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I am happy to report that African health issues are getting some national recognition. The National Association of Black Journalists awarded the Tanzania Travels blog a "Salute to Excellence Award" in the category of New Media-Best Commentary last weekend.

There were a number of prominent media players also being honored that night including retired CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, NBC president Steve Capus, and former Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet. Hopefully, the timing of this award coinciding with their honors will spark continued dialogue in the media of dire health issues in Africa and other developing countries.

Thank you for your support!

Technorati Tags: NABJ, Salute to Excellence, New Media, blogs, blogging, awards

Today I read (and watched) with much dismay a story CNN broke about the raping of women and girls in Congo by uniformed military. The reports say the soldiers from one ethnic group were systematically raping women of another with the intent of destroying their reproductive capabilities.

Some were girls just 8 years old, raped in front of their mothers and fathers for days at a time. The raping is another indicator of how powerless and undervalued women are in some parts of Africa. These women were raped and tortured (some used knives to rape their victims) but not killed. Maybe it is because it is often worse in this culture to live with the stigma of being a rape victim and the emotional scars of surviving. Imagine raising a child born as a result of rape and hating yourself and that child as one women explained. Or feeling worthless as another woman noted.

The health toll of HIV is exacerbated by these inhumane acts as the reality is there is a high risk that these women could have contracted this fatal disease from their attackers. Women with HIV in Africa as previously noted, are often thrown out of their families and treated as outcasts.

It is hard to conceive that President Joseph Kabila, or any president, could be totally oblivious to this. He says this is "unforgivable." But a more unforgivable act would be to continue to let the offenders go unpunished as noted by Amnesty International.

Related Topics: Global Report: AIDS at a Crossroads

Technorati Tags: Sudan, rape, HIV, Africa, human rights

The first thing I did when I got home was take a hot shower. I called my parents but other than that wanted to be left alone to decompress. I was just too wiped out to go into conversation; too wiped out to go anywhere; and too wiped out to even eat.

I attempted to stay up to write and unpack but lost the battle after about two hours. I felt sick with sleep -- a bit nauseated and drunk with fatigue. The jet lag was compounded by the serious sleep debt accumulated while in Africa. So instead of trying to adjust by staying up until bedtime in my current time zone, I didn't fight it and slept the rest of the night.

Experts say sleep problems tend to be more common when people travel from west to east as it is more difficult to advance than to delay sleep time. However, for me, I am hardest hit traveling from east to west. I saw a story about jet lag on CNN as I was packing up in my hotel room on my last day in Tanzania.

The expert said that for every hour of time difference you travel, it takes that number of days to recover from jetlag. My track record has been the number of days I am away is the number of days it requires to recover. So I anticipate it will take me at least a week and a half to get back to a normal sleep schedule.

My first full day back, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. (early by my standards). By 7 a.m I had suited up to work out, made a light breakfast, and watched some news. By 9 a.m., I got hit again with uncontrollable sleep (before I got to the gym). I woke up around 11:30 a.m., still moving like a zombie. By this point, I was famished and mustered up enough energy to eat and get some groceries for my bare pantry -- and of course take my Malarone.

I had given up on the dream of making it to the gym. By 4:30 p.m., I felt the urge to crawl back in bed where I fielded a few calls. I vaguely remember my dad calling; I think I fell asleep on him. By 6 p.m. I was out like a light and nothing could rouse me. My bed has never felt so good! I slept through a series of other calls. I felt like a brick wall was laying on my body, leaving it immobile, and the sleep mimiced the heavy, good sleep that you get while under anesthesia (this would continue for another week or so).

Some tips to help with jet lag include: Avoiding excess caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco; avoiding social isolation; practicing good sleep habits right away; taking a one-hour walk first thing in the morning; limiting sleep to no more than two hours immediately after arrival; drinking plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration; and controlling naps while in flight to your destination.

