Category: Health

A new report from the U.N. says that eating insects (high in protein, low in fat) can help fight global warming, pollutions, and hunger.The suggestion could spur small businesses.

The concept of eating insects as part of a regular diet is known as entomophagy is already practiced by an estimated two billion people, according to the report, which was issued on Monday, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

In 2012, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation named Dr. Aaron T. Dossey’s “All Things Bugs” company the winner of the foundation’s annual Grand Challenges Explorations contest.

The group received a grant to pursue its project to come up with viable insect protein options to combat malnutrition in children.

So, which bugs earned the U.N.’s seal of approval? Well, there are reportedly more than 1,900 edible insect species. The international governing body suggested people try red ants, bees, caterpillars, crickets, grasshoppers, locusts wasps and certain types of water beetles.

And why do insects provide a viable alternative to other livestock?

That’s because on average insects produce less greenhouse gas than larger animals and require a smaller ratio of food compared to the amount of substanance they provide.

A Rice University study found that cultivating insects for food requires about 10 times less plant and land-mass than producing food from traditional livestock sources.

And the U.N. is looking to insects for more than food. A recent $100,000 was given by the organization to study whether South African flies can be used to transform blood, manure and other organic waste into animal feed.

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Ninety percent (90%) of Rwandan children have been immunized against preventable diseases according to the 2010 Demographic Health Survey.

Three major factors have contributed a great deal to this achievement. Political will and government commitment, the role of Community health workers and the use of mobile technology are the main factors that have contributed to the success of immunization campaigns in Rwanda.

Jered Muhoza, the director of immunization and safety at the Expanded Program on Immunization in the ministry of health notes that immunization programs have contributed to attaining the Millennium Development Goal 4 on reducing under-five mortality by two thirds by 2015.

He says that Rwanda is on the right track compared to other countries in the Sub-Sahara Africa.

Child mortality in Rwanda has reduced from 156 deaths per 1,000 children to 54 deaths per 1000 children born annually according to a report by UNICEF.

Note that the government of Rwanda spends $ 2 million on vaccines every year.
The program immunizes children aged 0 to 11 months but also adolescent girls and pregnant women against 11 preventable diseases.

Apart from the vaccine against virus papilloma to adolescent girls and vaccine against Tetanos for pregnant women, other routine vaccines are used to immunize children under the age of one year.

The program plan a supplement in Vitamin A for children aged 6 to 59 months and women in post-partum up to 6 weeks.

Anti- Diarrhea (rotavirus vaccine) have also been launched by the government in partnership with Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and will be part of the national vaccination program.

Rwanda has also been the first sub-Sahara African country to roll out measles and rubella vaccination with the support of the GAVI Alliance, WHO, UNICEF and other partners.

Role of Community Health Workers

The coordination from the ministry of health to the grassroots level has played a key role in this success. Every village has at least three community health workers.

“They are trustworthy members of the community that have been elected by the population to take care of issues concerning health at the community level”, says Cassien Havugimana the program manager at a local NGO Health Development Initiative.

Rwanda has 45011 community health workers that serve the population in health related issues in more than 460 health centers around the country.

Each village (100 to 200 households) elects 3 volunteers to act as CHWs for the general population – a binome comprising of a man and a woman for general diseases and a woman as assistant to follow antenatal care, women after delivery and children below 9 months according to a blog post by the minister of health Dr. Agnes Binagwaho.

The CHWs are trained by the Ministry of Health to deliver quality services and to monitor health at village level and to refer sick patients to the nearest health facility.

“During vaccination campaign, the role of community health workers is to make a list of children who need to be vaccinated, “ notes Catherine Mugeni the coordinator of CHWs in the ministry of health.

Mugeni adds that CHWs have a notebook where they write all the information about children under 5 years old in every village with vaccines that they must have. During campaigns that are held twice a year, they inform parents where the vaccination will take place.

Before the campaign, community health workers go to health centers to receive explanations of the vaccine so that they can go in the villages to sensitize parents.

President Paul Kagame recognizes the role of CHWs and joined renowned global personalities at the beginning of this year to unveil “One Million Community Health Workers Campaign” in Davos, Switzerland.

