http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/radiohead-announces-australian-tour-20120227-1tykd.html
This is huge! Does someone want to fly me back for this?
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Take note everyone
http://www.granta.com/Archive/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1
With those handy tips, I think I'm ready to write.
With those handy tips, I think I'm ready to write.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Consuming potential wages in happiness
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/magazine/why-are-harvard-graduates-in-the-mailroom.html?_r=2
Satisfaction is indeed at an all time high despite the poor excuse for a remuneration that is thrown in my direction. It is possible that I am consuming my potential wages in happiness.
Having said that, after being in the country for six months, there are some simple 1st world things that I miss.
- Good toilet paper
- Decent beer
- Good eggs cooked sunny side up
- Oolong tea
- Libraries
- Roast duck on rice
- Riding my bicycle
- Fast food
A poor substitute to all of the above can be found in Kampala and with some difficulty, and some coin, the real deal can be had as well but accessibility is low. Over time, these unimportant things start being important. A short trip back home to satiate these craving and restore focus might be in order.
- And riding a motorbike on pothole free roads
"Academia, nonprofit groups, book publishers and public-radio production companies also put their new recruits through various forms of low-paid hazing, holding out the promise of, well, more low pay but in a job that provides, for some, something more important than money: satisfaction. In the language of economics, these people are consuming their potential wages in happiness. (Honestly, economists talk this way.)"That is why I do this job I guess.
Satisfaction is indeed at an all time high despite the poor excuse for a remuneration that is thrown in my direction. It is possible that I am consuming my potential wages in happiness.
Having said that, after being in the country for six months, there are some simple 1st world things that I miss.
- Good toilet paper
- Decent beer
- Good eggs cooked sunny side up
- Oolong tea
- Libraries
- Roast duck on rice
- Riding my bicycle
- Fast food
A poor substitute to all of the above can be found in Kampala and with some difficulty, and some coin, the real deal can be had as well but accessibility is low. Over time, these unimportant things start being important. A short trip back home to satiate these craving and restore focus might be in order.
- And riding a motorbike on pothole free roads
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Rwanda for 4 days
Steve, Frankie and I went to Rwanda last weekend. Steve and I took Friday and Monday off and drove our cars up there.
- GDP: Both Rwanda and Uganda have a GDP per capita of $1,200 and real GDP growth is quite comparable. Rwanda (7,% 7.5%, 4.1%) might be experiencing a slightly higher GDP growth than Uganda (6.4%, 5.2%, 7.2%). GDP in Rwanda is heavily based on agriculture while Uganda has a larger industry sector. Rwanda actually has a higher Gini coefficient that Uganda which means it has higher economic inequality (side note: Uganda is still better than the US).
- Inflation: 13.7% in Uganda (up from 4% in 2010) to 5.5% in Rwanda (up from 2.3% in 2010). The cause of this insane inflation in Uganda has been due to supply side shocks. Read more at: http://www.trademarksa.org/news/bou-speaks-its-reforms-bring-down-high-inflation-rates
- Budget and fiscal policy: There is a significant difference here. Taxes and revenues for Rwanda is at 26% of GDP while it's only 15% of GDP in Uganda. Can someone please explain what the implications of this may be? Rwanda has a budget deficit of 2.3% of GDP while Uganda had a deficit of 6.1% of GDP
Overall, the countries seem quite comparable. Are there any essential economic indicators that I have missed?
******
I have tried to reconcile the facts above with the pothole free, beautifully lit, seemingly poverty free, Kigali. It has been claimed that great leadership, corruption free governance and strong nationalism are the secret to its "success".
I'm not convinced.
Selling goods on the side of the road is banned. This banning, though it undeniably makes for clean uncluttered pavements, results in loss of economic potential. Where did the street vendors go? Driven to destitution and then out of the city?
A large amount of money was spent on water fountains in the middle of roundabouts surrounded by well manicured grass and beautifully trimmed hedges. Who pays for the upkeep? Who pays to maintain the palm trees, ostentatiously planted in the road dividers, in a land locked country? What was sacrificed to pay for coloured (blue for roundabouts, green for taxi bays and yellow lanes) lights on the road?
I am 15% in to "Land of a thousand hills" and need to do some internet sleuthing to better understand the paradox that is Rwanda.