Melatonin has worked for some people but not for me in the past. Melatonin is a hormone the body naturally produces at night and is thought to help initiate sleep. Melatonin supplements have been available in health food stores for quite awhile, but they are not FDA-approved, so their purity and safety are not known. A recent study from the University of Alberta has shown that melatonin supplements may not actually be as effective as once thought.

Related Topics: Summer Travel, Tips for the International Traveler

Technorati Tags: jet lag, travel tips

At 7:30 a.m. we arrived at JFK in on a rainy, cold, New York City day. I deboarded groggy and stiff but excited to have completed my long voyage safe and sound. Still, I had another two-hour flight to Atlanta. My flight was scheduled for 10:45 a.m. but the plane never arrived because it got struck by lightening. By now, I was quite irritable with fatigue as the flight was delayed two hours (while they tried to repair the plane) before they told us what happened. After some debate with several rather useless (groggy attitude kicking in) airline representatives, I ended up taking on the painful task of arranging to reclaim all of my baggage and catching a cab to La Guardia. The thought of waiting another three hours for a flight at JFK was unbearable in my state of hunger and fatigue. After 20 hours of flying, all you want to do is get home to your bed.

During my cab ride home once in Atlanta, I felt a familiar feeling taking hold: jet lag. It is like you are awake but know that a wave of unavoidable sleep is lurking beneath the surface. I turned my head to look out of the window and another feeling overwhelmed me: one of sadness and guilt.

I thought about the neighborhoods I passed along the expressway that people say are depressed and thought about what I had seen in Tanzania. I knew that even poverty here is eons better by comparison. I thought about all of the luxuries we have in America yet we always complain about wanting more. Here a hot shower, clean water, smooth pavement, access to medical treatment, and no malaria-infected mosquitoes are all things I never thought of as being luxuries -- just basics. I guess the word basic is relative.

While Tanzania has its challenges, I never feared for my safety. There were beautiful places like Arusha and Zanzibar, like most countries, there are a few people who are very well off, and the people were kind and cheerful in spite of their hardships. Again, these people are proud and smart, they just need some help -- a lot of it.

Related Topics: Top 10 Causes of Death Worldwide, AIDS Taking on a Female Face

Technorati Tags: jet lag, Tanzania, Africa

I think it's fair to say we are all exhausted. I couldn't even process the idea of another 20-hour plane ride. Nobody honestly wanted to talk about it. I packed my arsenal for the ride: aspirin, decongestants, Malarone, toothbrush, and socks. I drank a lot of water to start out hydrated, polishing off the bottles I had brought with me so not to have to lug them back.

My experience in Africa, and other undeveloped nations, just makes me feel that safe drinking water should not be wasted. This thought shows me, I am already noticing the changes in my 'charmed' American mindset.

I sat on the plane next to my colleague, John, an editor from Miami. He is still tackling his sinus issues, so I shared my decongestants with him and emphasized the need for them while flying. John manages international coverage for the Herald and has an enviable wealth of global experiences.

Despite his intriguing tales, I realized when I embarrassed myself by falling asleep on him midconversation that the flight home was all about paying back the heavy sleep debt we all had accumulated. Sleep debt is the number of hours of sleep your body requires to function well but has not been getting. Eventually, however, one needs to make up for that lost sleep in order to get back on track. On this trip, it is fair to say, I owe a lot. When I looked back from my seat, which was in the front of the plane, I saw everyone was passed out.

The time change in flight also made me paranoid that I would forget to take my Malarone. Each way, we lost a day traveling, but I know how important it is to continue taking the malaria prophylaxis. I must still take Malarone for seven days after I get back. In my delirium, I tried to calculate the proper time to take it based on when I took it in Tanzania, but I was probably off. You are supposed to set your watch to the time zone of your destination to start the process of adjusting. Clearly, that was not an option for me since I never found a battery for my watch.

The first 5.5 hours from Tanzania to Dubai were fine. I may have slept an hour or so. But the 14.5-hour flight to New York City was a wash. As much as I tried to fight going to sleep, even to watch a movie, I kept losing the battle. I woke up to drink water and for restroom breaks (which I hoped counted for my walking requirement). John and I did manage to get in a few good conversations, but I don't know that I've ever been this wiped out.

