Leprosy has officially been eradicated in India, yet 130,000 new cases are diagnosed every year. Richard Cookson and Seyi Rhodes report on the plight of the patients shunned by society Narsappa was just 10 years old when he was told he had leprosy, but the news changed the course of his life forever. People in his Indian village immediately began to shun him and told his parents that he had to leave. He says his mother started grieving for him “as if I was already dead”. Shortly afterwards, his father took him to a hospital two hours away from home and left him there. No one ever came to visit him and Narsappa never went home again. Now 42, he now lives in a leprosy colony on the outskirts of Hyderabad and campaigns on behalf of people affected by the disease. “I lie awake at night thinking about how I was treated and how I can stop others from going through the same thing,” he says. India may have one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but 130,000 Indians are diagnosed with leprosy every year – more than every other country put together. It’s partly because the country’s population is so huge but also, campaigners say, because the Indian government and some international donors are neglecting the fight against the disease. Hundreds of thousands of Indians suffer from leprosy and its debilitating after-effects. Given the number of new cases, it may come as some surprise that India announced it had eliminated the leprosy in 2005. According to a target set by the World Health Organisation, countries can announce ‘elimination’ when there are fewer than one case for every 10,000 people. Since then, the government has channelled funding previously dedicated to leprosy back into the general health system. Leprosy charities say that donations have also fallen significantly and some projects have had to close. Leprosy attacks nerve endings, destroying the ability to feel pain and injury, which makes patients susceptible to ulcers and infections. Over time, these infections can lead to the loss of fingers, hands, toes and feet if they are not treated properly. It can also cause blindness, facial disfigurement, and the ‘clawing’ of hands and feet. Many also face lifelong rejection, stigma and discrimination. There’s a widespread fear that the disease is highly contagious. In reality, 95% of humans are naturally immune, which is why campaigners call it the world’s “least contagious communicable disease”. While doctors are still unsure exactly how leprosy is spread (it’s probably by airborne droplet infection such as coughing and sneezing), it is easily treated with highly effective drugs available for free under a collaboration between the WHO and the pharmaceutical company Novartis. Nevertheless, even those who have been cured and are no longer contagious are shunned by society and forced to live as outcasts. India has an estimated 1,000 leprosy colonies that are home to hundreds of thousands people living their lives in the disease’s long dark shadow. Conditions in the colonies vary enormously: even though Shantinagar, where Narsappa lived, has no running water or toilets, the residents at least have brick houses and electricity. Other colonies are not so lucky. A leaked copy obtained by Channel 4′s Unreported World of a recent unpublished government study of the number of new leprosy cases in India suggests that the official figures don’t show the true scale, and it may be much higher. This was the first time in six years health workers have carried out extensive surveys. In one Indian state, health workers found the number of people infected was five times the official estimate. Dr Premal Das, the senior surgeon at India’s busiest leprosy hospital, which is run by UK-based charity the Leprosy Mission, says: “We have no idea what is the leprosy situation at the moment because for the last 10 years no NGO has been doing any active case detection work.” But he adds that his hospital saw 3,000 new leprosy cases last year – a record high. His hospital provides a wide range of leprosy services, from wound-cleaning to surgery. Das himself carries out 500 reconstructive operations a year, mostly correcting deformities to hands and feet. One of his patients is 16-year-old Pooja, who comes from Baripur village in Uttar Pradesh and was diagnosed with the disease just a few months ago. It caused the fingers on her right hand to claw. Thirty years after Narsappa was driven out of his village, she tells a remarkably similar story about what happened when she found out she had the disease. Through her tears, she explains how her neighbours tried to drive her out of the village. They verbally abused her and her mother, and told her parents she had to go. But Pooja was lucky – her parents stuck by her and the surgery will correct the deformity in her hand. Dr Das says that because the disease has been officially ‘eradicated’, the hospital is struggling for funding. “Because they’ve said leprosy is no longer a public health problem in India we are struggling with budgets,” he says. “It’s very difficult to convince a donor that the funds are actually for leprosy because they don’t think leprosy is a problem.” • Unreported World: India’s Leprosy Heroes is broadcast on Friday 25 March at 7.30pm on Channel 4. It can also be watched at channel4.com Health & wellbeing India Health guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Guards clash with army units backing opposition groups in Mukalla, as anti-Saleh movement plans ‘day of departure’ Presidential guards loyal to Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, clashed in the town of Mukalla on Thursday with army units backing opposition groups who are demanding his removal. The clash wounded one person and highlighted the tension in Yemen, where top generals, diplomats and tribal chiefs defected this week to the side of democracy protesters who have been camped out in central Sana’a for six weeks. Army and presidential guards – a