Sunday Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 32

32 JANUARY 22 2012 The Sunday Telegraph INTERNATIONAL NEWS Vaccine a gift of life for Africa's defenceless babies AISLINN LAING in Lusaka JENNIFER MUZALA'S family, were so relieved when she survived a potentially fatal disease during pregnancy that when she gave birth to her third son they named him Lucky. Six months later, Lucky returned to hospital but, this time, there was no happy ending. He became one of 40 Zambian children who die every day because of diarrhoea. "Maybe he was one of those babies that God didn't mean to give you," Mrs Muzala said. In developed nations, such stomach upsets are usually no more than a minor, if inconvenient problem.

But in poorer countries the illness kills more children than malaria, Aids-related conditions and measles put together, especially among the under-fives. Half of the 1.5 million victims worldwide every year are Africans. That could change with the start tomorrow of a vaccination programme that aims to protect 750,000 Zambian children from a virulent form of diarrhoea called rotavirus. The $12.2 million (£7.8 million) Arab League to vote on Syria team ADRIAN BLOMFIELD SYRIA'S main opposition group formally called on the Arab League to refer President Bashar al-Assad to the UN Security Council yesterday, escalating pressure on the bloc to declare its monitoring mission a failure. The 22 member body representing Arab states faces a moment of reckoning today when its foreign ministers meet to decide whether to extend its mission to Syria by a month.

Despite the deaths of hundreds of Syrians since the mission first arrived in Damascus last month, it has indicated its determination to keep monitors on the ground. Ministers at the meeting in Cairo will study a report filed by the mission's head, Gen Mustafa al-Dabi of Sudan, who is expected to argue that his team's presence has led to a reduction in violence. Such a conclusion is likely to infuriate Burhan Ghalioun, the head of the opposition Syrian National Council, who arrived in Cairo yesterday intent on a showdown. Mr Ghalioun has demanded that Gen Dabi's report accuses the Assad regime of "war crimes" and He has persuaded a number of observers to file to the opposition a separate report, which will be read out at a press conference after the ministers' meeting. The opposition has also requested that the league shuts down the mission and instead presses the UN Security Council into imposing a no-fly zone over Syria and a security haven near its border with Turkey.

By allowing the UN Security Council to take over, the league would effectively be acknowledging that the Arab world is incapable of ending the violence in Syria. But allowing the observers to stay will undermine its credibility. The Syrian opposition argues that the mission has served to give Mr Assad diplomatic cover to continue the bloody repression of the 10-month uprising in which more than 5,400 people have been killed. United States has told Mr. Assad it will close its embassy in Damascus if the Syrian government fails to bolster security at the mission in the wake of three mass casualty bombings in the city.

12 Boko Haram attacks Watch video of the aftermath telegraph.co.uk/worldnews GARETH BENTLEY 18, outside her home in Zambia: the young mother is learning how to prevent her two-year-old son Paul from becoming ill with rotavirus its Zambian partners are keen to teach mothers that illnesses such as diarrhoea can be avoided. Rotavirus is spread via contact with contaminated hands, surfaces and objects; now Jenala Chipungu, a CIDRZ community coordinator, will spend the next few years nagging mothers to wash their hands religiously. She will stress the need for them to breastfeed their babies until they are six months old, and instruct them in the use of rehydration salts to help their children if they become ill. "Mothers will often tell you that the baby got diarrhoea because it's teething, so it's normal," she said. "Others think that crushing mango or guava leaves to give to the child will help.

It's sometimes hard to change these beliefs Maggie Lungu, 18, is an orphan and mother to two-year-old Paul. When he became ill last week, she was unsure what to do so she sat THE ULTIMATE SN SNOWMOBILE vaccinate every newborn child, in what the organisations hope will become a model for other countries. Rotavirus need not be fatal: nearly every child in the world has been infected with it at least once and most develop immunity. But in a country where access to treatment is limited and a child's chances of a nutritional diet are small, the story is different. Jennifer Muzala does not know what strain of diarrhoea killed Lucky, only that one day he was a bright, smiling little boy and the next he was listless and weak.

She was given money by her employer to take him to a private clinic. With the national ratio of doctors to patients currently at 12 to 100,000, many families queue for days to get medical help. five days we went from the clinic to hospital, to another hospital," Mrs Muzala said. "One night, I went to sleep and when I woke up, he was gone." ARK and THE LEXUS RX ADVANCE NOW WITH £1900 WORTH OF COMPLIMENTARY EXTRAS Front and rear under runs, a panoramic roof or sunroof and darkened alloy wheels now come with the original luxury hybrid SUV. It gives you the reassurance of a 4x4 with all the comfort and refinement you would expect from a Lexus.

