| New Vaccine Joins Campaign to End Polio | |
| 17 January 2010 |
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| An Afghan girl receives a dose of polio vaccine |
The new formulation is known as B.O.P.V. , or bivalent oral polio vaccine. It was used for the first time in December in a polio immunization campaign in Afghanistan.
Carol Pandak is with the PolioPlus program of the service organization Rotary International. She explains that health workers have been using what are called trivalent vaccines in some places. These are areas like Afghanistan where more than one kind of polio virus exists.
There are three types of polio virus. The trivalent vaccine is least effective against type three, more effective against type one and highly effective against type two. As a result, few new cases of type two have been reported since nineteen ninety-nine.
This has led to greater use of monovalent vaccines to protect against either type one or type three polio. But Carol Pandak says the monovalent vaccine is not enough in areas with both.
CAROL PANDAK: "You address the type one, and the type three cases go up. You address the type three, and the type one cases go up."
Rod Curtis at the World Health Organization in Geneva says the new bivalent vaccine solves this problem.
ROD CURTIS: "The beauty of the bivalent vaccine is that it is able to attack both types of wild polio virus in one dose."
Carol Pandak says tests found the new vaccine to be thirty percent more effective than the trivalent vaccine.
More than thirty new cases of polio were reported in Afghanistan last year. About half were type one and the others type three. Rod Curtis says that shows the importance of the new vaccine targeting both viruses at once. Officials say similar vaccination campaigns are planned this year in India, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Intensive vaccination campaigns have reduced the number of new polio cases reported worldwide to fewer than two thousand a year. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative says the number has fallen by ninety-nine percent since nineteen eighty eight.
Polio is highly infectious. One victim in two hundred suffers permanent paralysis, usually in the legs. Five to ten percent of those victims die when their breathing muscles fail.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| Solar-Powered Pumps Aid African Farmers | |
| 10 January 2010 |
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| Harvest in Benin |
Sub-Saharan Africa is the part of the world with the least food security. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that more than one billion of the world's people faced hunger last year. Around two hundred sixty-five million of them live south of the Sahara Desert. Lack of rainfall is one of their main causes of food shortages.
Jennifer Burney from Stanford University in California led the study. The research team helped build three solar-powered drip irrigation systems in northern Benin.
Between thirty and thirty-five women used each system to pump water from the ground or a stream. Each woman was responsible for farming her own one hundred twenty square meters of land. They also farmed other land collectively.
The solar-powered irrigation systems produced an average of nearly two metric tons of vegetables per month. During the first year, the women kept a monthly average of almost nine kilograms of vegetables for home use.
They sold the surplus produce at local markets. The earnings greatly increased their ability to buy food during the dry season which can last six to nine months.
People in the two villages with the systems were able to eat three to five more servings of vegetables per day. But making the surplus available at markets also had a wider effect.
The study compared the villages with two others where women farmed with traditional methods like carrying water in buckets. The amount of vegetables eaten in those villages also increased, though not as much.
The researchers note that only four percent of the cropland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated. Using solar power to pump water has higher costs at first. But the study says it can be more economical in the long term than using fuels like gasoline, diesel or kerosene. And solar power is environmentally friendly.
The study appears this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. You can post comments and learn about other issues in the developing world at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
| New Treatment for Sleeping Sickness | |
| 03 January 2010 |
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Officials from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative say the new treatment has fewer side effects. It is also more effective and less costly than the drugs traditionally used. In addition, the new treatment reduces the number of injections needed. And it shortens the amount of time patients must spend in the hospital.
Sleeping sickness threatens millions of people in thirty-six countries in Africa. Most live in poor rural areas. The disease is caused by the trypanosoma parasite. It is spread to humans through the bite of infected tsetse flies.
Common signs of sleeping sickness include fever, headaches, extreme tiredness and pain in the muscles and joints. Early identification of the disease may be difficult because many infected people do not show any immediate symptoms.
Over time, the parasites invade the central nervous system. The disease causes sleep disorders, mental confusion, personality changes, speech problems, seizures and coma. If left untreated, sleeping sickness kills.
