But the latest figures from the United Nations Childens Fund UNICEF show an unacceptably high rate of 21 children under five dying every minute.

Half of these are in sub Sahara Africa.

The heartbreaking message from the UNICEF figures is that the six major causes of deaths of children under five are entirely preventable.

These are diarrhea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery and lack of oxygen at birth.

The children deaths numbers  don’t  meet the Millennium Development Goal of a two-thirds reduction to 31 per 1 000 live births.

The geographic inequality in child mortality is illustrated by the reality that an Ethiopian child is 30 times more likely to die before his or her fifth birthday than a child in Western Europe.

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The Transparency Corruption Index for 2017, now out scores  South Africa at 43 out of a possible 100.

It was 45 the previous year.

South Africa’s score of 43 on Transparency International’s latest  corruption perception index accords exactly  with the average of 180 countries assessed

That’s not necessarily comforting news from the Berlin-based international watchdog that finds countries are making little or no progress fighting graft.

This year, New Zealand and Denmark rank highest with scores of 89 and 88 respectively. Syria, South Sudan and Somalia rank lowest with scores of 14, 12 and 9 respectively. Sub-Saharan Africa with an average score of 32 is the worst performing region.

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Militants attacked a police station in the Mandera area in the north east of the country killing one officer.

There are fears that general violence will keep voters away from the polls next Tuesday.

No-one has a completely clear conscience about pre-election violence in Kenya .

Politicians, party agents, protesters and security forces have all shown some savagery.

This is not unique.

Studies show violence plays some part in more than half the elections in sub-Sahara Africa.

For Kenya though, the hope is this important regional power will  not be pushed back to the brutishness of 10 years ago which cost nearly 1 500 lives.

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It follows a detailed study in Guinea, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo  where, the organisation says, people living with HIV continue to suffer needlessly and die silently.

ends intro

Médecins Sans Frontières calls in today’s  report for UN agencies, European donor agencies, the Global Fund and PEPFAR, as well as affected governments and civil society, to develop and implement a fast-track plan to scale-up life-saving antiretroviral treatment for countries where this coverage reaches less than one-third of the population in need, particularly in West and Central Africa.

MSF’s report warns against the converging trend of international agencies to focus on high-burden countries and HIV hotspots in Sub-Saharan Africa saying this risks overlooking the importance of closing the treatment gap in regions with low antiretroviral coverage.

The needs in West and Central Africa remain enormous with three out of four people in need not accessing HIV care.

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