infected with HIV, which can cure the patient while also preventing the transmission of the disease to another partner.
Additionally, the CDC works to strengthen healthcare systems in order to sustain an effective HIV program. Strengthening healthcare systems includes improving workforce development, disease surveillance and epidemiology, health information systems and program monitoring.
As of 2012, 96 percent of men, women and children in Botswana in need of HIV treatment received it. The mother-to-child transmission rate of HIV has decreased to less than 4 percent. Botswana has integrated their TB and HIV programs, which improved the quality, impact and coverage of both programs.
Education for prevention and access to these services are very important. These steps for prevention and treatment, however, require resources that developing countries like Botswana do not have. This is where foreign aid strongly benefits a developing country. Through PEPFAR and the establishment of CDC Botswana, the U.S. government has had a significant impact in ameliorating common diseases in Botswana, specifically HIV. Foreign aid will continue to be a key component in tackling global health crises.
– Christiana Lano
Photo: Flickr
10 Facts About Suriname Refugees
Suriname has come a long way since the thousands of refugees seeking shelter elsewhere as the civil war continued. These 10 facts about Suriname refugees show that the country has reduced reason to house stateless persons, and that positive developments and achievements in refugee situations has strengthened its people.
– Olivia Cyr
Photo: Pixabay
Bleach Bottle Lights Bring Light to Poor Countries
A project called Liter of Light has a solution. Its creators discovered that plastic bottles filled with a mixture of water and bleach “refract the light from outdoors into the house, lighting up much like a light bulb.” When placed on the roof of a house the bottle becomes an adequate and inexpensive source of light.
The project began in 2012 in the Philippines with the nonprofit MyShelter Foundation. The bleach bottle lights were an original idea of Alfredo Moser who shared it with the MyShelter Foundation, eventually developing into the Liter of Light project.
The life expectancy of one of these bleach bottle lights is five years. Since the concoction is simply one liter of water and three milliliters of bleach, it is cheap and easy to replace.
By using plastic bottles for the bleach bottle lights, communities reduce the amount of garbage they produce. Per the World Economic Forum, “eight million tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year.” In places like the Philippines where the number of disposed of plastic bottles is one of the highest in the world, the Liter of Light project kills two birds with one stone.
Since the bottle only works with sunlight, Liter of Light came up with a solution for night time. Huffington Post stated, “by slipping a test tube with a small LED light bulb into the bottle, which in turn is hooked up to a mini-solar panel, the bottle can still refract light during the day, but then also be used as a light bulb at night.”
The overall goal for the Liter of Light project is to provide poor countries with a sustainable alternative to electricity in homes with the bleach bottle light. This is crucial because they cannot afford to pay for expensive repairs when the country is struggling financially. Bleach and water are much more accessible in the communities than electrical materials.
As of now, the bleach bottle lights provide a source of light to homes in 15 different countries. The bottles containing the LED light bulbs are the most popular amongst the 850,000 homes that rely on them.
The Liter of Light project won the 2015 Zayed Future Energy Prize and the 2014-2015 World Habitat Award for its work installing bleach bottle lights into hundreds of thousands of homes. The United Nations now uses the technology in its UNHCR camps. Within the next three years, the organization hopes to reach one million people and brighten up the world.
– Mackenzie Fielder
Photo: Liter of Light
Employment Reform Among Causes of Poverty in Germany
Agenda 2010 was created to accelerate economic growth, create jobs and ultimately reduce unemployment. Current data on Germany may seem to support the claim that Agenda 2010 has worked well and that perhaps isn’t one of the causes of poverty in Germany. The bureau of labor statistics sites a continual drop in unemployment, reaching a low of 3.9 percent in April 2017, and World Bank figures show a gross domestic product of $3.467 trillion for Germany in 2016.
The way Agenda 2010 achieved those results was by creating a new, flexible, exclusively part-time employment structure. The motivation was that an employed citizen was better than an unemployed one. To create this new type of temporary work, Agenda 2010 deregulated to encourage employers to hire part-time workers.