The World Health Organization estimates that about sixty thousand people are currently infected with the disease. It develops in two different forms. Trypanosoma gambiense is responsible for ninety percent of the reported cases of sleeping sickness. People infected with this form may develop the disease over many years without any major symptoms. The disease develops more quickly over a few weeks or months in people infected with trypanosoma rhodesiense.
Until now the drug melarsoprol was used to treat patients in the advanced stage of sleeping sickness.
But the drug requires many painful injections several times a day for several weeks. It also causes bad side effects, some of which can be deadly.
In Uganda, a new study has confirmed earlier research linking the spread of sleeping sickness to infected farm animals. The writers of the study have called for stronger rules requiring cattle to be treated before being sold at market. The study was published in the Public Library of Science.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| Disabilities in Old, Young Studied in Developing Nations | |
| 27 December 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
A new study says the leading cause of disability in older people in low and middle income countries is dementia. The researchers disagree with the World Health Organization which says blindness and other vision problems are the leading cause.
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| A study says dementia is more widespread in the developing world than has been recognized |
Renata Sousa from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London and other researchers wrote the new report. Their study looked at the causes of disability among fifteen thousand people age sixty-five or older in seven countries. The countries were China, India, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico and Peru.
The team found that dementia was the largest cause of disability in the elderly in areas other than rural India and Venezuela. Other major causes were stroke, loss of use of arms or legs, arthritis, depression, eyesight problems and gastrointestinal problems.
In low and middle income countries, heart disease and cancer get much of the attention given to chronic diseases. The researchers say increased importance should be given to chronic diseases of the brain and mind. As populations age, societies will have to deal with more and more cases of dementia.
The study says the elderly are nine percent of the total population of low and middle income countries today. But their numbers are growing quickly. They are expected to reach twenty percent of the total population by the middle of the century.
The study appeared in the Lancet medical journal which published a special issue on disability. A separate study of eighteen low and middle income countries dealt with children.
It found that in almost half the countries, children who were not breastfed were much more likely to have a disability than those who were. The same was true of those who did not receive vitamin A supplements and those who were underweight.
Children who did not take part in early learning activities or attend school were also more likely to be disabled than those who did.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States and UNICEF did the study.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| Increase in Illegal Killing of Rhinos in Africa, Asia | |
| 13 December 2009 |
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Experts say demand in Asia -- especially Vietnam and China -- currently drives most trade in rhino horns from southern Africa. The horns are often used to make traditional medicines, or handles for dagger knives.
The report is from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and an organization known as Traffic.
Most African rhino poaching is in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Experts found that two hundred ten rhinos were illegally killed in South Africa in the last three years.
The estimate for Zimbabwe is two hundred thirty-five. The situation threatens gains made in its rhino populations in the nineteen nineties. In the last two years, only six people were found guilty of poaching charges out of forty-one arrested.
In two thousand one, sixty-eight percent of African rhino horns entering illegal trade were recovered. By this year, nine out of ten were heading to Asian markets without interference.
The report says poaching and illegal horn trade has increased in South Africa even with new measures against it.
Adding to the problem, poachers today are more skilled at killing rhinos, and not only with guns. They also use quieter methods, like veterinary drugs, poison and crossbows.
An international agreement on protecting endangered animals and plants provides for sport hunting of white rhinos in Africa. But the horns often enter illegal markets.
Not all the news is bad, however. The report notes that rhino populations are increasing in some areas. These include both white rhinos and black rhinos in the wild in Africa.
Africa had an estimated seventeen thousand white rhinos and four thousand black rhinos as of two years ago. Current estimates for Asia are around three thousand rhinos. But even with poaching, growth is reported in some areas of India and Nepal.
Wildlife activists are urging governments to do more to fight rhino poaching.
The report was presented to the organization known as CITES. CITES is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The next conference of countries that are parties to the agreement is in March in Doha, Qatar.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| Looking for New Ways to Fight Malaria | |
| 06 December 2009 |
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| Scientists are studying ways to make mosquitoes resist malaria-causing parasites |
George Dimopoulos is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.
