Posts by Neena Bhandari

Samoa measles death toll rises amid vaccine scare

0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 03.12.2019 (SciDev.Net): Fifty-three people, including 48 children under the age of four years, have died of measles in the small Pacific island nation of Samoa, which is facing the worst outbreak of this highly contagious disease driven by low vaccination levels.

Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Neioti Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi announced on Monday (2 December) that all branches of government, except water and electricity departments, will be closed on Thursday and Friday this week and civil servants will be redeployed to help in the mass immunisation drive to vaccinate everybody up to the age of 60 years.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates Samoa’s total population immunity to be as low as 31 per cent. To prevent measles outbreaks, it is recommended that countries should aim to achieve and sustain at least 95 per cent immunisation coverage.

Continue reading on SciDev.Net Asia & Pacific Edition.

© Copyright Neena Bhandari. All rights reserved. Republication, copying or using information from neenabhandari.com content is expressly prohibited without the permission of the writer and the media outlet syndicating or publishing the article.

Global disasters linked to warming Indo-Pacific seas

0 Comments read Environment & Development

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY, 29.11.19 (SciDev.Net): East Asian floods, African droughts and the frequent California fires may be linked to the rapid warming of the Indo-Pacific Ocean that impacts global rainfall patterns and corresponding weather, says a new study published on 27 November in Nature.

Each year, weather variability at sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales costs the global economy over US$2 trillion with costs to the US alone amounting to US$700 billion.

“The Indo-Pacific warm pool, a region between the eastern Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean, with ocean temperatures generally warmer than 28 degrees Celsius, has been warming since the 1900s, but during 1981—2018, it expanded at a rate of about 400,000 square kilometres per year — the size of Thailand or Spain,” says Roxy Mathew Koll, lead author and climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune.

Continue reading on SciDev.Net Asia & Pacific Edition.

© Copyright Neena Bhandari. All rights reserved. Republication, copying or using information from neenabhandari.com content is expressly prohibited without the permission of the writer and the media outlet syndicating or publishing the article.

Australia’s ‘Quit Nukes’ Campaign Targets Superannuation Funds

0 Comments read Nuclear Disarmament

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 22.11.2019 (IDN-InDepthNews): A new campaign is encouraging Australians to urge their superannuation funds to exclude nuclear weapons producers from their investments, consistent with the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which has been ratified by 33 states and needs another 17 ratifications to become enforceable under international law – 90 days after the fiftieth instrument of ratification.

A joint initiative of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) and International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the Quit Nukes campaign is an Australian project that works in collaboration with Pax, the producers of the annual ‘Don’t Bank on the Bomb’ report, which documents the global financing of nuclear weapons.

Quit Nukes Director Margaret Peril said: “The campaign is initially targeting the Australian superannuation industry, which currently invests over two trillion US dollars on behalf of its members, making it one of the largest pension fund assets worldwide.”

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