force headed by Saleh’s son Ahmed – clashed earlier this week in Mukalla, a coastal city in the Hadramout region, leaving one dead on each side. Saleh and opposition groups have both made proposals for reform. On Wednesday Saleh offered new presidential elections by January 2012 instead of when his term ends in September 2013. An umbrella group of civil society organisations called for a transitional council of nine figures “not involved with the corruption of the old regime” to draw up a new constitution over a six-month period ahead of elections. But the issue of what would happen to Saleh, who outlasted a civil war in 1994, a recent rebellion by northern Shias and separatist discontent in the south, was left untouched in the proposal from the group, called the Civil Bloc. Opposition parties said on Thursday they were tired of the drip-feed of concessions. “This talk is aimed at delaying the announcement of the death of the regime. The opposition does not need to respond,” said spokesman Muhammad al-Sabry. Saleh, in power since 1978, made the offer in a letter sent not only to the opposition but also to General Ali Mohsen, commander of the north-western zone. Mohsen said this week he was now supporting protesters in a blow to Saleh that has helped turn the tide against him. Mohsen and others defectors made their move after 52 protesters were shot dead in Sana’a last week. “The political tide in Yemen has turned decisively against President Ali Abdullah Saleh,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report. “His choices are limited: he can fight his own military or negotiate a rapid and dignified transfer of power.” Saleh reacted to the loss of his ally Mohsen, seen as Yemen’s second most powerful figure, with a series of meetings with military and tribal leaders where he warned against a “coup” that would lead to civil war. Saleh also has intelligence services on his side and security sources say he has beefed up his personal security for fear of an assassination attempt. Western countries and Arab allies, such as Saudi Arabia, are still worried about a power vacuum if Saleh goes that could embolden al-Qaida, which has entrenched itself in the mountainous Arabian Peninsula state. “We’ve had a good working relationship with President Saleh. He’s been an important ally in the counter-terrorism arena,” the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said on Wednesday. “I think we will basically just continue to watch the situation. We haven’t done any post-Saleh planning,” he said. Protesters who have been encamped in their thousands outside Sana’a University for six weeks have hardened in their attitude towards Saleh, rejecting any idea of his remaining. They are planning a “day of departure” this Friday after prayers that could bring hundreds of thousands on to the streets. Around 10,000 people gathered on Thursday morning, chanting slogans such as “Go, go, you coward; you are an American agent.” Authorities have withdrawn the licences of al-Jazeera correspondents and ordered them to stop work, the Qatari channel said. Yemeni state media accuse the network of bias. Protesters are divided over what they think of Mohsen, an Islamist from the same Hashed tribal confederation as Saleh who was popularly regarded as the second most powerful man in the country before he abandoned his old comrade. “The country risks replacing the current regime with one bearing striking similarities, dominated by tribal elites from Hashed and powerful Islamists,” the ICG report said. Some protesters display the general’s picture on their tents in the protest encampment in Sana’a, but opposition leaders regard his motives with suspicion, and few would want him to have a role in any future transitional government. Yemen Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Protest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Thousands of staff at up to 500 universities and colleges stage walkout in protest at changes to pension scheme and pay cuts Tens of thousands of university lecturers are staginga mass walkout over their pay and pensions. The strike by staff at up to 500 universities and colleges comes after a wave of action this week and last week. Some of the lecturers are protesting against plans to end final salary pensions for new members of their pension scheme, the Universities Superannuation Scheme. They argue the change would create a two-tier scheme in which new academics would pay the same as their older colleagues, but have a lesser pension. The lecturers are striking over what they say is a growing sense of insecurity over their jobs and what has been a real-term pay cut over the last two years. Universities say academics have had a 0.4% pay rise this academic year. Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, which represents lecturers, said changes to pay and pensions had created “real anger” and the strike was a last resort. “Staff are sick to the back teeth of being told that their pay and pensions need to be cut to pay for an economic crisis created by others,” said Hunt. Professor Keith Burnett, chair of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, said employers wanted to work with lecturers. “There is much uncertainty in higher education at present and this course of action will have the potential to cause further difficulties for students and institutions,” he said. The National Union of Students said it stood in solidarity with the lecturers’ strike. It comes as Aston University announced its intention to charge £9,000 tuition fees – the maximum possible – from autumn next year, while Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln said it planned to charge £7,500. Meanwhile, lecturers who teach English to immigrants are protesting against changes to the cost of their classes. From autumn, the government will only pay for lessons in English for non-native speakers if they are on jobseekers’ allowance or employability skills allowance benefits. The government will pay half the cost of the lessons for some others. Lecturers said some of their pupils would not be able to afford the lessons and this would mean classes would stop in some areas and teachers would be made redundant. Official figures show universities’ endowment income dropped by 39% in 2009-10, compared with the year before. The fees of international students from outside the European Union made up 9.6% of universities’ income last year, compared with 8.7% the year before. Lecturers Colleges Further education University teaching University funding Higher education Students Protest Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