GEORGE DIMOPOULOS: "Forty-two percent of the earth's population live in areas where malaria transmitting mosquitoes exist. All of these people are [at] risk of being infected with malaria. The sad thing is that the majority of people that are killed by malaria are children because their immune system is not strong enough to ward off this infection."
Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium. The organism is injected into people through the bite of infected mosquitoes. Malaria can be treated, but in many areas the parasites have become resistant to different drugs.
George Dimopoulos and his team are studying ways to make mosquitoes resist infection by the parasite. There are hundreds of kinds of mosquitoes in the world. Most do not spread malaria. Some have immune systems that kill Plasmodium.
GEORGE DIMOPOULOS: "We are particularly interested in these types of immune reactions that are responsible for killing the malaria parasite. Because we think once we understand how they work, we could be able to manipulate the mosquito genetically and convert mosquitoes that can transmit malaria into mosquitoes that cannot transmit malaria."
The researchers have developed a way to make genetic changes in the three mosquito species known to spread malaria. The changes cause their systems to attack the parasite, blocking its development. Other researchers are working on ways to spread these genetically modified insects among mosquito populations.
Professor Dimopoulos says there is still a long way to go, but current malaria research is highly promising.
A new vaccine is in final testing. So far it has proven effective at preventing the disease in half of those vaccinated -- which is more than ever before.
And at the Malaria Institute at Macha in Zambia, researchers are developing an easier way to identify malaria. The test uses saliva instead of blood to diagnose the infection.
Current efforts in malaria control are mainly based on the use of insecticide sprays and treated bed nets. But George Dimopoulos says malaria needs to be attacked with drugs, with vaccines, with bed nets -- with whatever researchers can find.
GEORGE DIMOPOULOS: "Malaria needs to be attacked with multiple weapons. There is not one magic bullet to control this disease."
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. Transcripts and MP3s of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
| Some Tips for Cold Storage of Foods | |
| 29 November 2009 |
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| Indonesian women sell their harvest in a traditional floating market |
Containers of water are placed at the top and bottom of the cooler. The ends of each piece of cloth lie in the water so the cloth stays wet.
The cooler is put outdoors, but not in the sun. Air will pass through the wet cloth. The inside of the box will stay several degrees cooler than the outside air temperature. And this may be cool enough to keep foods fresh, at least for a short time.
Some foods can make you sick if they are stored in conditions that are not cold enough to prevent the growth of harmful organisms. Freezing can keep some foods in good condition for months after the growing season. Yet foods can be damaged if they are kept too cold.
The British development group Practical Action says the best way to prepare foods for storage is at harvest time while still in the field.
Use a sharp knife and place the harvested items on a clean surface or directly into storage containers. Do not put them on the ground.
Use clean water to remove dirt, and keep the water clean. Usually it is better not to remove outer leaves from fruits and vegetables before storage. Without the leaves, food can become dry.
Fruits and vegetables must be cool from field heat before they are put into storage. But cooling them in water can spread fungus throughout the food. A better idea is to harvest foods either early or late in the day, then leave them to cool naturally.
Some fruits and vegetables must be stored at zero to four degrees Celsius. Any colder, and they might be damaged. Some foods need to be stored at four to eight degrees, and some need to be stored above eight degrees for best results.
Wet the fruits and vegetables so they do not become too dry. The best time to do this is before storage. Cover the items in plastic once they reach the right "critical temperature" for storage. Most fruits and vegetables need the relative humidity in storage to be kept between eighty-five and ninety-five percent.
Finally, leave space between the food containers and the walls of the cold storage area so air can flow. Keep the space clean. And try not to open the doors too often.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report. I'm Steve Ember.
| Results of UN Food Summit Seen as Disappointing | |
| 22 November 2009 |
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| United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks at the World Summit on Food Security |
The troubled world economy is not the only cause of recent increases. The poorest countries continue to face high food prices, which have fallen elsewhere. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says more than thirty nations continue to need emergency food assistance.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the food crisis has forced millions of families into poverty and hunger. He said six million children die of hunger every year. And he warned that food security is closely connected to the issue of climate change.
