Proceeding Report of the 40th Anniversary of National Meteorological Agency, Official endorsement of the National Framework for Climate Services an International Scientific Conference

Ethiopia is located in the Horn of Africa within 3–15° N and 33–48° E, bordered by Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti to the east, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, and Somalia to the south and east. It covers an area of about 1.14 million square kilometers. The country's topography consists of high and rugged plateaus and peripheral lowlands. Elevations in the country range from 160 meters below sea level (northern exit of the Rift Valley) to over 4600 meters above sea level (of northern mountainous regions). The highest mountains are concentrated on the northern and southern plateaus of the country. A large percentage of the country consists of high plateaus and mountain ranges, dissected by major rivers such as Blue Nile, Tekeze, Awash, Omo, Wabi Shebelle, etc. Overall, Ethiopia consists of 9 major rivers and 19 lakes. The Blue Nile, the chief headstream of the Nile, rises in Lake Tana in northwest Ethiopia. The meteorological observation started in the 1890s with few meteorological stations. In 1951, meteorological services were established as a small unit in the then Civil Aviation Department to render aeronautical services. Since then, meteorological observation has been expanding over Ethiopia. As the importance of meteorology was realized by other economic sectors, National Meteorological Services Agency (NMSA) was established by the Government Proclamation Number 201/1980. Besides, NMA started seasonal forecasting and advisory service in 1987 for three seasons, namely Belg (February - May), Kiremt (June-September), and Bega (October-January). The primary duty of NMA is to support all country's socio-economic developments by delivering climate services. Moreover, NMA has more than one thousand three hundred conventional Meteorological stations, three hundred automatic weather stations, five AWOS, three air pollution monitoring stations, three upper air stations, one radar, and eleven satellite receiver stations. The government of Ethiopia is determined to eradicate poverty and become a prosperous country by 2030. In this regard, addressing climate variability and change play a pivotal role in achieving this goal. To this effect, NMA is equipping with modern weather observing and monitoring capabilities and improving processing, analyzing, interpreting, and forecasting weather and climate capabilities at a high resolution and accuracy to meet the end-user's demands and effectively support all socio-economic developments of the country. NMA collaborates with all key stakeholders and partners through continuous engagement on climate services. The NFCS, endorsed during the NMA 40th Anniversary, is envisaged to strengthen collaborative co-production between climate services provider (NMA) and climate service beneficiaries institutions (MoWIE, EFCCC, MoA, MoH, and NDRMC). To commemorate its 40th anniversary, NMA has organized a conference with a theme of "Forty Years of Climate and Weather Services in Ethiopia" on May 25-26, 2021, at Skylight Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Generally, three main sessions were held during the conference. These include; Session one: panel discussion and opening ceremony; session two: presentations on the history of NMA and NFCS Ethiopia, official endorsement of NFSC Ethiopia, and certificate wards; and session three: parallel session of four groups and paper presentations on different thematic areas were made. The 40th anniversary was attended by ministers, commissioners, heads of organizations, and representatives from the WMO Africa regional office, international institutes representatives, experts from different organizations, lecturers, researchers, and NMA officials and staff. This document is proceedings of the 40th anniversary, including summaries of the opening session and the presentations

Emergence of high drug resistant bacterial isolates from patients with health care associated infections at Jimma University medical center: a cross sectional study

Background: The rates of resistant microorganisms which complicate the management of healthcare associated infections (HAIs) are increasing worldwide and getting more serious in developing countries. The objective of this study was to describe microbiological features and resistance profiles of bacterial pathogens of HAIs in Jimma University Medical Center (JUMC) in Ethiopia.Methods: Institution based cross sectional study was carried out on hospitalized patients from May to September, 2016 in JUMC. Different clinical specimens were collected from patients who were suspected to hospital acquired infections. The specimens were processed to identify bacterial etiologies following standard microbiological methods. Antibacterial susceptibility was determined in vitro by Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method following Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines.Results: Overall, 126 bacterial etiologies were isolated from 118 patients who had HAIs. Of these, 100 (79.4%) were gram negative and the remaining were gram positive. The most common isolates were Escherichia coli 31(24.6%), Klebsiella species 30(23.8%) and Staphylococcus aureus 26 (20.6%). Of 126 bacterial isolates, 38 (30.2%), 52 (41.3%), and 24 (19%) were multidrug-resistant (MDR, resistant to at least one agent in three or more antimicrobial categories), extensively drug resistant (XDR, resistant to at least one agent in all but two or fewer antimicrobial categories (i.e. bacterial isolates remain susceptible to only one or two categories), pan-drug resistant (PDR, resistant to all antibiotic classes) respectively. More than half of isolated gram-negative rods (51%) were positive for extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) and/or AmpC; and 25% of gram negative isolates were also resistant to carbapenem antibiotics.Conclusions: The pattern of drug resistant bacteria in patients with healthcare associated infection at JUMC is alarming. This calls for coordinated efforts from all stakeholders to prevent HAIs and drug resistance in the study setting