The physicist and presenter of the BBC’s Wonders of the Universe will be answering your questions, 1-2pm Thursday The final instalment of BBC Two’s visually spectacular and spectacularly popular Wonders of the Universe airs on Sunday. Six million people watched the opening episode and it was the first BBC factual show to top the iTunes chart. There have been grumbles, however – about dumbing down, deafening music and an excessive use of soaring scenic shots – which the presenter, Brian Cox, addresses in an interview in Thursday’s G2: “I may have been standing on a mountaintop, but what I was saying was about electro-weak symmetry breaking. Some people can’t see the content for the style.” Nobody would dispute his passion for science and his belief in the importance of passing some of that enthusiasm on to the next generation of young scientists. “Britain is squandering its lead in science and engineering,” he says. “We once led the world, and we can again.” When he’s not presenting television documentaries, Cox works on the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider . He is a member of the particle physics group at the University of Manchester and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. The professor will be answering your questions about astronomy, particle physics and the Wonders of the Universe between 1 and 2pm on Thursday. Brian Cox Astronomy Particle physics Physics Cern Physics Television guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
The physicist and presenter of the BBC’s Wonders of the Universe will be answering your questions, 1-2pm Thursday The final instalment of BBC Two’s visually spectacular and spectacularly popular Wonders of the Universe airs on Sunday. Six million people watched the opening episode and it was the first BBC factual show to top the iTunes chart. There have been grumbles, however – about dumbing down, deafening music and an excessive use of soaring scenic shots – which the presenter, Brian Cox, addresses in an interview in Thursday’s G2: “I may have been standing on a mountaintop, but what I was saying was about electro-weak symmetry breaking. Some people can’t see the content for the style.” Nobody would dispute his passion for science and his belief in the importance of passing some of that enthusiasm on to the next generation of young scientists. “Britain is squandering its lead in science and engineering,” he says. “We once led the world, and we can again.” When he’s not presenting television documentaries, Cox works on the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider . He is a member of the particle physics group at the University of Manchester and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. The professor will be answering your questions about astronomy, particle physics and the Wonders of the Universe between 1 and 2pm on Thursday. Brian Cox Astronomy Particle physics Physics Cern Physics Television guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Call for witnesses who saw estate car with taxi markings between Swindon and Savernake after woman disappeared Police searching for the missing woman Sian O’Callaghan are appealing for witnesses who saw a green estate car with taxi markings on the night she vanished or the day after. O’Callaghan disappeared after leaving a nightclub in Swindon in the early hours of Saturday and police have been combing the Savernake forest 12 miles away. Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher, who is leading the inquiry, appealed for anyone who saw a green taxi estate car between Swindon and Savernake on the day the 22-year-old vanished, to come forward. “I am urgently appealing for any witness sightings of a green Toyota Avensis estate with taxi markings seen between 3-4am and 12-9pm on Saturday 19 March 2011 between Swindon and Savernake.” Hundreds of members of the public had been helping police search the forest but they were now being asked to stay away. Specialist dog teams were being called in to help with the search. Police have said they believe they are close to finding O’Callaghan, after narrowing down the search area. Fulcher said earlier: “We have made good progress in narrowing the search using a number of technologies and techniques and I believe we are getting very close to identifying Sian’s whereabouts. “While I still want anyone with information to contact police I am not asking for any more public assistance with searches at this time.” A police spokeswoman refused to expand on the statement and declined to say whether it meant police believed O’Callaghan – or her body – was in the forest. O’Callaghan’s family thanked the public for their help in the search for “our beautiful girl”. In a statement released by the police they said: “We have been so touched by the support shown by the community that we wanted to express our thanks. “The sheer numbers of people who have given up their time to help search for Sian and distribute appeal posters are overwhelming and we couldn’t ask for better support from the public, police and media.” A reward of £20,000 has been offered for information leading to her being found. The family said they were grateful for the reward and hoped it might help to encourage someone to come forward with information. “This is an extremely