ONE Trip to Kenya & Tanzania 2011
Tomorrow, the BBC will be at the Langata Health Center in Nairobi to do a story on the new pneumococcal vaccine now being given here, although the official vaccine launch is not until Valentine’s Day. ONE photographer Morgana Wingard and I are there today, so we fully intend to take credit for scooping the BBC.
Babies at Langata Health Facility in Nairobi receive the pneumococcal vaccine
Here’s why this new vaccine is so important: In the developing world, pneumonia kills in the neighborhood of 1.4 million kids every year. Pneumococcal, the deadliest strain of that illness (and a major cause of what we might call “regular” pneumonia), kills 800,000. Call me crazy, but this new vaccine to prevent pneumococcal is a Really. Big. Deal.
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Yesterday, Republican strategist Rich Galen wrote another column about his trip to Africa with ONE on his website, Mullings. This time around, he was in Tanzania, learning about malaria and modern agriculture methods:
On malaria:
“In some places, through testing, treatment and prevention activities like spraying and nets deaths from malaria — especially in children under five years including the unborn — have been reduced from as high as 41 percent to less than one percent.”
And due to a new farming contraption…
“A kilo of tomatoes went from about 30 cents to the local equivalent of a dollar. We asked a farmer what, if any effect, the increase in earnings had on his life. He told us that he and his family no longer had to wait for the evening meal to eat. With this new-found wealth they could have a meal at mid-day. They could now afford … lunch.”
Read the full column, “It’s Just Lunch” on Mr. Galen’s website.
Democratic Internet consultant Anne Lewis meets with an enterprising group of Kenyans eager to take advantage of Africa’s growing trade opportunities.
Rachel, an African clothing designer
Last Tuesday, we had a day dedicated to expanding trade. The argument for expanded trade is incredibly simple: Today African GDP is $1.6 trillion. By 2020, it’s expected to grow to $2.6 trillion. Get on the train or get left behind. Simple yes, but not easy.
Why not easy? To attract meaningful foreign direct investment, Kenya has to contain the AIDS epidemic, root out corruption, implement a newly ratified constitution and address its massive infrastructure problem — and that’s just the list of the obvious.
Altogether, that amounts to a pretty steep hill to climb. But there is a mountain of proverbs about climbing a mountain, and they all boil down to one thing: persistence.
Climbing that mountain is the job of today’s guests.
Jaz heads up the Kenyan version of the National Association of Manufacturers. He’s a big, affable guy with a great pitch. He argues that with a huge youth population, new technology and the new constitution, Kenya is poised for big changes. He describes the African economy as “the last economic frontier,” apparently unconcerned about what a double edged sword that can be.
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J.B. Poersch, former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, recounts his experience at the Global Fund-supported Mbagathi District Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. Read more blog posts from the trip here.
Putting heads together can accomplish a lot. But count on the heart to really cut to the matter.
Our traveling delegation is meeting with health care professionals in Nairobi, Kenya, attempting to gain a handle on the myriad of challenges for an urban hospital to serve a poor population with a high rate of HIV.
ONE delegation learns about about services provided for HIV through Mbagathi District Hospital
Questions fly in every direction. Determined health care administrators cite institutional policy and bureaucratic channels in dealing with the challenges facing them.
And then, in the midst of the white coats and wonk talk, stands a young Kenyan in a worn athletic jacket:
“I should of died of AIDS in 2002. I didn’t because of the care I get here. But the biggest fear I have now is not getting the drug I need daily two years from now. Even 10 years from now.”
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In case you haven’t heard, a prominent group of US political consultants are on a trip to Kenya and Tanzania with ONE. Why? So they can see just how much has been accomplished in health and development in Africa for themselves. We were particularly proud to see that Republican strategist Rich Galen — one of the members of the group — wrote a column about his first experiences in Nairobi on his website, Mullings.
After visiting several Kenyan projects that have benefited from US funding, Mr. Galen wrote:
“At a time when State budgets and the Federal budget are being squeezed through fine fiscal strainers looking for any available dollars, we should take great care before we reduce or eliminate programs which are doing what they were designed to do, within the budgets they were granted, and for which America and Americans are getting due credit.”
Read the rest of his column here and be sure to read his recent blog post on the ONE Blog.
When we all arrived in Kisumu, Kenya this morning, none of us had a real handle on how full -– and fulfilling — our day would be. Nor did we have any idea how much we would learn.
Alex Vogel, one of my fellow travelers, has described the basics of the programs in his blog post today. I agree when he says that program descriptions are great, but it is seeing their reality that is most important.
I also was able to participate in a home HIV-testing visit — although, to a family in a village of 62 homes. Happily, both parents were negative, but all three young children had hacking coughs and needed to be taken to the clinic, an hour’s walk away. The CDC community health worker will follow up with them to ensure they get there.
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Alex Vogel, former chief counsel to Sen. Frist and the NRSC, is on a trip with ONE in Kenya and Tanzania. Today, he had a chance to see a real example of American funding that is providing real world, real time help to people who need it.
We left Nairobi today and flew out west to Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya, on the shores of Lake Victoria. After a 50 or 60km drive (that felt like 500 or 600km because of the road quality), we reached the US Army Medical Research Unit/Kenya Medical Research Institute/Walter Reed Project. This joint effort is a 41-year collaboration between the United States Army and the Kenyan government to do research on the treatment and diagnosis of tropical diseases like malaria.
A home-based HIV counselor and testing worker walks through several hundred yards of pasture and rough grazing land to reach his patients.
That’s the top line, bureaucratic description of the project. The reality is far more interesting and important.
It is the place where the rubber meets the road, however unpaved it might be. What was so amazing to me was how, 50 km up a road so potholed that we often drove more smoothly on the dirt shoulder — these rural residents were participating in malaria vaccine trials that are as professional, as well run and organized as anything our children could participate in back in the States.
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