Saving lives in Africa

[rov1200]

Gordon Brown spends a considerable amount of time getting the rest of the world to contribute £mns of aid to help Africans suffering from disease and malnutrition.

However today a GM mosquito has been let loose which breeds and self destructs and which could wipe out Denge fever in Africa which causes many deaths.

Isn't the sensible way of preserving the population of Africa to put the money into research like this so that diseases can be eradicated rather than throwing taxpayers money into a black hole as advocated by Brown?

[rov1200]

Latest details of this research and application.

http://www.channel4.c...to-released-into-wild

[wildwood]

Over the last few decades the world has poured billions into the 'third world' countries in Africa and it has made very little difference. Certainly the control of dengue fever would be a great step forward but the truth is that even if we could make them disease free and feed them all, these countries have been raped for so long by tyrant rulers and greedy mineral hungry so-called civilised countries that they have no economical sustainable system to keep the people healthy.

It is a sad state of affairs that I can see no end to. If by some miracle the World was able to make all there people happy and healthy they would have even more children and make the situation even worse.

Who is going to tell these unfortunate souls that they must not have more than one child? They have very little else in life!

[jake-the-peg]

I think your question is a political one about 3rd world aid and would be better placed in the News section

[rov1200]

I did think of putting it in the News Section but Gordon Brown's ideas are old hat and not news. However the cure for Dengue fever was in the news only yesterday and it needs a scientific mind to follow the story.

[Andyvon]

Exactly Rezeegir. The average African family have 8 children! A National Geographic article last year featured a man in the Sahel scratching away at his dry land and bemoaning the fact he couldn't feed his family. The article then went on to say he had three wives - and 31 children!

The single factor causing most of the world's problems - starvation, extinction of species, deforestation, global warming, lack of water, lack of jobs, lack of homes etc - is over-population. What is this deluded nonsense about stopping millions dying? It might sound terrible that all those people die - but it's even more terrible if they survive to reproduce many, many more millions! That's what the Africans will do. Then we'll hear this all over again in 20 years time when there are millions more than today! Africa is now suffering with the results of Feed the World in 1984. Not only are national economies and societies at breaking point and nearly bankrupt - so is the ability of the planet to absorb any more people! Like any other species that over-populates, Mankind will destroy itself. The planet will recover as it always has, but Homo sapiens will go extinct like every other species of human that's lived.

Let Nature take her course otherwise the whole planet suffers.