BAN KI-MOON: "At a time when the global population is growing, our global climate is changing. By twenty fifty we will need to grow seventy percent more food. Yet weather is becoming more extreme and unpredictable."
The delegates in Rome promised to continue efforts to reduce by half the number of hungry people by two thousand fifteen. But critics pointed out that world leaders made a similar promise more than ten years ago.
Several countries promised to increase aid for agriculture, to help developing nations become more independent.
Still, critics deplored a lack of greater action. Leaders from more than sixty countries were in Rome. But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the only leader from a major industrial nation in the Group of Eight. An official from Kenya, Adam Barre Duale, said it showed a lack of unity in the fight against hunger.
ADAM BARRE DUALE: "We need both the developed world and the developing countries to come together and to give and support a global initiative in the war against hunger."
The Food and Agriculture Organization says more than forty billion dollars a year needs to be invested in agriculture to defeat world hunger. The growing problem has affected developing countries, but also industrialized nations.
The government estimates that forty-nine million people in the United States were "food insecure" last year. That means their households, at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all members because of a lack of resources. Almost fifteen percent of all households were in that situation. And the Agriculture Department says the numbers may be even higher this year.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| Project Finds New Homes for Unwanted Bikes From US | |
| 15 November 2009 |
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| Bikes are delivered to San Jose, Honduras, through the Bikes for the World program |
Keith Oberg is the director of Bikes for the World.
KEITH OBERG: "Everybody has an old bicycle, and it is usually not ridden. It sits there in the garage, or basement or shed, going to waste."
Stephen Popick recently had two bikes to donate.
STEPHEN POPICK: "I brought in two mountain bikes that my wife and I have ridden for the past ten years. My bikes wouldn't fetch a nice price and wouldn't be worth trying to sell, but they could be useful to somebody else."
Bikes for the World collects bicycles and delivers them at low cost to community programs in developing countries. It shipped more than five thousand bikes during the first eight months of this year. Last year it shipped about ten thousand three hundred.
The bicycle recycling program is one of the largest in the United States. It is a sponsored project of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.
Bikes for the World began in two thousand five. Since then it has shipped more than forty thousand bikes to communities in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, says director Keith Oberg.
KEITH OBERG: "We work currently with partners in seven countries actively -- in Uganda, Ghana. We're talking to an organization that we would like to ship to in Liberia. We have shipped to Namibia and the Gambia in the past. And in Central America we ship to Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and we are talking to two organizations in El Salvador."
Bikes for the World partners with nonprofit groups in the United States to collect unwanted bikes. Then it works with nonprofits in the other countries to get the bikes to organizations and individuals that need them the most.
For example, the Bicycle Empowerment Network Namibia uses the bikes to provide transportation for health workers. That makes it possible for them to visit more patients each day. The organization also has bicycle ambulance services to transport the sick.
The Bicycle Empowerment Network also provides training and support to help local organizations and individuals open bike shops of their own. The businesses sell the recycled bikes at low cost and provide repair services. Many of the organizations use the money they earn to help pay for other community projects.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms with additional reporting by Susan Logue. You can learn about other organizations working in the developing world at voaspecialenglish.com. And you can also find us on Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. I'm Steve Ember.
| Plan Aims to Fight Child Diarrhea in Developing World | |
| 08 November 2009 |
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| Mothers with children being treated for diarrhea at a hospital in Allahabad, India |
Experts say diarrhea causes more child deaths than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. New findings show it also kills more than a million adolescents and elderly people every year.
Therese Dooley is a senior adviser at UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund.
THERESE DOOLEY: "In addition to the deaths, there's about two-point-five billion -- and I want to emphasize, about two-point-five billion cases of diarrhea among children every year."
But a new report says sixty percent of those in developing countries do not get the recommended treatment. The report, appearing in the Lancet medical journal, is from UNICEF and the World Health Organization. It includes a seven-point plan for countries to use to prevent and treat diarrhea.