Assessing the effect of sunlight exposure on physicochemical properties of bottled water in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: An experimental observational study

Bottled water is potable water that is manufactured, distributed, or offered for sale and intended for human consumption. However, bottled water retailers usually expose bottled water to direct sunlight at the point of sale, and store it for extended periods. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of sunlight exposure and storage time on the physicochemical properties of bottled water. An experimental observational study design was employed to assess the effect of direct sunlight exposure on selected physicochemical parameters in four water brands (40 samples for both control and exposed) for 28 days in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The study's average sunlight intensity and sunshine hours from 3 October to 30/2020 were 197.7 ± 31.8 W/M2 and 7. 3 ± 2. 7 h, respectively. The mean values of the physicochemical parameters of bottled water before and after exposure to sunlight were compared using a paired sample t-test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test with a significance level of 0.05. Approximately 80% of the analysed parameters did not match the labelled value of bottled water. This study showed that the values of pH, F-, and NO3− were decreased from 7.31 to 7.02; 0.20 to 0.15 mg/L, and 3.95 to 3.52 mg/L, respectively. Whereas the level of NO2−, TDS, and turbidity was increased with increasing sunlight exposure from 0.00 to 0.02 mg/L, 82.82 to 85.24 mg/L, and 0.00 to 0.57 NTU, respectively. Statistically significant differences in pH, F−, NO2−, and turbidity levels were found between the exposed and non-exposed groups of bottled water. Apart from the increase or decrease in chemical concentration after sunlight exposure, the physicochemical parameters of the exposed bottled waters were within the recommended standards, except for fluoride and turbidity. However, the fluoride concentration was below the recommended level in both exposed and unexposed samples, with a further reduction in sunlight-exposed bottled water samples. Therefore, regulators should ensure that bottled water is protected against long-term direct exposure to sunlight to provide safe water to consumers

Effect of nutritional status of pregnant women on birth weight of newborns at Butajira Referral Hospital, Butajira, Ethiopia

Back ground: Maternal nutritional status influences the developmental environment of the fetus which consequently affects the birth weight of the newborn. However, the association between maternal nutritional factors and birth weight is complex and is not well characterized in Ethiopia. Objective: To assess the effect of maternal anthropometry and biochemical profile on birth weight of babies at Butajira Referral Hospital, Butajira, Ethiopia. Methods and materials: Laboratory-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 337 pregnant women at the hospital. Socio-demographic and obstetric characteristics were collected using pre-tested questionnaires. Blood sample was collected from each pregnant women for determination of total serum protein, total serum cholesterol and hemoglobin level. However, maternal dietary habits were not assessed in this study. Results: A total of 337 pregnant women were involved in the study. The mean (standard deviation) birth weight of the newborns was 3.14 ± 0.46 kg. After adjusting for different maternal factors, parity (p = 0.013), hemoglobin level (p = 0.046), pre-pregnancy body mass index (p < 0.001) and weight gain during pregnancy (p < 0.001) were positively associated with birth weight of the newborns, while the associations with total protein (p = 0.822) and total cholesterol (p = 0.423) were not significant. Conclusion: This study has shown that nutritional status of pregnant women as indicated by maternal anthropometry and hemoglobin level was associated with birth weight of the baby. Therefore, nutritional status of the pregnant women should be improved to reduce the risk of low birth weight