- AIDS in Kenya
- Contaminazione radioattiva in Kenya

Nairobi, Kenya - The controversial mass relocation of teachers currently going on in Kenya took another and more sombre twist Friday when a UNICEF official suggested the move was brought about by the widespread infection of the HIV/AIDS scourge among the teachers.

Kenyan teachers are among the professions that have been hardest hit by the pandemic, with up to 10 deaths being reported every week.

Sobbie Mulindi, a UNICEF consultant, told the annual general meeting of the Kenya Private Schools Association that it was wrong for the government of President Daniel arap Moi to shy away from the real issue behind the mass transfers.

The transfers, according to education minister Kalonzo Musyoka, are meant to effect a fair distribution of teachers whose aim is equitable education development for the whole country.

"If teachers succumb to AIDS and they are the foundation of our young people, then where are we going to?" Mulindi wondered.

He challenged the government to explain to the teachers the reality of their transfers, arguing that they are now impatient, as some are vulnerable to the disease if taken to areas where the disease is taking the heaviest toll, like western Kenya.

Teachers affected by the controversial transfers have already issued the government with a 14-day ultimatum to revoke the decision or risk a nation-wide strike.

A wide split has also emerged in the national and branch leaderships of the Kenya National Union of Teachers over how to deal with the transfers.

The most affected areas are Nairobi and the populous districts adjoining it.

Most teachers in Nairobi Friday were shocked when they received letters transferring them out of the city to districts they have never been to before, with most of them going to the arid and remote areas of eastern and northern Kenya.

Mulindi said that the AIDS pandemic is a big issue and appealed to the society to come out with all means to reduce the rate of infection among Kenyans.

He added that the youth would be the biggest casualties and that between 70 and 80 percent of those aged between 15 and 30 years would bear the brunt of the disease.

"Teachers, especially couples, who will be separated because of the transfers, run a greater risk of infection because of temptations of unfaithfulness," he said.

Mulindi noted that the AIDS infection in Uganda had been reduced because of the introduction of public education in that country in 1989, "although Uganda remains the one country with the greatest number of AIDS orphans."

He also said he respected the morals of the churches but told the clergy to use all means at their disposal to save lives.

To try to thrash out the row between the teachers and the government, the union and the Teachers Service Commission are soon to deliberate on all the grievances raised by the affected teachers.

Francis Ng'ang'a, the union's acting secretary general, said Friday that the commission had committed itself to acting on all written appeals as from Tuesday.

The teachers' complaints range from bad health, physical disabilities and an ill child to cases of newly-weds, closeness to retirement age, separation from spouses and advanced stages of pregnancies.

23 novembre 1999
KENYA: Health ministry confirms radiation
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Hornet/irin_112399.html

Kenya's Permanent Secretary in the ministry of health, Professor Julius Meme, last week confirmed that about 20,000 people may have been affected by radiation due to a 21 km section of road containing radioactive compounds in the Coast Province, the 'Daily Nation' reported. It is believed that the workers on the road in May unknowingly scooped tons of rocks containing thorium from the nearby Mrima hill, and used it to repair the road. Meme has directed that people who could have been exposed to the radioactive substance be medically examined.

Traveling the radioactive road
Kenyans live exposed to radiation from building material
November 4, 1999
Web posted at: 1:41 p.m. EST (1841 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9911/04/kenya.roads/
In this story:
Mysterious deaths
Eight-year-old study detailed danger

From Correspondent Alphonso Van Marsh

MRIMA HILL, Kenya (CNN) -- In southeastern Kenya's Kwale district, the sandstone surfaces of the Shimba Hills jut sharply upward, rising several hundred meters above a plateau just on the edge of the coastal plains.

Kenyan authorities dug building materials from one of these hills, which make up Kwale's coastal uplands, to build a nearby road. It was a money-saving action -- Mrima Hill was closer than a rock quarry just 20 kilometers (12 miles) farther away.

But now Kenyan authorities are scrambling to set up health monitoring systems for a rural community exposed to low levels of radiation -- radiation from the ancient sedimentary rocks that formed the 323-meter (1,060-foot) hill.

And some scientists say the Kenyan government knew the material was potentially harmful, but used it anyway and did nothing to contain the radioactivity.

"You can say there is thorium, actinium, there is uranium, there is potassium-40." said Dr. Anthony Kinyua, director of Kenya's Institute of Nuclear Science.

It is the thorium, Kinyua said, that over time poses the most risk.

"It might result in some cancer," he said.

Mysterious deaths

Some 25,000 people live around Mrima Hill and have been exposed to low-level doses of radiation. Nuclear scientists at the University of Nairobi are testing samples to determine how much.

But Mwamaba village elder Juma Saied worries that the efforts have been too long in coming.

"For years there have been mysterious deaths," Saied said. "We fear some deaths have been caused by the air we breathe emanating from this hill."

Bicycle taxi driver John Shickopte charges about 60 cents for a ride on the radioactive road. He is worried too, he said, but doesn't know what to do.

"The bike taxi business is my only income and this is the only road," Shickopte said "I don't have a choice."

Eight-year-old study detailed danger

Shickopte and others shouldn't have been put in a position to worry, said geophysicist Jayanti Patel, who published a study on the hill's dangerous radioactivity eight years ago.

"I sent copies personally to all the relevant ministries," he said. The study said "Sedimentary rock from the hill should not be used for either building homes or road constructions."

Kenya's Radiation Protection Board is now reviewing Patel's findings, while radiation levels on some areas of the hill are more than 50 times higher than what scientists consider safe.

Health ministry officials told CNN if anyone exposed to the radiation felt sick, he or she could check in at the local health center.

But in rural Kenya, updated facilities -- not to mention cancer treatments -- are rare. And the number of people exposed to radiation is not limited to those who traveled the road -- residents in the hillside village have used sediment from the slopes to line their homes and grow their crops.