Tuesday 22 December 2015

A Bummer of a Year

Twenty-fifteen has been a strange year, so it would be good to see the back of it. From the very get-go the year served notice that it was going to be a bad one. The opening salvo was in Paris when terrorists attacked the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, killing 11 and injuring 11 others of its staff.  And this was in the background of a world already made anxious by an Ebola epidemic that some feared was poised to drag us to the brink of a holocaust. I hesitate to use the word “pandemic” because it evokes a worldwide sweep that, at no time, was ever the case. Official and unofficial news outlets, however, were not so circumspect, perhaps because muscular headlines sell newspapers, attract eyeballs and generate hits on websites, creating income, which seems to be the be-all and end-all of our modern age.
But as the year progressed, there emerged another altogether more sinister calculus involving the use of language and imagery, deployed primarily through the internet and its darker platforms, social media, wherein Dayesh, Islamic State (so-called), or ISIS grabbed attention. Whatever your preferred term for them, their intent was simple: terrify the rest of us into accepting a bankrupt ideology whose ultimate aim is world domination. They will not succeed. 
       Talking about generating income, a small company in America, Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired exclusive rights to a six-decade old anti-parasite drug and raised its price by more than 5000%. The company's CEO, Martin Shkreli, added salt to wounds of the body politic by rejoicing that these were the kinds of actions that make American capitalism great. A few months on, I am not ashamed to admit to a measure of schadenfreude when I hear that Shkreli has been arrested for alleged activities that went beyond being just morally reprehensible to being criminal.  
America's greatness continued to be placed in doubt too by its citizens’ obsession with guns. Reports say that the number of mass gun attacks by its civilians against their fellow Americans during the year exceeds the number of days that have elapsed since the beginning of 2015. Their president deplores the insanity and, rightly, preaches against it, but those with a vested interest in the status quo mock him and remain adamant that they will never abandon their right to own guns. No, never. At the same time, law-enforcement officers in that country, perhaps taking their cue from the general public, shoot down unarmed black men who pose no threat.
The freedom to own as many guns as you like in America is scary enough, but even scarier is the emergence of a potential candidate for the 2016 presidential election whose pronouncements from the hustings  presage fire and brimstone should the man, whose pet name is “The Donald”, win the White House. Perhaps we worry too much, especially now that Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin have recently declared themselves each others’ best friend.
Do we also worry too much when we see some African countries changing or attempting to change their constitutions to allow sitting presidents to run for more than two terms? Obama warned us about the dangers in the tendency and even lampooned it when he addressed the African Union during his visit to the continent in July.  But apparently no one was amused.  Rwanda went on to change its constitution to allow Mr Kagame to remain in office till 2034, while in neighbouring Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza  has won a third term in a controversial vote that is being disputed with violence with the potential of degenerating into ethnic mass killings to which that country is no stranger. In Sierra Leone, too, there has been a lot of talk about allowing incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma to have another go beyond his current second five-year term. The man himself has been strangely mute about the idea, leaving his sycophants to do all the talking.  
One other image that has captured the imagination during this year of images is that of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose body washed up on a Turkish beach during the summer as his family tried to seek refuge from the chaos that has plagued Syria for the past five years. The absurd death of this boy in such appalling circumstances touched hearts in many parts of the world, including in Canada where the Kurdi family have relatives too, and at a time also when Canadians were involved in a federal election.  It was a death that demanded responses from our political leaders and it is not an exaggeration to say that the outcome of the election was influenced, in part, by the responses of the leaders of the main political parties to the human tragedy encapsulated in that image. In the event, Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party of Canada were returned in a massive majority, a result that repositions Canada as a caring and humane place.
In other ways, we have also worried during 2015 about securing “safe places” - in universities and other institutions of higher learning which, when compared to the plight of millions seeking safety in dire real-life circumstances, seems trivial. Mind you, I have nothing against safety wherever we go, protected from physical harm and other dangers. But it is ridiculous that people at universities should be protected from the rough and tumble of intellectual discourse or new ideas. This new sensitivity reached its nadir when, in November, free yoga lessons were suspended at the University of Ottawa because, wait for it, yoga was deemed a “cultural appropriation”.
Also, in November, one of the worst urban atrocities of the year took place, again in Paris, when Islamist gunmen in a coordinated series of attacks, opened fire at various venues in a northern suburb where people were gathered for a weekend’s relaxation. One hundred and thirty were killed. One response by the French government was to launch the heaviest attack against ISIL in Syria, ratcheting up the violence even further.
There has been a slight glimmer of hope for the world though, when in late November early December ,195 nations agreed on a framework document for reducing CO2 emissions to a level that will prevent the Earth’s temperature from rising to a level well below 2oCelsius. This is excellent, because any other concerns about what else ails our world become totally irrelevant in a world utterly destroyed by climate change. It is also hughely satisfying that the threat that Ebola presented in West Africa has now receded.
So, I think I am cheerful enough now to wish you good cheer during this Christmas (if you celebrate) and for 2016 to be less troubled than 2015. Perhaps not too much to ask?
          Tell Fren Tru