The condition causes fluid loss and reduces the body's supply of zinc. This mineral is needed for normal growth and development.
For the past five years, UNICEF and the W.H.O. have recommended zinc supplements to treat diarrhea. They also recommend fluid replacement solutions made from what are called low-osmolarity oral rehydration salts.
Yet zinc supplements remain largely unavailable in the developing world. And the fluid replacement solutions can also be difficult to find.
A leading cause of diarrhea in children is the rotavirus. Public health officials are now advised to include the rotavirus vaccine in all national immunization programs. But the vaccine is still not available in many developing countries.
The report says new ways to expand the use of treatments are now being developed. Proposals include, for example, supplying treatment kits through community health workers or special campaigns.
Experts say children with diarrhea should continue to eat, and babies should continue to breastfeed.
To help prevent diarrhea, the report suggests that children receive both the rotavirus and measles vaccines. It also calls for improving supplies of clean water in developing countries.
Another prevention measure is hand washing with soap.
Diarrhea can be easy to prevent. Campaigns to fight childhood diarrhea had some success during the nineteen seventies and eighties. The authors of the report hope this new plan will help return the issue to worldwide importance.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms, and available at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Bob Doughty.
| In Kenya, a Better Life Through Mobile Money | |
| 01 November 2009 |
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Two companies, Safaricom and Vodafone, launched the M-Pesa mobile money service in Kenya in two thousand seven. Pesa means money in Swahili. The service operates much like a savings bank -- which is important, because plenty of Kenyans do not have bank accounts.
Most of the early users were young men who worked in cities and wanted to send money home to rural areas. Now customers can also use their M-Pesa accounts to pay bills, make purchases or pay for services like taxis. Users pay a small amount for each transaction.
Stephen Mbugua has a farm a half-hour's drive from the capital. He uses M-Pesa to receive money from his son and to pay bills.
Stephen Mbugua: "I used to go to Nairobi or to any bank to pay my bill. But now, right now, I don't go to Nairobi, I just pay my bill from here."
Some businesses use the service to pay their employees.
All across Kenya, there are stores and automated teller machines where M-Pesa users can add and withdraw money from their accounts.
People can also transfer money to other mobile phone users, even those without an M-Pesa account. The other person receives a text message with a code to take to the local M-Pesa agent to get the money.
All this pleases twenty-two year old Phelister Omari.
Phelister Omari: "It's very fast. The M-Pesa, they're available everywhere. So once you are going somewhere, you can drop, get some cash and proceed."
M-Pesa is improving economic conditions for many Kenyan families. British-based Vodaphone has also teamed with local companies to offer the service in Uganda and Afghanistan.
Safaricom says nearly eight million people in Kenya now use M-Pesa. That number is expected to grow as more people use mobile phones.
A recent report predicted that the number of mobile phone accounts worldwide will reach almost four and a half billion this year. That is twelve percent more than last year, and equal to two-thirds of the world's population.
The report was from the European Information Technology Observatory. The group says the strongest growth in mobile phone use now comes from newly industrialized and developing countries.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. You can find transcripts and podcasts of our reports at voaspecialenglish.com. And you can find us on Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. I'm Bob Doughty.
| Simple, Low-Cost Ways to Cut the Risk of an Early Birth | |
| 26 October 2009 |
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| A premature baby in a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey |
The report came from the March of Dimes and the World Health Organization. Christopher Howson is the vice president for global programs at the March of Dimes, a nonprofit group. He says there are a number of simple, low-cost interventions that can improve the chances of a full-term birth.
CHRISTOPHER HOWSON: "We should treat malnutrition in women both before and during pregnancy. We should treat infections that increase risk. We should monitor pregnancies carefully for signs of trouble. And should that baby be born preterm, we should care for that baby by providing a package of interventions that have been shown to be tried and true and very effective."
For example, there are programs in Africa that teach the skin-to-skin method, also known as kangaroo care. Mothers learn to carry preterm babies in front instead the traditional African way of carrying a baby, on the mother's back. Skin-to-skin helps keep a preterm baby warm. The direct contact also makes it easier for the baby to breastfeed.