difficult time for us and we continue to hope and pray that our beautiful girl is found soon.” O’Callaghan, an office administrator, disappeared after leaving Suju nightclub at about 2.50am to walk the half mile to the flat she shared with her boyfriend, Kevin Reape. Analysis of her mobile phone records suggests that about 30 minutes after she left the club, her phone was somewhere in the 1,800-hectare (4,500-acre) Savernake forest, near Marlborough. Chief Superintendent Steve Hedley, area commander for Swindon, said further analysis of the records had produced several “hot spots” that specialist search teams were examining. “We have got a better idea of where we could be searching,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we are going to find anything specific but we have got more of an idea from the technology where to look first.” Another senior officer, Chief Inspector Bob Edge, urged clubbers and pubgoers in the area to take care. “Some people will be asking what else they can do and even wondering if it is safe to go out. “I want to emphasise that whilst there is no reason to believe there is any increased risk to anyone, it is always wise to take basic and well-known simple steps when we go out.” Colleagues of O’Callaghan at the industrial storage company Dexion told how she was in “good spirits” and “looking forward to the weekend” before she disappeared. Liz Watson, operations director, said staff felt helpless and missed her. “She is a well-liked and popular member of our team and has a friendly and cheerful nature, always smiling and happy. “Sian attended work on Friday as normal and she was in her usual good spirits and looking forward to the weekend. “We are all very worried about her at the moment and hope that further developments of her whereabouts will come to light soon. “Our staff are feeling very helpless at the moment and are keen to contribute in any way.” • Anyone who saw the green estate car or who has information is asked to contact police on 0845 408 7000 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, where details can be left anonymously if preferred. Police Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Radiation exceeding health limits for infants was found in a Tokyo city water purifier and authorities are advising that the water not be given to infants
Continue reading …
Three cable-layers at Fukushima power plant exposed to high levels of radiation after stepping into contaminated water Three workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been exposed to high levels of radiation after reportedly stepping into contaminated water as they battled to make the stricken No 3 reactor safe. Two of the workers were taken to a special radiation unit at a hospital in Chiba city, east of Tokyo, Japan’s nuclear safety agency said. The workers, who are all in their 20s and 30s, were exposed to between 170 millisieverts (mSv) and 180 mSv of radiation. This is above the usual legal limit of 100 mSv per year for nuclear power workers in Japan, but below a new limit of 250 mSv, introduced last week to enable them to spend more time inside the crippled facility. The men were affected while laying cable in the turbine building of the No 3 reactor, said Fumio Matsuda, an agency spokesman, adding that two had exposed skin on their feet to radioactive elements. Their accident cast doubt on the wisdom of raising the threshold for radiation exposure for the hundreds of technicians, firefighters and soldiers taking part in the Fukushima operation. The government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said the injuries were “very regrettable”, but defended the health ministry’s decision to raise the exposure limit soon after the start of the world’s worst nuclear power emergency since Chernobyl. “Atmospheric radiation levels are monitored constantly, but in this case the workers stepped into water,” Edano said. “The decision to increase permissible radiation exposure was taken on the advice of experts, who say that workers are able to withstand up to 250 mSv per year before radiation has an effect on their health. “But this kind of exposure, from water, was unforeseen. We are trying to find out exactly what happened so we can ensure it doesn’t happen again.” More than 20 workers have been injured at the Fukushima plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, since it was badly damaged in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. They include 11 who were hurt when the No 3 reactor building exploded. The condition of the No 3 unit is of particular concern as it contains plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel and would release highly toxic plutonium in the event of a meltdown. On Wednesday afternoon, workers were temporarily evacuated from the plant after black smoke was seen rising from the same reactor. The smoke receded after an hour and radiation levels remained unchanged, the safety agency said. The three workers who stepped into contaminated water were part of a team positioned in the reactor building’s basement. They were laying cables to connect a pump to the power supply and restart the supply of fresh water in an attempt to cool the reactor. The release of radioactive substances from the plant is continuing to cause anxiety in Tokyo. Wednesday’s warning that radioactive iodine levels in the capital’s tap water had exceeded levels considered safe for babies prompted a rush of people buying bottled water. The warning was lifted on Thursday after iodine-131 dropped to safe levels, but they were still above the safe upper limit for infants in the neighbouring prefectures of Chiba and Saitama. In Tokyo, a city of 13 million people, supermarkets quickly ran out of bottled water; the metropolitan government said it would distribute an extra 240,000 bottles to families with infants. “Customers ask us for water, but there’s nothing we can do,” Masayoshi Kasahara, a supermarket worker, said. “We