Agenda 2010 focused on getting the unemployed back to work. It also created what is known in Germany as the mini-job, a part-time employment that pays 450 euros a month tax-free. As the data shows, employers hired, and the unemployment rate dropped, but this system has caused poverty in Germany to reach its highest since reunification.
German news site DW reported a German study that classified 12.5 million Germans as poor. The poor are classified in Germany by earning less than 60 percent of the median household income, which for a single household is around 900 euros a month. Although Germans are employed, those employed in mini-jobs earn 450 euros, half of the median household income of a single household.
The Federal Agency of Statistics for Labor in Germany cites 7.5 million Germans working mini-jobs and two million Germans working two jobs. The causes of poverty in Germany can be directly linked to Agenda 2010, which created more employment opportunity while also creating a new working poor. During an interview with Euronews, Dierk Hirschel, chief economist of Verdi, spoke on the issue, “The problem we face in Germany is that one in five workers are paid less than ten euros an hour, they are the “working poor.”
– Yosef Flowers
Photo: Google
Threats to Human Rights in Armenia
Sakunts is the director of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office (HCA-Vanazdor). HCA-Vanazdor is a high-profile defender of human rights in Armenia. Sakunts received a highly specific death threat via Facebook, which illustrates that the issue of human rights is hotly debated in Armenia. The Armenian government’s record with respect to human rights is somewhat uneven. In 2008, the government pledged to combat violence against women. However, no legislation was passed since. For example, there is no law criminalizing domestic violence.
LGBTQ populations also do not have anti-discrimination protection or legal protection against hate speech. The lack of legislation makes it difficult for women and LGBTQ groups to find a legal solution to advocate for their rights. Peaceful protesters are sometimes met with excessive force and with ill treatment in custody.
Founding Parliament, a radical group opposed to the government, seized a police station in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, killing a policeman and taking several others hostage on July 17, 2016. The gunmen eventually surrendered on July 31. Yet the seizure of the police station proved to be a catalyst for protest movement against the government.
In late July, peaceful protesters were showing their support for Founding Parliament in the same neighborhood of the seized police station. Without warning the protesters, police fired stun grenades into the crowd. The protesters sustained first and second-degree burns and fragmentation wounds. Other protesters were beaten with clubs.
Journalists covering the protest were warned by the police, but some journalists suffered the after-effects of stun grenades fired specifically at them. Protest leaders and participants were detained, with the authorities citing criminal charges leveled against them. Detainees were held up to 12 hours without documentation. Authorities relied primarily on police testimony to press criminal charges. Detainees were also denied access to lawyers and were not permitted to inform relatives about their detentions.
The explosive events of July 2016 demonstrate the palpable tensions between Armenian citizens and the government. Fortunately, groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch continue to report violations of human rights in Armenia. Generating awareness for human rights issues can pave a path towards finding legal, political and more permanent solutions for such human rights violations.
– Smriti Krishnan
Photo: Pixabay
Improving Access to Education in Cambodia
Reforms in 1996 solidified the general educational pattern of six-three-three, meaning six years of primary education, three years of lower secondary education and three years of upper secondary education. The government runs the public education system, but there are several opportunities for private education in Cambodia.
In 2014, the government formulated an Education Strategic Plan to improve the education system and subsequently stimulate the economy. The plan focuses on equal access to education, increasing the quality of the school curriculum, and encouraging teachers and school faculty towards excellence in their roles as educators.
Eighteen percent of the national budget has been dedicated to education. These efforts from the Cambodian government have been met with great success. As of 2015, 98 percent of school-age age were enrolled in some form of school. Female students comprised 48 percent of this statistic. In the last decade, almost 1,000 schools have been built and school resources have been significantly expanded.