Thursday 3 December 2015

An Ally of Barbarism




During the 18 months that Ebola was grabbing headlines, malaria was quietly killing by the million. This is the estimate the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) made of the number dying in Africa from that infection during our year of Ebola (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7572/full/nature15535.html)
 At the same time, MAP reports also that the overall incidence of malaria fell by 40% in the period 2000 to 2015. This was really good news, as 40% translated to a whopping 663 million clinical infections avoided. Bed nets treated with insecticide (ITN) was the most significant contributor to this decline in cases and deaths, MAP state. I should say though, that my experience with the ITN has not been that spectacular. I can testify to nightly engagements, armed with a weaponized electronic racquet, battling mosquitoes that refuse to die after gaining entry into my ITN. Obviously my second-line defence (chemo-prophylaxis) against the pests is effective enough because I have not, in recent years, suffered a single bout of the infection. But one and a half million deaths due to the infection among others in just one year is no joking matter.Any help in reducing this number, therefore, is more than welcome, and Britain’s recently announced gift of £1 billion (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34892921) to help further the fight is hugely important.  Kudos to the Brits.
Malaria has been mankind’s implacable enemy probably ever since man gave up his hunting and gathering ways. The infection has been intractable not only because of its intrinsic biological sorcery but also because of environmental and economic factors as well. So any injection of new money is to be celebrated. The UK donation is to be added to funds provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, creating a powerful synergy that should, once and for all, eliminate the pestilence.
          Still, in 2015, one cannot help but look back over the last century or so with something like awe, during which, one would have expected that the billions hitherto invested, should have yielded more ample dividends: Infection rates should be near zero by now, surely? Perhaps billions are not enough: A recent study has concluded that total spend remains much lower than the need. We should be looking at trillions, then? Besides, funding, when available, may not be always targeted at where it would do most good. Judging by the more than 2500 notifications of papers in peer-reviewed journals that land in my inbox every year, there must be among them, many that could be hardly fit for purpose. Obviously, a few, over the years have yielded worthwhile results. This year, the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to three researchers. Half of the prize money went to the Chinese pharmaceutical chemist, Youyou Tu for her work in demonstrating the effectiveness of a herbal-derived remedy, artemisinin, as highly effective therapy for malaria. This award was more than 108 years after the prize was given to Frenchman Alphonse Laveran for demonstrating that malaria was caused by a blood parasite, and 113 years after the prize went to Ronald Ross, a Brit, for showing that the parasite was transmitted to humans by the bite of mosquitoes. Incidentally, in 1899, Ross was commissioned to find out why British soldiers in Sierra Leone were dying of malaria in such numbers. His discovery that the mosquitoes responsible for transmission bred in stagnant pools of water on the lowland plains around Freetown, led to the segregation of white British workers up on a range of hills at what became known as Hill Station. This was how, in 1904, physical racial segregation was born in Sierra Leone. Earlier, during his Nobel Lecture in 1902, Ross had declared of malaria: “There it strikes down, not only the indigenous barbaric population, but, with still greater certainty, the pioneers of civilization, the planter, the trader, the missionary, the soldier. It is therefore the principal and gigantic ally of barbarism. No wild deserts, no savage races, no geographical difficulties have proved so inimical to civilization as this disease.” My emphases.
But that was then and Ross has long been forgiven and is now rightly celebrated for his scientific work..
          The issue now in 2015 is to find ways of eradicating malaria entirely.

Tell Fren Tru