Rhino Killings for Horns Rapidly Rise in South Africa

By the time ranchers found the rhinoceros calf wandering alone in this idyllic setting of scrub brush and acacia, the nature reserve had become yet another blood-soaked crime scene in South Africa‘s losing battle against poachers.


Hunters killed eight rhinos at the private Finfoot Game Reserve inside the Vaalkop Dam Nature Reserve this month with single rifle shots that pierced their hearts and lungs. The poachers’ objective: the rhinos’ horns, cut away with knives and popped off the dead animals‘ snouts for buyers in Asia who pay the U.S. street value of cocaine for a material they believe cures diseases.

That insatiable demand for horns has sparked the worst recorded year of rhino poaching in South Africa in decades, with at least 588 rhinos killed so far, their carcasses rotting in private farms and national parks. Without drastic change, experts warn that soon the number of rhinos killed will outpace the number of the calves born — putting the entire population at risk in a nation that is the last bastion for the prehistoric-looking animals.

The horns are sold by criminal gangs and smuggled into Asia. While poachers have been shot dead and hundreds of suspects arrested this year, the rhino killings continue unstopped largely because the trade is transnational and worth millions of dollars, said Julian Rademeyer, a journalist in South Africa who wrote “Killing for Profit,” a book on rhino poaching that came out this month.

Rhino horn is made of keratin, a tough protein found in human fingernails. Doctors have repeatedly said the material has no medical value. In Asia, however, demand for rhino horn has jumped dramatically. Experts blame it partly on a widespread rumor in Vietnam that rhino horn cures cancer, though some elite Vietnamese grind up horn and take it as a hangover cure or as a fever reducer.

“This is a full-on bush war we are fighting,” said Marc Lappeman, who runs the Finfoot reserve with his father Miles and has begun armed vigilante patrols to protect the remaining rhinos there. “We here are willing to die for these animals.”

Unchecked hunting nearly killed off all the rhinos in southern Africa at the beginning of the 1900s. Conservationists in the 1960s airlifted rhinos to different parts of South Africa to spread them out. That helped the population grow to the point that South Africa is now home to some 20,000 rhinos — 90 percent of all rhinos in Africa.

From the 1990s to 2007, rhino poachings in South Africa averaged about 15 a year, according to a recent report by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC. In 2008, however, poachers killed 83 rhinos and by 2009, the number hit 122, the report says.

The killings grew exponentially after that: 333 in 2010, 448 in 2011 and as of Tuesday, at least 588 rhino killed this year alone, according to South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs.

Most of the killings, according to government statistics, occur in South Africa’s massive Kruger National Park, covering 19,400 square kilometers (7,500 square miles) in the country’s northeast abutting its borders with Mozambique and Zimbabwe. There, the impoverished slip across the park’s borders, largely from Mozambique, to kill and dehorn rhino, earning the equivalent of months’ wages in a single night of hunting. South Africa has deployed soldiers in the park with dogs to sniff out poachers, but their small force can’t sufficiently cover a park that’s roughly the same size as New Jersey.


The World Wildlife Fund ranked Vietnam as the worst country for wildlife crime in Asia and Africa in July. The country is seen as having lax laws on importing horns. Diplomats at the Vietnamese Embassy in South Africa’s capital Pretoria have also been linked to trafficking. Earlier this month, a South African court sentenced a Thai national to 40 years in prison for selling rhino horns.

One wounded mother rhino walked all the way to the property’s edge, finally dying on a dirt road to be found first thing that morning.

“She had physically come to the road to die, to say, ‘I’m dying, come fetch my calf,’” Lappeman said.

Source: (http://world.time.com/2012/11/28/rhino-killings-for-horns-rapidly-rise-in-s-africa/#ixzz2F57k5tS5)

Lack of Science Capacity "Threatens Africa's Development"

"The "remarkable recent economic growth" in many African countries may be able to sustain science through domestic funding (rather than through external sources) — but a lack of scientists and research capacity is threatening to reel back that economic growth, a meeting has heard.

The gross domestic product (GDP) of many African countries has been growing at a rate of 6–8 per cent each year, amounting to almost doubling of GDPs every decade.

But unlike in China, South Asia and South-East Asia, where there was a surplus of scientists, engineers, doctors and teachers trained at the early stages of countries' development, in most African countries there are up to 1,000 times fewer scientists than in Asian countries in the equivalent state of development.

The new funding initiative, totalling US$24 million, will work towards meeting that goal by funding the establishment of 30 research consortia, with top grants exceeding £1 million (US$1.6 million) over a five-year period.

Whitty admitted that capacity building is very difficult as practitioners still do not know what works and what does not. Furthermore, he reiterated, capacity building has to be long-term, as the time it takes for a primary school child to develop into an active adult researcher takes decades. It would also require a multi-disciplinary approach, he said.

A 40 per cent fall in child mortality rates over the past decade was an "astonishing achievement," backed up by strong science and infrastructure improvements.

"By the end of this century a third of the world's population will be African and living in Africa," he said. "Science is critical for Africa — [and] for the rest of the world."