President Kagame and Novartis CEO Joseph Jimenez joined Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs to announce the campaign, which will be overseen by a steering committee at the Earth Institute and will be run through the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Mobile technology impact

Mobile technology directly connects community health workers at village level to the high level in the ministry of health.

Mugeni notes that Government has established a Community Health Information System (CHIS) to support the national community health worker program that allows CHWs to report basic data about their program, such as the number of children to be vaccinated.

mUbuzima, is an application that builds on Rwanda’s mobile phone infrastructure and support Community Health Workers. It allows Community health workers to enter and transmit CHIS indicators in real time – even in remote parts of the country using only a mobile phone.

Officials at the Ministry, districts and health centers can log on to the mUbuzima website to access up-to-date data on many aspects of the CHW national program such as immunization.

The Ministry of Health can also send educational messages to Community health workers that can guide them to reach out to parents to bring their children for vaccination.

RapidSMS is another mobile phone application that is used by the ministry of health to support the work of community health workers.

It was designed specifically to support maternal, neonatal and early child health at community level and to save mothers and newborn lives.

The tools help community health workers (CHWs) to track pregnant women, monitor antenatal care, identify and refer women at risk, and improve communication with health facilities in the case of emergencies.

Children between the age of 12 and 15 will recieved a second dosage of measles vaccination at the begining of January, 2014.

The Ministry of Health says the vaccination will help in curbing any occurrence of the disease among children.

Hassan Sibomana, an epidemiology specialist in the Ministry of Health noted the first vaccination admnistered to children protects them up to 85%.

“This Second dose will give children 100 % of protection from measles,”He said.

Sibomana explained that there have been outbreaks but children have not been severely affected because they have been immunised before, “But now we will only have immunisation campaigns in case of outbreaks but not the usual campaigns that we had.”

The second dose will see the introduction of the rubella vaccination on the routine vaccination as well.

At the beginning of March, the Ministry of Health introduced a three-day period of Measles–Rubella vaccination under which nearly 5 million children under 15 years, or 47% of the population of Rwanda, will be immunised with the new vaccine.

Michel Sidibé the Executive Director of UNAIDS and the First Lady Jeannette Kagame have toured Isange One Stop Centre at Kacyiru Police Hospital.

Sidibé’s vision is zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero Aids-related deaths which he has made the end goal of UNAIDS.

In a UNAIDS stament, Sedibé seeks for the elimination of new HIV infections among children by 2015.

During his stay, Sedibé will experience the progress made in the national response to HIV/Aids.

Isange One Stop Centre attends to the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/Aids and the Family Package Programme. The center also provides treatment and care to victims of Gender-Based Violence.

During their visit at the center, officials were accompanied by Health Minister Agnes Binagwaho and Daniel Nyamwasa, the director of the Police Hospital.

Dr Nyamwasa noted,“The First Lady supports some of the programmes here that help persons infected with HIV/Aids, so it was an honour to have her and the UNAIDS envoy visit. We have established many strategies to help people living with HIV to come out of isolation and live positively.”

During his three-day visit, Sidibé will meet with President Paul Kagame and also meet with ministers and other delegates to discuss the progress and challenges surrounding Aids epidemic and its response.

The First Lady Jeanette and Executive Director of UNAIDS Michel Sidibe admiring work done by the beneficiaries of Family Package

Mothers living with HIV, who breastfeed exclusively for longer than the first four months, lower the risk of transmitting the virus to their babies.

A study published, recently, in the Science Translational Medicine shows that mothers who stop breastfeeding abruptly have higher levels of HIV than those who continue breastfeeding.

The research dispels the argument that weaning children from breast milk early, lowers risks of passing on HIV.

The study examined the prevalence of the HIV-1 strain among 958 women and their infants in Lusaka, Zambia, over a 24-month period.

The women were randomly asked to wean abruptly at four months, or to continue breastfeeding for a duration of their choice.

After six weeks, researchers discovered a higher viral load in breast milk of mothers, who had stopped breastfeeding, compared to those who chose to continue breastfeeding.