Most preterm births take place in Africa and Asia. But rates in the United States have increased by more than one-third in the last twenty-five years. This is largely the result of more births in older women and more use of fertility treatments.
Alan Fleischman is the medical director of the March of Dimes. He was among a group of medical experts who met in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. The group met to develop a quality improvement plan for dealing with the problem in the United States. Doctor Fleischman says there is concern especially about rising numbers of what are known as late preterm births.
ALAN FLEISCHMAN: "Those are the babies who are born between thirty-four and thirty-seven weeks gestation. Those are the fastest increasing numbers of prematures. In fact, they are responsible for seventy-two percent of all prematures in America."
The rise of these births may be linked to increased use of drugs to start or speed up labor and more births by Cesarean section. Doctor Fleischman says the group strongly advises against these interventions before thirty-nine weeks unless medically necessary.
The experts also say doctors need to work with pregnant women to do a better job of estimating exactly when a pregnancy began.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| Report Calls Attention to Millions of Preterm Births | |
| 18 October 2009 |
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| A premature baby in a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey |
Prematurity is the leading cause of death in newborn babies. More than one-fourth of the four million newborns who die each year around the world were born too early.
Preterm babies that survive can suffer a lifetime of serious health conditions. The examples include cerebral palsy, blindness, hearing problems and learning disabilities. Families and communities face emotional, physical and financial costs.
Christopher Howson is the vice president for global programs at the March of Dimes, a nonprofit group. His group and the World Health Organization recently published a report called "The Global and Regional Toll of Preterm Birth."
CHRISTOPHER HOWSON: "Frankly the crisis of preterm birth is under-recognized, undercounted, undervalued and underfunded. I mean, this reports shows that thirteen million babies are born every year preterm, and that over a million of those babies die as a result of being born too early."
And these are just estimates; the true numbers could be even higher. More than eighty-five percent of preterm births happen in Africa and Asia. Africa has the highest rate, with about four million cases each year.
Chris Howson says many of the causes of preterm births are related to poverty and weak health-care systems.
CHRISTOPHER HOWSON: "For example, the poor overall health and nutritional status of women. A high burden of infectious diseases. Lack of provision of family planning -- allowing a women to decide when to start and end having children and how to space her children. And also the lack of good prenatal care programs that might identify problems early on in pregnancy."
Preterm births are a problem not just in the developing world. The combined rate in the United States and Canada is the second highest in the world. Preterm birth rates in the United States have increased thirty-six percent in the last twenty-five years.
This has been largely the result of two reasons. One is an increase in pregnancies among women over age thirty-five. The other is an increase in the use of reproductive therapies. Fertility treatments can produce multiple births, which increases the risk that the babies will arrive early.
One of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for two thousand fifteen is to reduce death rates in young children by two-thirds. Chris Howson says premature births must be reduced if that goal is to be met. What is being done about this issue? That will be our subject next week.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. Transcripts and MP3s are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
| Need an Answer? Just Ask the Box | |
| 11 October 2009 |
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| A Question Box in India |
A business and international development consultant in California, Rose Shuman, wanted to find an answer for them, too. Her solution is Question Box.
Question Box is a service that provides answers -- free of charge -- for people who cannot search the Internet directly. They might not be able to read, or they simply have no access.
Question Box began two years ago in India. People use a metal call box with a push-to-talk button to connect to a live operator, as Rose Shuman explains:
ROSE SHUMAN: "You just push a button, a big green button, and that will connect you directly to our operators who are sitting in front of computers, and speak your language. And you can ask them any sort of question you want, and they'll look it up in English or in Hindi, or whatever the main language is, and translate the answer right back for you."
The service is currently offered in two villages. The latest version of the box uses mobile phone technology, and solar panels in case the electrical power fails. Rose Shuman says the aim was to make the box as easy as possible for users.
ROSE SHUMAN: "Rather than try to bring a lot of infrastructure to them and expect them to learn how to use the Internet, the idea was to make a technology that even Grandma could use, figuring that Grandma could probably walk up to a box and push a button."