******
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/world/africa/01rwanda.html
******
I have tried to reconcile the facts above with the pothole free, beautifully lit, seemingly poverty free, Kigali. It has been claimed that great leadership, corruption free governance and strong nationalism are the secret to its "success".
I'm not convinced.
Selling goods on the side of the road is banned. This banning, though it undeniably makes for clean uncluttered pavements, results in loss of economic potential. Where did the street vendors go? Driven to destitution and then out of the city?
A large amount of money was spent on water fountains in the middle of roundabouts surrounded by well manicured grass and beautifully trimmed hedges. Who pays for the upkeep? Who pays to maintain the palm trees, ostentatiously planted in the road dividers, in a land locked country? What was sacrificed to pay for coloured (blue for roundabouts, green for taxi bays and yellow lanes) lights on the road?
I am 15% in to "Land of a thousand hills" and need to do some internet sleuthing to better understand the paradox that is Rwanda.
******
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/world/africa/01rwanda.html
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Top three pieces of work - Part 2
Part one can be found here.
Drugs and Lab Reagents Supply Chain - This is quite a large areas and I'l break it down to smaller sub tasks.
a.) Supply Chain Rationalisation - There are currently 4 different supply chains in the country. Each supporting or buffering various health centres. In the current system some sites are covered by multiple supply chains, which means budgets are not being spent efficiently, while others have no support.
These supply chains needed to be aligned with the health centres to ensure optimal coverage for all facilities.
My role in this piece of work has been to analyse the past trends in ARV consumption rates, order rates and estimate the change in average monthly consumption for each of the supply chains and informing them on how much of each formulation to order to ensure there are no expiries or stockouts.
b.) UNITAID donation - Read-up on UNITAID here and here. I manage this donation for Uganda and supply all 2L and paediatric drugs in country to the 4 supply chains mentioned above. This includes forecasting national need for paediatric and 2L drugs, placing orders and clearing these shipments. ARV consumption trends tend to vary based on uptake of national guidelines and I revise the forecast every 3 months to ensure it matches consumption rates.
c.) Lab quantification - If quantifying the national need for ARVs is tricky, doing it for lab reagents and consumables is near impossible. Not all patients get the recommended tests, not all facilities do all the tests and not at the same rate or not with the same coverage. Sites are poor at ordering lab reagents so we cannot use consumption rates or issues to accurately predict future need. Even the consumption rates of these reagents vary based on test numbers, number of days a machine is run, batch sizes and number of tests per patients.
One of my tasks is to work with the Ministry of Health to quantify national need, identify available sources of funding, measure gap in funding and finally advise the government on what quantities to order for various lab platforms. Modelling this has been (is) quite a challenging task.
Drugs and Lab Reagents Supply Chain - This is quite a large areas and I'l break it down to smaller sub tasks.
a.) Supply Chain Rationalisation - There are currently 4 different supply chains in the country. Each supporting or buffering various health centres. In the current system some sites are covered by multiple supply chains, which means budgets are not being spent efficiently, while others have no support.
These supply chains needed to be aligned with the health centres to ensure optimal coverage for all facilities.
My role in this piece of work has been to analyse the past trends in ARV consumption rates, order rates and estimate the change in average monthly consumption for each of the supply chains and informing them on how much of each formulation to order to ensure there are no expiries or stockouts.
b.) UNITAID donation - Read-up on UNITAID here and here. I manage this donation for Uganda and supply all 2L and paediatric drugs in country to the 4 supply chains mentioned above. This includes forecasting national need for paediatric and 2L drugs, placing orders and clearing these shipments. ARV consumption trends tend to vary based on uptake of national guidelines and I revise the forecast every 3 months to ensure it matches consumption rates.
c.) Lab quantification - If quantifying the national need for ARVs is tricky, doing it for lab reagents and consumables is near impossible. Not all patients get the recommended tests, not all facilities do all the tests and not at the same rate or not with the same coverage. Sites are poor at ordering lab reagents so we cannot use consumption rates or issues to accurately predict future need. Even the consumption rates of these reagents vary based on test numbers, number of days a machine is run, batch sizes and number of tests per patients.