The study also found that those who breastfed their infants exclusively had a signifi cantly lower viral load, compared to those who also fed their babies on other foods.

“Higher milk viral concentrations after stopping breastfeeding were found to be higher than expected rates of late postnatal HIV transmission in those who weaned early,” the study says.

The study suggests frequency of breastfeeding influenced the level of HIV in breast milk.

The study encourages the continuation of antiretroviral treatment for mothers even after weaning their children from breast milk.

Before 2006, the World Health Organisation recommended that only women with a low CD4 count should receive ARVs.

The guidelines encouraged HIV-positive mothers to exclusively breastfeed for six months and then rapidly wean to avoid transmitting HIV to their infant.

Every year, at least 1.5 million women living with HIV become pregnant globally, according to the World Health Organisation.

Studies show that without taking ARVs, babies stand a 15% to 45% chance of contracting HIV if their mothers are infected, but taking ARVs reduces transmission to below 5%.

Rwanda has made tremendous progress in malaria control and prevention with more than 75 % decline in malaria deaths and incidence between the years 2005 and 2011.

Progress against malaria is one of development’s most impressive stories across the country. For the last decade.

Earlier this week, Rwanda and Tanzania have been cited as examples in Africa in the fight against the killer disease malaria where there are over 200 million cases every year and a death rate of 25 percent-The Guardian reported.

An official with the United Nation Foundation’s grassroots’ campaign, Nothing but Nets, said this when he made a dire plea to the international community to focus its attention on the continent, where mosquito biting illness is endemic.

“Rwanda, Tanzania and Zanzibar all have very good health systems and have prioritize fighting and eradicating malaria there,” Nothing But Nets director Chris Helfrich said.

He added, “These examples are “proof that it can be done, this is not a disease we have to live with forever,” he said.

Consequently, “we can eliminate malaria across Africa and get to a place where the disease is eradicated,” Helfrich said.

In a recent interview with Xinhua at a time when the United Nations is rallying global efforts against malaria, Helfrich said, “Specifically, our work is being done in sub-Saharan Africa and the vast majority of sub- Saharan Africa is malaria endemic.”

Nothing But Nets tag line is “send a net and save a life” and asks people to contribute a monetary donation of at least $10 so the body can provide an insecticide net to a family and decrease the global death scale from this disease.

Over 250 Rwandan women suffering from Fistula have been successfully treated by a group of visiting volunteer Doctors from the United States.

Fistula is a medical condition in which a fistula (hole) develops between either the rectum and vagina or between the bladder and vagina after severe or failed childbirth, when adequate medical care is not available.

It is considered a disease of poverty because of its tendency to occur in women in poor countries who do not have health resources comparable to developed nations.

Barbara Margolies the group leader told IGIHE that about 250 women with fistula condition have been treated.

The physicians are part of the Interntational Organization for Women & Development Inc. IOWD which brings American physicians trained in fistula repair.

Rwanda Health Ministry officials have urged the participation of community and the use of appropriate drugs and insecticide-treated bednets in order to curtail malaria-deaths by 2017.

Morbidity and mortality due to malaria have been declining since 2005 says, Dr. Corine Karema the head of division of Malaria and other Parasitic Diseases at Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC).

She says Rwanda has committed itself to eradicating malaria deaths by the year 2017.

In order to attain this goal strategies have been taken to the 6 districts that have 60% of people with Malaria Countrywide. The districts are Nyagatare ,Gatsibo ,Gisagara, Nyanza, Bugesera and Rusizi. 25th April is the world malaria day and this years theme is “Prepare your future with the fights against Malaria”.

A health facility at Nyacyonga, Kabuga recieves a large number of malaria cases.5205 cases were recorded at the health center in 2012.

The month of December had the highest number with 816 cases. For the first quarter of 2013 the health center has recorded more than 1950 cases of patients with 897 people in January.

Of 2000 malaria patients, 660 die every year mainly from sub-saharan Africa.However, malaria is gradually reducing since the year 2000 in many Countries. In Rwanda malaria prevalence was contained at 75%. The few cases of malaria has mainly been recorded during the raining seasons