It’s not.

Suicide bombing and targeting aid workers purposely shred the principle that war is between armed combatants. Rules of war or fighting aren’t an intellectual exercise. Protecting civilians is a vital principle if there is to be a nod to humanity and human rights in a battle zone. Bystanders to war should not become legitimate targets of war. Yet, it is happening more and more as these two stories from Devex indicate. And another looking at why aid work is risky.

What may be most scary about these attacks is that it’s hard to see how to restore the notion of civilians’ right to protection and need to be differentiated from combatants. Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s attempt to spread a Responsibility to Protect Civilians always will be limited because it is aimed at heads of state and governments, not at rebels and militias who also commit these atrocities. The easy accessibility of weapons gives the smallest band of thugs the ability to inflict damage that make foes and a larger public take notice. Thugs like the attention, like the destruction — that is victory enough for them. Any ideas on how to stem attacks on civilians?

UNICEF mobilizing for Qinghai earthquake disaster

Majority of primary schools collapsed, urgent need for tents, winter clothing

BEIJING, 15 April 2010 –UNICEF will send urgently needed relief supplies for children affected by yesterday’s massive earthquake. The response will be coordinated with other UN agencies. The quake heavily damaged parts of remote Yushu Prefecture, a region mostly populated by Tibetan herdsmen. The quake, which was measured 7.1 by Chinese scientists, destroyed much of Jiegu (Pop. 100,000), the main town of Yushu Prefecture.

Approximately 617 deaths have been reported along with 9,110 injuries. Some 313 persons are missing and 100,000 are without shelter. On Wednesday night, many of Jiegu’s residents slept outside in sub-zero temperatures. The total population of Yushu Prefecture is 357,000 and the child population is 122,700.

According to Qinghai health authorities the maternal and child health hospital in Yushu County has collapsed in the earthquake. There is an urgent need for medical supplies and childbirth equipment.
 
“We are organizing assistance to support the Chinese government’s disaster response with a focus on the special needs of children and women,” said Dr. Yin Yin Nwe, UNICEF Representative and UN Disaster Management Team Chair in China. “We are in constant consultation with our government partners to gather necessary information and it appears that there has been extensive destruction to homes, health facilities and schools.” 

According to local education bureau officials, 80 per cent of primary schools and 50 per cent of secondary schools in Yushu have been severely damaged affecting 22,719 students and 1,086 teachers. Although the quake struck before the start of classes on Wednesday morning, about half of the students in the sparsely populated region attend boarding schools. Authorities have requested UNICEF support to provide school tents, warm clothing, quilts and learning kits. 

As of late Wednesday at least 56 students and five teachers had been reported killed in the quake. Many more students are missing and thought to be buried. Complete information is still difficult to obtain in the remote mountainous area on the border between Qinghai Province and Tibet.

The most urgent humanitarian needs right now are for food, water, tents, shelter, clothes, blankets, quilts, essential household items, medical supplies and rescue equipment. At this time of year in this mountainous region temperatures reach below freezing overnight. UNICEF has emergency stocks of school tents, children’s winter clothes and blankets on hand and ready to be dispatched.

About UNICEF in China:
UNICEF first assisted China between 1947 and 1951, providing emergency services, food and nutrition, health and hygiene training during and after the war of liberation. In 1979 UNICEF officially commenced its cooperation with the Government of China to support child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence.

Journalistically speaking, the camera man took enormous risks to get this footage. That bravery makes the film all the more important. Because the junta is successful in closing out the world does not mean the world should walk away from the suffering going on there. Journalism is at its best when it shines a light on a human condition that has been pushed into the dark.

GLOBAL: WHO move boosts fight against fatal diarrhoea

DAKAR, 9 June 2009 (IRIN) - The World Health Organization has paved the way for children in Africa and Asia to be vaccinated against a diarrhoea-causing virus that kills some 500,000 children annually worldwide - 85 percent of them in African and Asian developing countries.

WHO has recommended that the vaccine for rotavirus - the leading cause of severe and often fatal diarrhoea and dehydration in under-five children - be included in national immunization programmes worldwide.

As of 2007 the organization had said more research was needed on the vaccine’s efficacy in developing countries with high child mortality; new data from clinical trials has led WHO to recommend global use of the vaccine, according to a 5 June communiqué.

The decision means poor countries in Asia and Africa can now apply for funding to include rotavirus vaccines in their national immunization programmes.

“This [vaccine] will significantly reduce mortality and morbidity of rotavirus disease,” Samba Ousmane Sow, associate professor of medicine at University of Maryland and coordinator of the Centre for Vaccine Development in Mali, told IRIN.

“For rotavirus, as with many infectious diseases, mortality is often a question of geography,” he said. “For the many people in rural Africa who cannot easily access medical care, the best and most practical solution [against this lethal illness] is to bring the vaccine to them.”

A child with rotavirus disease - which causes fever, vomiting and diarrhoea - can rapidly become dehydrated. Death from rotavirus is most common where there is no quick access to medical care, so vaccination is the most effective way to prevent severe cases and deaths, experts say.

Transmitted primarily by the faecal-oral route, the virus affects the vast majority of children globally before age three, according to WHO. The virus attacks the villi - tiny projections on the wall of the small intestine. Destruction of the affected cells reduces digestion and absorption of nutrients, resulting in diarrhoea with a loss of fluids.

The virus is resilient and traditional hygiene measures that might prevent other sanitation-related illnesses are not sufficient to limit its impact, according to PATH, an international health non-profit and one of the organizations conducting vaccine trials with WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).

http://www.path.org/  

 http://www.gavialliance.org/  

But given that there are many causes of diarrhoeal disease, the rotavirus vaccine must be part of a comprehensive control strategy, including improving water quality, hygiene and sanitation and providing oral rehydration solution and zinc supplements, WHO says in its communiqué.

 ”This [oral] vaccine, coupled with improvement of sanitation and hygiene, can shrink the gamut of diarrheoal diseases within a population,” George Armah, professor and rotavirus expert at Ghana’s Noguchi Memorial Insitute for Medical Research, told IRIN in the Senegalese capital Dakar, where he was attending a meeting of the West Africa rotavirus advisory group. “But we know that hygiene alone does not eliminate the rotavirus, hence the urgent need for this vaccine.”

 Armah noted that now governments will have to prepare an investment plan for including rotavirus vaccine in their immunization programmes. The GAVI Alliance uses a co-financing approach, in which countries procure some vaccines with non-GAVI funds; the intention is for countries to gradually increase their share of vaccines’ cost, making immunization programmes sustainable.

http://www.gavialliance.org/vision/policies/new_vaccines/cofinancing/index.php

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