So you can look forward to snowy days as much as the kids do. RX 450h LEXUS www.lexus.co.uk Model shown is RX Advance costing £49,015.00 including optional metallic paint at £610. RX 450h MY 11 fuel consumption figures: urban 43.5 (6.3 CO2 emissions 145 Islamists kill more than 160 in Nigeria NICK MEO programme is led by the British organisation ARK (Absolute Return for Kids), which has close ties to the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry and has secured further financial backing from Britain's Department for International Development and Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire. With community projects to teach mothers how to stop their children getting ill and train doctors to diagnose and treat the sickness, it is the first integrated anti-diarrhoea programme in subSaharan Africa. The Zambian government has set up a network of cold-storage facilities for stocks of the vaccine, which deteriorates rapidly if too warm, and refrigerated trucks to deliver it.

Workers have been trained in administering it, and a proper system has been established to ensure that babies get a follow-up jab that is vital for the vaccination to be effective. ARK will run the three-year project with the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ), a nongovernmental organisation. After that, the Zambian government is expected to take up the reins and 0 A SERIES of bombs and gun attacks by the Boko Haram Islamist sect have left at least 162 people dead in the largest city of Nigeria's mainly Muslim north. The mortuary of the main hospital in Kano, a city of nine million, was overflowing with the bodies of victims, many of them uniformed policemen targeted by the radical sect dedicated to destroying the Nigerian state and establishing a Muslim Caliphate in Africa. Five of the bombs planted on Friday were set off at police stations and were followed by a night of explosions and shooting on the streets of the city, an important political and religious hub.

Smoke was still rising from the remains of the destroyed buildings yesterday and occasional gunfire could be heard on the streets, where soldiers and police officers were attempting to bring control. "Many agencies are involved in the evacuation of corpses from the streets," said a Red Cross source, on condition of anonymity. Naziru Muhammad, who lives near state police headquarters, said yesterday morning: "Between my house and the police headquarters along this street, I have counted 16 dead bodies that litter the streets, six of them policemen." Attackers also targeted two immigration offices and the local headquarters of the State Security Service, Nigeria's secret police. Many residents sheltered indoors but one described seeing a suicide bomber join a police convoy, then leap from his car as police opened fire. The car rolled over and exploded, as the bomber was shot dead, he said.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, has killed hundreds of people in an increasingly bloody campaign, which is now targeting Christians in the predominantly Muslim north. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, was among Western leaders who condemned the attacks. He said: "The nature of these attacks has sickened people around the world and I send my deepest condolences and sympathies to the families of those killed and to those injured." and hoped in her darkened concrete shack. She rarely washed her hands, she told health workers, and looked blank when asked about rehydration salts. "He was teething so I thought it would pass but I felt helpless," she said.

"After five days, his eyes were sunken and he was so weak that he would not eat or sit up. ale went to the clinic and I think he is happier now." A couple of miles away lives Angel Chapewa, 27, a hospital worker who gave birth to her first child, Junior, just three weeks ago. By comparison, her life is comfortable: she lives in a wellbuilt house connected to water and electricity, and her who works in local government, has a full-time job. Their priority is their newborn son, whose life chances already seem greater than Paul's. She expects her son to be among the first to be vaccinated under the new programme.

"This vaccine couldn't arrive at a better time for us. I will make sure he is one of the first in line. Too many children die here and anything we can do to stop that is a great thing for every Zambian mother and baby." The Programme for Awareness and Elimination of Diarrhoea, to give optimistic it its full title, and is somewhathe projects that ARK gets involved in. The organisation was founded in 2002 by a group of hedge fund managers including Arpad, Busson, a Swiss financier who has two children with Elle Macpherson. "We don't donate, we invest," said Kevin Gundle, co-founder of ARK.

"People very often react with their hearts in Africa to the headline-grabbing stuff but for us, it's about getting there before those images even appear on the television The British Government has contributed £1.2 million to the project on top of ARK's £3.6 million. 8 combined 44.8 mpg BROTHERHOOD HOLVM of far The first TOP the seats Brotherhood IN freely Muslim in biggest EGYPT elected Egypt's won share by parliament in aTOM the count about Islamist decades assembly. Brotherhood seats has two an in groups The thirds the has official confirmed. took of promised that all Egyptians will be given a voice. TRIPLE LIMB TRANSPLANT Doctors at Akdeniz University Hospital in Antalya, southern Turkey were last night attempting the world's first triple limb transplant, attaching two arms and a leg to a 34- year-old man.

FLAG BURNING GREETS EU Five protesters were detained for trying to tear down an EU flag in the main square of the Croatian capital Zagreb, on the eve of today's referendum on whether to join the 27-country grouping. Opinion polls suggest that about 60 per cent of voters in the former Yugoslav republic are likely to vote in favour. FRANCO ALLY MOURNED Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, was among hundreds who attended a public funeral mass for Manuel Fraga, the last senior survivor from the Franco dictatorship, in Galicia. Fraga, who died last Sunday aged 89 straddled Spain's historic 1977 transition from dictatorship to democracy. TROUBLE IN THE MALDIVES Dozens of antigovernment activists were arrested in the Maldivian capital Male yesterday as authorities accused them of whipping up religious extremism.

Authorities said the protesters had attacked police and a minister's home. mpg (6.5 extra-urban 471 mpg (6.0 I.