In April, Question Box expanded to Uganda. Forty community workers with mobile phones connect villagers to call center operators in Kampala. The community workers go around telling people about the service. They wear T-shirts that say "Ask Me."
But Internet service in Uganda proved slow and undependable. So Question Box teamed up with a local technology company to store information on a local server. That way, the researchers in Kampala can quickly search the database for answers.
Question Box is a project of Open Mind, a nonprofit organization founded by Rose Shuman. She says Question Box is working to expand by offering its software through partnerships.
In Uganda, Question Box formed a partnership with the Grameen Foundation. Grameen had money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to bring agricultural information to rural farmers. But users also ask about current events and many other subjects.
ROSE SHUMAN: "When was Mahatma Gandhi born, and how long is the Nile River? What's the tallest mountain? The funniest one I think we got was, 'Did the pyramids ever move to another place?' Which we found pretty funny. But we did look it up, and they haven't moved."
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| Houses Made of Straw | |
| 04 October 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
Today we bring you a new take on an old tale. It's the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf that blew down a house made of straw and one made of sticks. The only house left standing was the one made of bricks. Now there is new evidence to suggest that houses built with bales of straw can be very strong. They are also environmentally friendly.
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| Pete Walker and Katharine Beadle are leading the research at Bath |
During the next twelve months the team will study the effectiveness of these materials in home building. Professor Walker says there are many good reasons for using straw.
PETE WALKER: "One of the benefits is it's a relatively inexpensive renewable material that's readily available."
Professor Walker says straw takes in carbon dioxide as it grows. So it can be seen as having no harmful effects on the environment. He says straw helps the environment in other ways.
PETE WALKER: "The straw bales walls are relatively thick and so all that straw provides very good thermal insulation. So we make buildings that require very little heating in the winter or indeed very little cooling in the summer. So they require very little additional energy."
Professor Walker says this reduces home operating expenses. It also reduces the effect on the environment. He says the current interest in straw bale houses is a direct response to the problem of climate change.
David Lanfear owns an eco-friendly home building service in the United States called Bale on Bale Construction.
He says he laughed when some friends first told him about houses built of straw. But after doing his own research, he learned that building with straw bales makes a lot of sense. He has now helped to build more than ten straw bale houses and says the building material is becoming more widely accepted.
To build the houses, he fills a wood frame with tightly packed bales of straw. Next he coats the walls inside and out with layers of clay plaster. He says the common ideas about straw houses continue, including stories about the threat of fire. Mister Lanfear says straw bale houses have done well when tested for fire resistance. And he says his builders use the same building methods as traditional builders to keep out rain.
DAVID LANFEAR: "We use what we call good shoes and a good hat, and that would be a solid foundation and a really good roof."
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| For Health of Young People, a Mixed Picture | |
| 27 September 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
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| Children eat sugar cane near their home in Kumbali, Malawi earlier this year. UNICEF says the southern African country is among those where the child death rate is improving. |
Still, Brian Hansford at the United Nations Children's Fund says more work remains.
BRIAN HANSFORD: "Certainly the good news is that the rate of deaths of children under five years of age continued to decline in two thousand eight. The absolute number of child deaths declined to an estimated eight-point-eight million from twelve-point-five million in nineteen ninety. Compared to nineteen ninety, ten thousand fewer children are dying each day. The bad news is that an annual death total of eight-point-eight million is still a tragedy, and so there's still much to do."
One of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals is to reduce the under-five death rate by two-thirds by two thousand fifteen. One country that could reach this goal is Malawi. In nineteen ninety, there were two hundred twenty-five deaths for every one thousand live births. The estimate for last year was one hundred deaths.
UNICEF spokesman Brian Hansford says pneumonia and diarrhea remain the world's two greatest killers of young children. Ninety-three percent of the deaths happen in Africa and Asia.
A separate new study looked at deaths worldwide in young people age ten to twenty-four. It found that ninety-seven percent happen in low and middle income countries. And two out of every five are the result of injuries and violence.
Professor George Patton at Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, was the lead author.