While education in Cambodia has enjoyed great success, the country still has many areas they need to improve. The student-to-teacher ratio is very high compared to other nearby countries, and teachers are not paid enough to support themselves. Forty-seven percent of third-grade students are unable to read at a third-grade level, and the overall illiteracy rate is incredibly high.
With the government’s resurgence in attention towards the education system, education in Cambodia has flourished in the past decade. While there are many aspects that still need work, the country is on the right track and will be rewarded with improvements in the economy and reduced poverty levels as a result of a strengthened education program.
– Julia McCartney
Photo: Flickr
Causes of Common Diseases in Botswana
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the deadliest common diseases in Botswana and the percent of deaths for which they are responsible are the following: HIV (32 percent), malaria (7 percent), tuberculosis (6 percent), diarrheal diseases (4 percent), cancer (4 percent), pre-term birth complications (2 percent), Ischemic Heart Disease (2 percent), stroke (2 percent) and STDs (2 percent).
The top three common diseases in Botswana — HIV, malaria and TB — are all communicable diseases, meaning that they are transmitted through contact. Communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional diseases comprise the deadliest category of diseases in Botswana. The next two categories of diseases with the highest mortality rates are non-communicable diseases and injuries, respectively. Cardiovascular diseases and cancer account for nearly half of deaths from non-communicable diseases. The top causes of deadly injuries in Botswana are self-harm and interpersonal violence, unintentional injuries and transport injuries, respectively.
Unsafe sex is the most prevalent risk factor for deadly diseases, accounting for about 60 percent of behavioral risk factors for contracting a deadly disease. It is by far the most common risk factor for HIV/AIDs and TB. Unsafe water, sanitation and handwashing habits account for 46.3 percent of environmental risk factors, followed by air pollution accounting for 37.1 percent of environmental risk factors. These are the most common risk factors for contracting diarrheal and infectious diseases. Alcohol and drug use is also a prevalent risk factor for contracting a deadly disease, such as HIV through needle sharing, or for certain injuries.
Several projects have been implemented for disease prevention and treatment, specifically for HIV as it causes almost one in three deaths in Botswana. Areas of focus for the national HIV program include high-quality prevention, care and treatment services; HIV counseling; blood safety and early infant diagnosis.
Evidence-based public health procedures are effecting change in Botswana for preventing HIV. The Botswana Combination Prevention Project evaluates the effect of proven HIV-prevention measures to reduce the number of new HIV infections over time.
Some procedures for prevention and treatment that have decreased the incidence of HIV cases. These include HIV testing, which positively changes behavior, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and antiretroviral treatment for those infected with HIV, which can cure the patient while also preventing the transmission of the disease to another partner.
Additionally, the CDC works to strengthen healthcare systems in order to sustain an effective HIV program. Strengthening healthcare systems includes improving workforce development, disease surveillance and epidemiology, health information systems and program monitoring.
As of 2012, 96 percent of men, women and children in Botswana in need of HIV treatment received it. The mother-to-child transmission rate of HIV has decreased to less than 4 percent. Botswana has integrated their TB and HIV programs, which improved the quality, impact and coverage of both programs.
Education for prevention and access to these services are very important. These steps for prevention and treatment, however, require resources that developing countries like Botswana do not have. This is where foreign aid strongly benefits a developing country. Through PEPFAR and the establishment of CDC Botswana, the U.S. government has had a significant impact in ameliorating common diseases in Botswana, specifically HIV. Foreign aid will continue to be a key component in tackling global health crises.
– Christiana Lano
Photo: Flickr
Causes of Poverty in Zimbabwe
When looking at the causes of poverty in Zimbabwe, it is necessary to take the effects of the 2008 financial crisis into account. As a result of the crisis, Zimbabwe saw its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decline by 17 percent. By comparison, the GDP growth rate for other African countries was five percent.
Although Zimbabwe made great progress to recover from the 2008 crisis, its GDP growth rate is declining since 2013. According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), this decline is the result of stalling investments and adverse climate conditions that hurt the agricultural sector. Nearly 60 percent of Zimbabwe’s workforce is employed in the agricultural sector.