By the way, I managed not to get one mosquito bite. Night, night.

Related Topics: Bringing Home Illness From Overseas, Sleep and Travel

Technorati Tags: jet lag, sleep debt, travel tips

The question usually arises about how money for the top 3 killers of the world -- HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria -- gets distributed and where it comes from.

I have noticed several posts on this blog about what one can do to change things for the better. I've felt perplexed by the same question at times after seeing so much poverty and feeling so helpless on this trip.

As with many things in life much of the solution to getting a grip on malaria and AIDS boils down to sufficient resources. The financial piece has a big impact on why malaria and the other 'big 2' have yet to be eradicated in Africa. In my discussions with Louis, I asked him to explain to me what the Global Fund is that he speaks about so often. Louis, who is with Global Health Advocates, is also board member for the malaria section of the Global Fund and has first-hand experience with it.

The Global Fund is probably a little-known entity to many Americans. It is a war chest of money that was established by Kofi Annan and the United Nations to increase the resources to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria -- the world's most devastating diseases -- and to direct those resources to areas of greatest need.

In a nutshell, the fund consists of donor countries and recipient countries. The U.S., naturally, is one of the donor countries. The fund supplements money already in place for these causes in recipient countries. Recipient countries write grants to apply for funds, then the proposals are reviewed through an independent review process. Once granted, the recipient country is given the freedom to use the money to implement/supplement programs according to its needs.

While most people I've spoken to seem to think the Global Fund is a great vehicle to help, clearly there is much still to be done in terms of fighting malaria, HIV/AIDS, and TB, and more money needed to get control of these diseases. That is apparent by the number of people who are still dying.

Louis has expressed numerous times that it would take a mere $3 billion a year, each year, for 10 years to wipe out malaria worldwide. For the average person that may seem like an exorbitant amount of money. But in reality it is quite small compared with other governmental expenditures. Currently, the U.S. national debt clock shows the country is at $8 trillion. The war in Iraq will soon exceed $300 billion, according to recent news reports. That is the U.S.' share alone.

The dispersement of Global Fund money is broken down into 'rounds.' The current funding round is No. 5. The total amount of money approved for all five rounds so far is U.S. $ 4.3 billion over two years to support programs for the 'big 3' in 128 countries. The shortfall of funding to eradicate these diseases is glaring when looking at the need (Louis' estimate) vs. what is available. Between round 4 and 5, the funding has been cut dramatically for both HIV and malaria.

From my viewpoint, the heart of the problem with funding the fight does not seem to stem from a lack of financial ability, but more from a lack of it being a priority in the eyes of empowered nations.

The issues with funding form a complex web compounded by politics, race, gender, and economic empowerment. Africa has long been overlooked, partially, from what the experts on our travels have said, because it does not bear the economic fruit other continents do and sadly because of race.

Louis echoes a sentiment that I have heard from experts -- black and nonblack -- both in America and Africa, "Nobody cares about poor, black babies in Africa," he says. "Every time a child dies here [from malaria], it is because we could not get $2.40 to the mother."

I and the other journalists on the trip have discussed the reality that malaria's devastation in Africa is often a hard sell to newsroom managers in the States, and HIV across the board is going under the radar, too, with more advancements in treatment. I think that maybe it isn't that citizens of the developed world (who can make a difference) don't care about these topics, I think it is more likely that they don't know to.

More to come on funding...

Related Topics: The Global Fund: Fighting Malaria in Niger, World Health Organization: Global Malaria Programme

Technorati Tags: theglobalfund, fight malaria, africa

Today I was happy to see that Bono is spreading the word on malaria and the two other major killers in Africa, TB and HIV. Read more about his journey through Africa here

Related Sites

• The ONE Campaign


• Reuter's blog: Bono in Africa


• Flickr Set: Bono's Africa Trip

Technorati Tags: U2, Music, AIDS, Africa, health, González, poverty, Live8, entertainment