have asked for extra deliveries but we don’t know when they will arrive.” Tokyo’s stores have also started rationing milk, toilet paper and rice, which have been hit by a surge in demand and delivery disruptions. Japan disaster Japan Nuclear power Energy Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Two men from the 1st Battalion Irish Guards were killed after their vehicle hit an explosive device in Helmand Two British soldiers were killed after their vehicle hit an explosive device in Helmand province, less than a week before they were due to return home. The two men from the 1st Battalion Irish Guards were killed on Thursday on their way back from a successful mission in the Nahr-e Saraj district, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. The soldiers were working alongside Danish soldiers to disrupt insurgent activity and search compounds in the south of the country. A spokesman for the taskforce in Helmand said they were on their way back to camp to commence their handover after a successful mission when their vehicle was hit. The deaths of the two soldiers bring the total number of British fatalities in Afghanistan to 362 since operations started in 2001. The soldiers’ families have been informed. Afghanistan Military Rowenna Davis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Chancellor says he wants to ensure drivers see benefit of cut in fuel duty and introduction of fair fuel stabiliser funded by £2bn tax on oil company profits George Osborne said he would be watching oil companies “like a hawk” to make sure there was “no funny business” following his budget decision to cut 1p from fuel duty. The chancellor said he wanted to ensure motorists got the benefit of his announcement, which lopped 1p a litre off fuel duty and introduced a fair fuel stabiliser, funded by £2bn of new taxes on the windfall profits of oil companies amid record global prices. Doing the round of broadcast interviews following Wednesday’s announcement, Osborne told ITV’s Daybreak: “We will be watching like a hawk to make sure that motorists get the benefit of the budget changes and make sure that there’s no funny business.” Asked whether there was a mechanism to stop oil companies putting prices up, he said: “I’m not in control of the world’s oil price, unfortunately. What I am in control of are the taxes that go onto oil in Britain – in other words, the duty that gets levied at the petrol station.” He added: “I’m not pretending that this is going to transform the situation overnight for families who are feeling the squeeze, but it helps.” His chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, said in an interview on Wednesday, when it was put to him that the Treasury was increasing the tax on oil companies because they were unpopular, that “that’s a fair way of putting it”. Osborne declined to comment, but admitted the sector was “not particularly popular”. Malcolm Webb, the chief executive of Oil and Gas UK, denied that companies would simply pass on the increase in the levy to motorists at the pumps. “Oil is an internationally traded commodity. This is a direct squeeze on the incomes of the oil companies. It won’t affect the consumer at the pump at all,” he told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme. Labour attacked the fuel duty cut as “Del Boy economics” on the grounds that there is a 3p increase in VAT at the same time. The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, seized on the fact that Osborne’s budget was undermined by the ominous prospect of lower growth, rising unemployment and higher borrowing to claim the government was “clinging to an economic strategy” that is not working. Figures from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) showed slower growth would result in £45bn extra borrowing between now and 2015, with growth this year at 1.7% – lower than the 2.1% expected – while 200,000 fewer jobs would be created during this parliament. Balls told Today: “The OBR said yesterday that nothing in the growth plan would make any difference to the growth of the economy. They actually forecast unemployment and borrowing to be higher over the next few years. “George Osborne is, in a blinkered way, carrying on regardless of what people know is the reality. The reality is that it is not working. He is a political chancellor who doesn’t understand the economic reality that he is facing.” The chancellor, on air on the programme an hour later, defended his plan to get Britain back on its feet as the “right course for the country”, with Britain’s growth forecast stronger than France’s, stronger than Italy’s and stronger than the European average. While he wished that growth was “even stronger”, Osborne cited the context of the “deepest recession” in his lifetime. “What I’ve managed to do, I believe, is create the stability, and now given the entrepreneurial boost, to get us into the prosperity we all want to see.” He seized on comments made earlier in the day by Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of the advertising giant WPP, who said the company was now considering returning to the UK. WPP relocated to Dublin in 2008, citing the former Labour government’s plans to tax the profits of companies made overseas. “I have chosen, in a neutral budget, to take money out of oil companies and put it in the hands of families,” Osborne said. “I have chosen to increase taxes on pollution, I’ve chosen to undertake a huge crackdown on tax avoidance, and try and use some of that money to help businesses and help families with their income tax bills. “So yes I have distributed things around the tax system. I’ve done it in a way that is economically smart, because that’s what the country needs at the moment.” Budget 2011 Budget George Osborne Oil Commodities Oil and gas companies Energy industry Motoring Petrol prices Tax and spending Ed Balls Economic policy Economics Global economy Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …