Just remembered: a quick mention to a couple of unsung heroes of Surin School: Lorraine and Jackie at Ellington. Fundraising nerves of steel.

Another Xmas fundraiser from the Surin Angels for the Thai School.

And Anita at Kent Works. Working like a dervish with Caldecott and a couple of others.

Literally couldn't be done without you.

Astonishing figures of the epidemic now spreading to South Africa sa people leave Zimbabwe.

An epidemic from Victorian times.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7738297.stm

No apologies for providing this link again from the Panormama TV show - an astonishing expose of how UK aid is stuck in Sierra Leone's port and simply not moving in-country.

Footage of people lying on the floor in the only hospital for 1M people - imagine Kent with only one hospital.

The Government and aid workers car park full of brand-new 4x4 cars.

Schools half-built.

Water almost knee-high in the main streets.

Is this the way it is across the world - except the body count and numbers change?

Cholera in Kent: 2,700 deaths; typhoid in Kent: 2,000 deaths

- dirty drinking water, blocked drains, poor sanitation in 1830-90 from Kent Archaeology data.

500 deaths in Zimbabwe today.

Soap. Disinfectant. Water filtration kits. Minor vaccines.

All available in Boots the Chemists.

Despite a global slowing down in new TB cases since 2003, South Africa recorded the world's second highest rate of new cases (incidence rate) in 2006 after Swaziland.

More people died of TB in South Africa in that year than in any other country in the world - some 218 per 100 000. Zimbabwe and Mozambique had the next highest TB death rates.

The global TB cure rate for 2005 was 78%, but South Africa's cure rate was only 58%. This was third worst in the world. Uganda was bottom of the class with a 32% cure rate, followed by Russia with a 55% cure rate.

Zimbabwe did marginally better than South Africa with a 59% cure rate.
In contrast, China, Bangladesh and Vietnam reported cure rates of 90%