One of my tasks is to work with the Ministry of Health to quantify national need, identify available sources of funding, measure gap in funding and finally advise the government on what quantities to order for various lab platforms. Modelling this has been (is) quite a challenging task.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
For laughs
Cartoon from the newspaper:
In all seriousness: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm
This is the map to Paul (our driver's) house where we went for lunch on Sunday:
In all seriousness: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm
*******
Paul had trouble representing the z-axis on a x,y map. The curve on the top of the map is meant to represent sloping down and back up.
In case you are curious, we got lost at "Kobil Gas Station" (there were two) and then again at "School Sign" (there were hundreds) and we never did find the "stony area".
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Top three pieces of work - Part 1
It has been a busy few weeks after returning from the christmas break.
As my 6 month anniversary approaches, I would like to review the top three pieces of work on my plate at the moment. I hope this will also allow you to better understand the nature of CHAI's work. To treat each item in sufficient detail, I'll go through one of these each week.
Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) and ART initiation rates - HIV tests for adults is now easy and fast. These test kits are now ubiquitous in Uganda. Over 8 million HIV rapid tests are being issued out of the National Medical Stores to all the health facilities around the country. These tests work by detecting the antibodies your body produces to combat the virus.
Testing HIV exposed babies (where mother has HIV) is a little trickier as the baby is born with his/her mother's antibodies. A technique called DNA PCR is used for detection of the virus. This requires dried blood spots (DBS) to be sent to a lab, the blood to be extracted and the DNA to be replicated until sufficient copies are available for the machine to detect and identify the virus.
CHAI worked with the Ministry of Heath to implement a centralised high throughput laboratory with the capacity to serve the entire country. The intention was to develop capacity with the ministry and to reduce cost and turn around time for samples (went from around 20 days to a 3 days).
With over 7000 samples being processed monthly and results being sent back, the problem is now ART initiation. 50% of the HIV+ babies die within the first 2 years if they are not started on ART. Our analysis showed that only 23% of the HIV+ babies were actually initiated on ART.
A large loss, 39%, was getting results out to mothers. This is a tough one. Mothers don't return to the clinic unless the baby is sick and often it's quite late at that stage. We need to find a way to get mothers to come back for their results.
The second largest loss was getting babies on treatment after they have been referred from the post natal clinic to the ART clinic. Compared to the the previous loss point, this should be a no-brainer. Every HIV+ infant under 2 should go on treatment immediately. We met with all the partner (NGOs working in EID) to discuss why initiation is so low and what action we can take to improve the ART initiation rate.
Much work still needs to be done and I look forward to being part of it.
As my 6 month anniversary approaches, I would like to review the top three pieces of work on my plate at the moment. I hope this will also allow you to better understand the nature of CHAI's work. To treat each item in sufficient detail, I'll go through one of these each week.
Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) and ART initiation rates - HIV tests for adults is now easy and fast. These test kits are now ubiquitous in Uganda. Over 8 million HIV rapid tests are being issued out of the National Medical Stores to all the health facilities around the country. These tests work by detecting the antibodies your body produces to combat the virus.
Testing HIV exposed babies (where mother has HIV) is a little trickier as the baby is born with his/her mother's antibodies. A technique called DNA PCR is used for detection of the virus. This requires dried blood spots (DBS) to be sent to a lab, the blood to be extracted and the DNA to be replicated until sufficient copies are available for the machine to detect and identify the virus.
CHAI worked with the Ministry of Heath to implement a centralised high throughput laboratory with the capacity to serve the entire country. The intention was to develop capacity with the ministry and to reduce cost and turn around time for samples (went from around 20 days to a 3 days).
With over 7000 samples being processed monthly and results being sent back, the problem is now ART initiation. 50% of the HIV+ babies die within the first 2 years if they are not started on ART. Our analysis showed that only 23% of the HIV+ babies were actually initiated on ART.
A large loss, 39%, was getting results out to mothers. This is a tough one. Mothers don't return to the clinic unless the baby is sick and often it's quite late at that stage. We need to find a way to get mothers to come back for their results.
The second largest loss was getting babies on treatment after they have been referred from the post natal clinic to the ART clinic. Compared to the the previous loss point, this should be a no-brainer. Every HIV+ infant under 2 should go on treatment immediately. We met with all the partner (NGOs working in EID) to discuss why initiation is so low and what action we can take to improve the ART initiation rate.
Much work still needs to be done and I look forward to being part of it.
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