From AF-AIDS:

Delivering a speech at today’s opening session of the 16th Conference of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé congratulated leaders across the region for their personal commitment to the HIV response, specifically with regard to upholding human rights and protecting human capital. Addressing eight Heads of State and other high-level participants in Lomé, Togo, he called on African leaders to reduce their “triple dependency” on external sources for HIV drugs, commodities, and technologies.

Mr Sidibé noted that an estimated 630 000 people living with HIV in West Africa currently receive antiretroviral medicines, representing about 30% coverage. A vast majority of HIV drugs dispensed in Africa are imported, he added.

To ensure the health and security of their populations, African leaders should focus greater attention and resources on the local production of medicines, said the UNAIDS Executive Director. “In the future, regional and global power and national stability will be determined not by who controls arms, but by who controls access to medicines,” he said.

The development and production of medicines is expected to be a major growth industry in the 21st century.  According to IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, the global pharmaceutical market is set to reach more than US $1 trillion in sales by 2015.  African countries represent 25% of the global health burden but control just $10 billion—or 1%—of the global medicines market.

“This is a sector poised for growth, and can serve to generate African innovation, strengthen systems, save lives and advance security,” said Mr Sidibé.

During his address, the UNAIDS Executive Director outlined four proposals to boost West Africa’s market share of HIV drugs and other medicines: establish and enable local pharmaceutical production to reduce dependency on imported medicines; remove trade barriers to allow for the emergence of pharmaceutical production hubs that can serve the regional market; strengthen national drug regulatory authority and increasingly harmonize regulatory policies across the region; and advance research and development to build Africa’s knowledge-based economy.

Noting that no single country, ministry or leader could advance these proposals alone, Mr Sidibé called for increased national and regional partnership across a variety of sectors, including trade, industrial development and health.

Later in the day, the UNAIDS Executive Director participated in a separate meeting with African Heads of State attending the conference. Echoing Mr Sidibé’s earlier comments, the Heads of State reemphasized the need for innovative financing mechanisms to address Africa’s HIV response.

A French designer Maxime Pécourt has created a series of movie posters, using the cult object of each movie.  Click here for the other super cool posters

I like to think I can shake my butt with the best of them, but these days the trouble is that my butt keeps shaking long after the music has stopped and less flabby people have gone home. I may exaggerate the duration, but the act is fact, unfortunate but true. I joined a Zumba class last week, primarily because it was cheap, and I can take the kids (the whole family can enjoy the hilarity of playback as enacted by my children, joy!), and it’s close to home, and the winter weight is telling, and I’ve been meaning to get some exercise …. so, lots of reasons to go.

Anyway, I arrive, water bottle and hand towel at the ready.  We are a mixed bunch of people, and at this point I’m feeling a little smug (read: I’m not the fattest). There are a couple of youngsters (twenty-somethings) with a full face of make-up on, making eyes at the instructor (who is all of 18) – but not for long. At least 1 bows out half way in a bid to retain what mascara remains and to retire to the bathroom to fix her hair (smug, again). There’s a girl and her mom, allegedly on holiday from Holland (I think it’s a plot myself). There are some overweight ladies, apparently ready to make a change (am not sure what they think the Energade will achieve – probably more calories in a bottle than you can burn in 45 minutes) – you can see I am setting myself up for some well-deserved slapping down can’t you?

I probably made a good 15 minutes of uncoordinated effort to keep up, little realizing that I had an unattractively red face by this stage and it was obvious to all that I wasn’t able to follow the instructor’s “breathe through your nose, exhale through your mouth” – my lungs were bellowing, no chance to close my mouth!  In the corner of my eye, the daughter and her mother happily persevering at a steady but unfaltering pace (it may seem trivial, but I will come back to this later). I did not give up, but I was the only participant (read: contestant) that had no water left by the end of the session. You catch the drift.

The next day I was happy to note that I had no muscle pain (smug), so I rolled into the next Zumba class with the mistaken belief that I couldn’t be as unfit as I thought.  This week more youngsters in hot pants and make-up, (word is out that the instructor is a hottie and will chat to you after class even if you have ducked half the workout and spent the time in the toilets like a teenager …. what am I saying, he IS a teenager!). Me? I drag my sweaty pits home as quickly as I can pack up the children, this is NO time to hang about, perspiring and red-faced and with barely sufficient breath to shout for the kids, never mind conversation!  Anyhow, I see the daughter again and ask solicitously after her mother (read: smug) and blow me down with an anchovy if she doesn’t say, “Oh, you mean my grandmother …” – who is apparently game viewing in Hwange and has therefore missed her weekly workout, the one she attends when she’s not cycling (as you do, Dutch and 80 in the shade) or judo or swimming. Enough said.

All I know is, if I can do that amount of jumping up and down at her age, without the assistance and protection of a nappy, I’ll be …SMUG (was going for grateful, but honesty won out).

It really sad when we learn that police officers manning road blocks lose their lives or get injured by drivers who fail to stop at their signal to do so. It is sad to lose life in such ways. This issue of how police officers man roadblocks needs serious attention because it can develop into an order of the day to hear such sad news. And I can bet that with ZINARA canceling its vehicle licensing deadline extension, there is likely going to be trouble on the roads as police officers try to check new license discs on each vehicle…as defaulters try to escape from these ‘points’ of check…as police officers try to make an ATM transaction with each defaulter.

If the truth were told our police force has turned into thugs on the roads. They sprout out on each road the ‘movie style’, I saw you and you didn’t see me kind of stuff, which is really silly and dangerous. Some of these ‘road blocks’ are located at blind spots and some police officers have a pompous way of putting themselves in front of moving traffic. What do you expect when every few minutes there are cops jumping from bushes or alleys into the road trying to stop cars?

What happened to the ‘Police Ahead’ signs? Have they been phased out by some new law or amendment? Wherever these are hiding they should be taken and made use of to avoid the loss of life of our police officers. It’s funny hey. Its like driving without a seat belt on, one is putting their life at risk. So can we safely say those officers who set ‘instant’ roadblocks (except in the case of speed traps) are placing themselves at risk?