A year has passed since fighting in South Sudan sent the country into crisis. The conflict has yet to be resolved and the resulting instability is putting people at risk of hunger. From the New York Times:
The international aid community had feared famine, but an injection of food supplies by the World Food Program and other groups helped prevent that. But if the fighting resumes on a wide scale, the specter of famine could return in 2015, the aid groups warned.
Concern about South Sudan is waning abroad, and the country is at risk of becoming “yet another forgotten state,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday.
“The spotlight may have turned away from South Sudan in recent months, but needs remain enormous and the situation is still serious,” said Franz Rauchenstein, the leader of the Red Cross delegation in South Sudan. “People caught up in this conflict cannot be forgotten.”
The two sides have signed several peace deals brokered by neighboring governments, but none have actually stopped the warfare.
Much of the violence has pitted two ethnic groups against each other: the Dinka, who back Mr. Kiir, and the Nuer, who support Mr. Machar. Atrocities have been committed by both sides, including the killings of older patients in hospital wards and the slaughter of hundreds of civilians in Juba, the capital, last December, according to human rights groups.
South Sudan peacefully broke away from Sudan in 2011 after decades of war, becoming the world’s newest nation. But the outbreak of violence last year shattered the good will the country had built up internationally.
South Sudan’s cycle of ethnic revenge killings has created an urgent need to hold those responsible to account, said the group Human Rights Watch, adding that the war’s abuses should be investigated as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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Global Health and Development Beat
The failure of Sierra Leone’s strategy for fighting Ebola may be down to a missing ingredient: a big shock that could change people’s behavior and finally prevent further infection, reports Reuters.
Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health, speaks with Devex about the Ebola response and the need for health systems.
In their struggle to protect Pakistani children from polio, female immunization workers have faced the brunt of attacks aimed at polio teams in Balochistan. Threats and intimidation have been a constant in their lives and the recent killings of polio workers in the southwestern province have invoked a deep sense of insecurity among the female volunteers and lady health workers.
As regions begin to recover, Ebola survivors now must deal with the after-effects on their health caused by the virus, reports Al Jazeera from Sierra Leone.
Twenty Kenyan girls were forcefully circumcised in two villages in Marakwet East sub-county, reports The Star.
At least 10 people are dead and more than 100 hospitalised in Mogadishu, Somalia after drinking water from a contaminated well in the city’s Yaqshid district, Radio Bar-Kulan reported.
Liberia will hold delayed senatorial elections on Dec. 20, the National Election Commission said on Sunday, a day after the Supreme Court ruled the vote should go ahead despite the Ebola outbreak in the West African country.
The new Samantha Power profile in the New Yorker demonstrates her role in focusing US government attention on the crisis in the Central African Republic and Ebola.
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Buzzing in the Blogs
Bill Gates highlights some stories you might have missed from this year, in his Gates Notes blog. Here are a few:
More Fifth Birthdays Than Ever Before
To me, one of the best ways to measure progress is to look at how many children are dying of preventable causes. And today, more kids are living to see their fifth birthday than ever before. This year, for at least the 42nd year in a row, the child mortality rate has fallen. And it’s not just moving in the right direction—it’s falling faster than anyone expected. The Economist ran a great article about this in September, where it estimated that just since 2001, the world has saved 13.6 million children’s lives. It’s hard to think of a better sign the world is improving.
We Hit a Big Milestone in Fighting AIDS
The world has done an impressive job of providing treatment to people living with HIV. But for years we were falling behind, because for all the people who started getting treatment, even more would become infected. Not anymore, though. New data released this month show that 2013 was the first year when more people started getting treatment than became infected with HIV. Why does that matter? Because treating people not only keeps them alive, it also dramatically reduces the odds that they will pass the virus on to anyone else. As the epidemiologists say, we can start to bend the curve of the disease. We still have a long way to go before we can declare the end of AIDS, but this is a big milestone.
Nigeria’s Fight Against Polio Helped Its Fight Against Ebola
A lot of the media coverage about Nigeria this year focused on two things: Ebola and terrorism. Both are frightening, and they masked the fact that from a global health perspective, Nigeria actually had a pretty good year. Although it’s one of only three countries that have never been free from polio (Pakistan and Afghanistan are the other two), I don’t think it will be on that list for long. Nigeria has reported only six cases of polio this year, compared to more than 50 last year. What’s more, the infrastructure Nigeria has built to fight polio actually made it easier for them to swiftly contain Ebola. The fact that Nigeria is now Ebola free is a great example of how doing the work to fight things like fighting polio also leaves countries better prepared to deal with outbreaks of other diseases.
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Capital Events
Tuesday
5:30 PM – Ebola: The Culture of Preparing for and Recovering from Pandemics – Va Tech
Wednesday
9:00 AM – Emerging Priorities for Maternal Health in Nigeria – Wilson Center
4:30 PM – Global Health Market Shaping Forum: Discussion of the Practice and Potential – CGD
Thursday
12:30 PM – Health-Wealth Trade-offs: Effects of Mineral Mining in Developing Countries – CGD
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By Mark Leon Goldberg and Tom Murphy
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Disclaimer: Opinions presented in this email do not necessarily reflect the views of PSI.