Shem Arungu-Olende, secretary-general of the African Academy of Sciences, said: "Africa's development has been lagging behind the rest of the world because of, among other things, inadequate science and technological activities, including research and development".

"The situation has been worsened by the lure of talented African scientists to better, more lucrative positions and institutions overseas."

Arungu-Olende highlighted the importance and timeliness of the new capacity building initiative for Africa, but said the sustainability of the initiative beyond the five-year grant was "critically important"."

Source: (http://www.scidev.net/en/sub-suharan-africa/news/lack-of-science-capacity-threatens-africa-s-development-.html) 

Sleeping Sickness

   To people in the medical field, the Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), or Sleeping Sickness, is known as a fatal and much neglected disease. The disease is transmitted by the tsetse fly that carries a parasite. These flies are "found in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, putting 60 million people at risk. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) figures, trypanosomiasis affects 50,000 to 70,000 people each year." The WHO estimates the current number of cases are between these two figures. The disease had almost disappeared in the 1960's, but has come back with a vengeance due to war, population movements, and the collapse of health systems over the past two decades.

   HAT is transmitted to humans through the bite of the infected tsetse fly. "The first stage of sleeping sickness presents with non-specific symptoms such as fever and weakness." When caught in such early stages, the disease can easily be treated. If it goes untreated, the second stage sets in. The victim then suffers confusion, violent behavior, or convulsions. "Patients with sleeping sickness experience an inability to sleep at night but are overcome by sleep during the day. If left untreated, the disease inevitably leads to coma and death."

   The drug most commonly used to treat HAT is "melarsoprol" which is a derivative of arsenic. Treatment from this drug is excruciatingly painful and potentially fatal. Patients often describe it as "fire in the veins," between 5 and 20 percent of those treated die of complications from the injected drug. A safer, alternative treatment is available that consists of a combination of two drugs. It represents an improved therapy for patients, but it is not ideal. This is because it is complicated to administer and requires increased patient monitoring which is frequently unavailable in sub-Saharan Africa. 

   The foundation "Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)" has been treating patients with the disease for over 20 years. Last year they treated 1 in every 5 patients treated for the disease. In total they have screened more than 2.4 million people for the disease and has treated over 43,000. MSF is currently responsible for the efficient supply and distribution of all sleeping sickness drugs used in the world today. The biggest obstacle in the way of fighting the disease is the lack of new, better diagnostic tools and medicines. 

Source: (http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/issue.cfm?id=2401) 

Africa's Birthrate: Why Women Must be Free to Choose

 As of last week, our planet now has 7 billion inhabitants. "The current rate of growth means that there are 78 million more people every year. Nearly all of that growth -- 97 out of every 100 people - is occurring in less developed countries." On the other hand, more developed countries such as Japan and many in Europe are facing a different issue. Their growth rate is too low, meaning that many of their inhabitants are aging, and there aren’t enough people in the next generation to replace them.

   Africa’s growth rate has doubled that of Asia. Births are happening too early, late, and closely spaced, which brings about a serious issue in the health of African women and children. African women rarely have the chance to choose whether or not they want to have a child. To obtain contraceptives, women must walk miles. Most of the time they aren’t even available anywhere around them.

    “Across the world more than two in five pregnancies are unplanned.” This statistic may be quite shocking to us Americans who always have contraceptives at our disposal. Surveys have shown that if all women had the choice of when they want to have children, average global childbearing would “immediately fall below the 'replacement fertility' value of slightly more than two children per woman.” Which means everyone would be in the same predicament as Japan.

   Another issue is that of social standing. Family size and wealth are tied together in some countries because having a large family shows that you can support that many people. Although, this is not always the case, which means that a lot of these families are stuck in a perpetual cycle of poverty.

   IPPF’s (International Planned Parenthood Foundation) mission is “to do our utmost to ensure that Africa's women and girls have the services, supplies and information to exercise their reproductive rights and live their lives with dignity, respect and meaning.”

Source: ( http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/07/world/africa/melesse-seven-billion/index.html )

Possible Cure for Malaria

  It is a well-known fact that malaria is one of the top causes of death in Africa. At the moment, there is no definite, one-dose cure for the fatal disease. "According to the WHO, about 3.3 billion people - around half the world's population - are at risk of contracting malaria." Due to this alarming statistic, the news of a possible cure is raising hopes for many sub-Saharan Africans.

   The single-dose cure molecule discovered by researchers is expected to hopefully cure the disease and prevent person-to-person transmission. “The molecule, MMV390048, was discovered during collaborative research by the Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3-D) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa, and Geneva-based Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV).” The molecule was tested on malaria-infected mice that after one dose were completely cured.

   The molecule is due to enter the clinical trials stage in late 2013, due to the fact that there is still a lot more research to be done before it can be introduced to humans. Research began in 2009 when the molecule was picked as one of the most promising out of the 6 million that were tested. “More than 90% of all malaria deaths occur in Africa, and the disease is responsible for 24% of child death on the continent.”

   Hopefully this recent discovery will lead to the eventual end of this disease.

Source: (http://www.scidev.net/en/sub-suharan-africa/news/molecule-cures-malaria-in-mice-.html)