GEORGE PATTON: "In high income countries such as the United States, the U.K. and Australia, death rates are around forty-five per hundred thousand per year. In sub-Saharan Africa we have the highest death rates in the world, and they are around seven times higher than that."
The study found that worldwide, more than two and a half million people age ten to twenty-four died in two thousand four. Nearly two-thirds were in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
Conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth were a leading cause of deaths in females. But for both sexes combined, the leading killer in this age group was traffic accidents. Ten percent of all the deaths were blamed on road injuries.
Next came suicide and violence. Also in the top ten causes were infections, including tuberculosis and H.I.V./AIDS, as well as drowning and fire-related deaths. The study appears in the journal The Lancet.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| Diseases Threaten Banana Crops in Africa | |
| 20 September 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
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| A Senegalese banana vendor in Dakar, Senegal |
Banana bacterial wilt was first reported in Ethiopia in the late nineteen sixties. In two thousand one it was found in Uganda. Since then it has spread to neighboring countries including Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The leaves of infected plants weaken and become yellow. They also leak a yellow liquid. The bananas ripen too quickly and begin to rot.
Farmers can unknowingly spread the infection with their cutting tools. Experts say by the time a farmer discovers that something is wrong, it is already too late. The crop must be destroyed.
Uganda is Africa's leading producer and consumer of bananas. The organization Biodiversity International reports losses of up to eighty percent in heavily affected areas of the country.
Farmers worry that a second disease could also spread to Uganda. Bunchy top disease causes all of the leaves to grow from the top of the banana plant. Infected plants produce small, abnormal fruit. Finally, they stop producing completely.
The International Institute for Tropical Agriculture says the disease is widely found in Gabon, Angola, Malawi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The institute's Rachid Hanna says farmers must destroy infected plants, normally by burning them. Bunchy top disease can spread from plant to plant and is also spread by aphids. These small insects must be destroyed. Rachid Hanna advises farmers to use biological controls such as natural enemies of the aphids.
He says bunchy top disease and banana bacterial wilt can both affect entire plantations. Not only are farm incomes affected, but so are local food supplies. Experts say more than thirty million people could be at risk of shortages unless a solution is found.
Scientists from around the world met in Tanzania last month to discuss the situation. Rachid Hanna says strong measures must be taken now to prevent a crisis in the future.
RACHID HANNA: "What is necessary in this case is a collective effort, not only by the researchers and the people on the ground, but also the donor community, because controlling those two diseases can go a long way in improving people's food security and livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa."
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
| Working With Clay: A How-to Guide | |
| 13 September 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
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| Clay |
Clay is important because it is used around the world to make containers of all kinds. Potters add water to soften the clay. This makes it easier to form into shapes by hand or by machine. Then it is fired in an extremely hot stove. The result is a container with a hard surface that will last for many years.
In many countries, clay was formed from volcanoes. This kind of clay usually contains many minerals. So the fires to make containers from volcanic clay must be hotter than those used for non-volcanic clay. The fires may be as hot as one thousand four hundred degrees Celsius.
It is also important to dry the clay containers slowly. This means that the highest temperature should not be reached too fast.
You can add materials to clay to gain desired results. For example, you can add sand to prevent tiny breaks or lines from forming in the finished product. But you should not use sand from the coasts of oceans. Instead, you should use sand from rivers or from other areas of land that are not near the sea.
You can usually find good clay in low areas of islands or land, especially if volcanoes helped form the land. Clay often exists in fields covered with some water. The clay will be found about one meter below the ground. River banks often also have clay about one meter or less under the surface.
You can recognize clay because it is very shiny when it is wet. You can also perform a test. Take some of the material and add enough water to it to make it seem like you are making bread. Then press it in your hand until it is about the size of an egg. It is probably clay if it holds together instead of falling apart when you stop pressing.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Gary Garriott. Guides to working with clay and other materials can be found on the EnterpriseWorks/VITA list of publications. These publications can be ordered for a charge. The list is available at enterpriseworks.org. Transcripts, MP3 and archives of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Chris Cruise.
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