Drought and Poverty in Zimbabwe
As a result of the 2015-2016 drought that affected most of southern Africa, the rural poor have become more vulnerable to the loss of both their food security and their livelihoods. A 2016 study by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) shows that approximately 4.1 million Zimbabweans, nearly a quarter of the population, face food and nutrition insecurity due to the drought.
ZimVAC is a consortium of the Zimbabwean government, agencies of the United Nations, NGOs and other international organizations. Formed in 2002 to assess the issues facing Zimbabwe’s poor, it is overseen by the Food and Nutrition Council of Zimbabwe which works to find multi-sector solutions to the country’s food insecurity.
Some of the groups heavily impacted by food insecurity are children and pregnant or lactating women. Zimbabwe has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the region as well as one of the highest rates of HIV globally, at approximately 15 percent as of 2014. Women and children living in food insecure homes are HIV prone and either already or in danger of becoming malnourished.
Children under the age of two that do not benefit from optimal breastfeeding are more likely to contract diarrhea or pneumonia. They may also not develop to their full potential. Acutely malnourished children under the age of five are more likely to contract diseases that require intensive care.
Drought and reduced rainfall also negatively affected the quality and availability of water. Almost half of households lack sufficient water for their livestock. Eighty-one percent reported having insufficient water for their crops. Zimbabwe’s average rainfall is projected to drop by 10 percent by the end of the century. IFAD asserts that the rehabilitation and maintenance of irrigation systems must be of the utmost importance to stabilize agricultural production. Improving irrigation systems would minimize crop failure, raise household incomes and increase food security for rural smallholder farmers.
To understand the causes of poverty in Zimbabwe, the poor performance of the country’s manufacturing industry must also be explored. Manufacturing surveys estimate that industrial capacity utilization decreased from 57 percent in 2011 to 36.3 percent in 2014. This is mainly because of an erratic power supply, a lack of capital, higher input costs, antiquated machinery and deficiencies in infrastructure.
IFAD believes that by prioritizing climate-smart, efficient agricultural production and investment in infrastructure and industrial capacity building, the causes of poverty in Zimbabwe will be diminished.
– Amanda Lauren Quinn
Photo: Flickr
The First Reported Case of HIV Remission in Africa
HIV patients are treated with a combination of antiretroviral drugs to prevent the development of AIDS. Treatment reduces the amount of viral load in the body and bodily fluids. It can also protect the immune system from infections and cancer.
The child in remission took part in a clinical trial called Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) along with 143 other infants. Treatment lasted for 40 weeks with the hope that the virus would reach undetectable levels and of achieving a higher volume of HIV remission in Africa. Of all HIV-affected children, 91 percent live in Africa.
While the virus can reach low enough levels to avoid detection in the blood, there is still not a cure for HIV. But doctors are learning that there is a correlation between early treatment and long-term remission.
According to the World Health Organization, poverty-stricken countries experience HIV epidemics at a much higher volume than wealthy countries. With less money, it is hard to get quality treatment, if any treatment at all. This increases the potential for epidemics by allowing transmission. Poverty is decreasing in the area, but 60 to 65 percent of wealth still lies with the wealthiest 10 percent.
South Africa spends more than $1.5 billion annually on HIV and AIDS programs to treat seven million people.
In 2013, the “Mississippi baby” was in remission for two years after early aggressive treatment. However, in 2014 the child had to restart treatment after the virus reemerged. Another child in Vancouver was in remission for 11 years following a failed six-week treatment and a six-year, four-drug treatment.
The benefits of long-term remission are obvious. Symptoms of the drugs subside and the financial burden of drugs and treatment lessen. The cases of remission are encouraging, but the widespread effects of early treatment are still unknown.
“Further study is needed to learn how to induce long-term HIV remission in infected babies,” Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a news release. “However, this new case strengthens our hope that by treating HIV-infected children for a brief period beginning in infancy, we may be able to spare them the burden of life-long therapy and the health consequences of long-term immune activation typically associated with HIV disease.”
