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The National, Friday 17th May 2013
TETANUS, one of the most deadly diseases a mother and her newborn can face, has been eliminated in more than half of affected countries targeted by Unicef just 13 years ago. The milestone was announced on Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) Elimination Initiative at Unicef headquarters.
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COUNTRIES that have eliminated MNT are Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Comoros, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Eritrea, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Iraq, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Turkey, Togo, Uganda, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
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PAPUA New Guinea is among the countries that are still working toward elimination. Others include Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Central African
Republic, Chad, Congo DR, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen.
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ACTING Education secretary says the government understands that schools were not designed to cope with such an influx and it has plans to develop infrastructure over the next five years in relation to overcrowding in classrooms. He says the government will make sure we have adequate classrooms to cater for these children. Shouldn’t that be part of the initial plan before introducing free education?
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HE told Radio New Zealand International that at the moment the Education Department is also trying to address it by introducing dual sessions, where some students will attend in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. Mr Secretary, could you also make time available to speak to the local media?
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A STUDY carried by Dr Nancy Buasi, a midwifery lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea School of Medicine and Health Sciences has recommended that women in labour should be supported at the hospital by a guardian of their choice. We agree with Buasi’s findings that it would help ease the burden on midwives especially when they are short in numbers.
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HOPEFULLY the price of beef in PNG will drop now that the Queensland premier is talking about shipping up to 150,000 live cattle to Papua New Guinea as foreign aid to solve the state’s beef crisis. His trade delegation to PNG was part of a briefing to officials about lifting Queensland’s beef glut and alleviating his hosts’ “protein drought”. Delegates are pushing for live cattle to be sent, rather than cash in an AusAID-funded programme to the A$500 million-a-year (K990.1 million) aid recipient. They visited port facilities, holding yards and processing plants in Port Moresby to check the capacity of the infrastructure and to assess animal welfare standards.