– Madeline Boeding
Photo: Flickr
Why Is El Salvador Poor?
Why is El Salvador Poor? In a country with a highly urbanized workforce and a small wealthy elite who became rich through coffee and sugar, it is surprising that almost 40 percent of the population falls below the poverty line.
More than half a million Salvadorans live on less than $2 a day, making it very difficult to buy food with proper nutrition. Even with the land reform and property redistribution that occurred in the 1980s and helped some rural people make sustainable incomes, there is still a large divide between the wealthy and the poor in El Salvador.
Why is El Salvador Poor? Top 3 Reasons
USAID reports that El Salvador’s per capita income is the fifth-lowest in the western hemisphere. The economy is stagnating in a decade-long cycle of low growth that has restricted the creation of higher paying jobs, which translates to low productivity and higher crime, especially in terms of the “Maras,” or the violent criminal gangs that have high profiles in El Salvador and around Central America.
Many youth in rural areas live in poverty and choose to migrate rather than stay in a harsh cycle of unemployment or join a gang. This problem is in large part due to a weak education system that sees less than 50 percent of Salvadorans graduate from the sixth grade, one out of three completing the ninth grade and only one out of five completing high school.
What other factors can answer the question: why is El Salvador poor? The Salvadoran healthcare system is another public service that needs to be stronger in order to support financial gains that take people out of poverty. Medical unions and the Salvadoran government have been going back and forth for a long time, with the unions resisting privatization of healthcare and conducting medical personnel strikes frequently.
Hospital budgets primarily go toward paying salaries, leaving little extra funding for basic drugs and medical equipment. While the infant mortality rate has fallen by more than 70 percent in the last three decades, the overall death rate for children is still extremely high at 81 deaths per 1,000 children.
The Salvadoran government is working with international organizations to reduce poverty, especially in rural areas. In 2011, it launched the Plan de Agricultura Familiar (Family Farming Plan) to improve agricultural production and supplement the income of poor rural families while also increasing the competitiveness of domestic agriculture in markets. By localizing many services and improving the healthcare system while working to reduce crime, rural families can begin to utilize a public safety net that will help them out of poverty and create a middle class in Salvadoran society.
– Saru Duckworth
Photo: Google
The Cost of Living in Angola: Most Expensive Capital City
Around half of Angolans live on less than $2 a day, which raises the question: how has the cost of living in Angola become so unreachable to most of the population?
Several factors have produced the current economic situation. The Angolan Civil War, which lasted from 1975 until 2002, destroyed the country’s infrastructure. As a result, importing and exporting is a laborious and expensive process. The country’s business elite, who largely control the import companies, have made little attempt to bring down costs from which they profit.
Angola’s large expat population helps explain why the country is able to sustain its status as more expensive than Singapore or Hong Kong, despite the bulk of the population living in extreme poverty. Angola has Africa’s second-largest oil reserves and as a result, a large expat population based in Luanda has high levels of expendable income.
Post-civil war, Angola’s GDP grew at an astronomical rate, reaching 23 percent growth in 2008, buoyed by a flood of foreign investment. Housing and infrastructure failed to keep up. This has left the cost of living in Angola at its current unattainable level, with only Luanda’s expat population able to afford it.
Extreme poverty has indeed declined by one-third since the civil war, but economic inequality has grown exponentially throughout Angola’s oil boom. For rural Angolans, the country’s economic windfall has done little, aside from making the capital city an inaccessible place of extreme expense. The rural poverty rate stands at 57 percent, compared to 19 percent among urban Angolans.
The government is looking for resolutions and bringing down prices on basic foods has been made a priority. If this is successful, Angola’s cost of living can become less of a burden on its largely poverty-stricken population, who are currently shut out of the new wealth the country is enjoying.
– Jonathan Riddick
Photo: Flickr