Education For All In Zimbabwe: A Mirage?

A ZJER article on assessing the attainment of MDG's (Millennium Development Goals) of Education for All in Zimbabwe.This paper assesses Zimbabwe’s efforts towards the attainment of, the goals of Education For All, (EFA) as determined and agreed upon at the World Conference on Education For All (WCEFA) held in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990 and re-affirmed in Dakar, Senegal in 2000. While Zimbabwe has been noted to have made huge strides in increasing access to education for previously marginalized Africans during the first decade of independence from Britain, there is need to take stock of progress in recent years against a background of socioeconomic decline experienced in the country since the early 1990s, more so since the year 2000.The introduction of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) marked the beginning of a phase of reduced government funding of social services sectors, education included. This saw the re-introduction of school fees arid various levies in both primary and secondary schools, negatively impacting oh access to education, particularly by children from disadvantaged groups such as those from impoverished rural, farming and mining communities. Added to this is the HIV/AIDS phenomenon that has ravaged communities particularly in the last decade, leaving a considerable number of children orphaned and without a means of sustaining their livelihoods in general and to pay school fees in particular. Then came the economic down-tum of the last decade, but particularly pronounced since the year 2000, again.rendering more families poorer and with a reduced capacity to pay fees for school going children. It:is against this background, that this paper scrutinizes Zimbabwe's efforts towards the attainment, of the ERA goals. Is Zimbabwe still on course

Geochemical constraints on the genesis of the ‘Montaña de Manganeso’ vein-type Mn deposit, Mexican Plateau

© 2020. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Manganese mineralization at Montaña de Manganeso, San Luis Potosí state, consists of oxide ores that form sharp contacts with volcanic host rocks. The orebodies are generally in the form of veins and irregular masses, and locally as mineralized breccias. Petrographic analyses indicate that the mineralization is multi-episodic, with colloform and crustiform textures predominating. The X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy show that manganese oxides (todorokite, birnessite, pyrolusite, romanechite and cryptomelane) are the main ore minerals, while iron oxides (goethite and hematite) are accessory. The most common gangue minerals are calcite and quartz with subordinate amounts of barite. According to fluid inclusion microthermometry, the mineralization is associated with aqueous solutions of intermediate salinity (8–16 wt% NaCl equivalent) and temperatures between 101 and 140 °C. Stable isotope analysis of calcite (d13CPDB: -7.76 to -6.32‰; d18OPDB: -8.01 to -4.71‰) and barite (d34S: 7.9–13.6‰) shows a contribution of magmatic volatiles to hydrothermal fluids dominated by meteoric water (calculated d18Ofluid: 6.58–13.14‰, relative to SMOW). Argillic alteration is the most widespread hydrothermal alteration at Montaña de Manganeso and indicates fluid temperature below ~150 °C and near neutral pH. Much more local, advanced argillic alteration, revealed by the occurrence of kaolinite, is interpreted as a steam-heated overprint, which in turn suggests a boiling process that must have happened at greater depths. The Mn ores formed through a process of mixing of: (a) boiled-off hydrothermal fluids, with (b) cold, diluted meteoric water. Our results support a hot-spring deposit model, according to which Montaña de Manganeso corresponds to the shallowest portion of an epithermal system formed in a continental volcanic arc setting.This work was supported by the PAPIIT (DGAPA, UNAM) project IG100116 and forms part of J.M’s PhD dissertation. Carlos Linares López is thanked for the assistance in WDS analyses. Edith Cienfuegos Alvarado and Francisco Javier Otero Trujano are thanked for the carbon and oxygen isotopic analyses. Colleagues Andrea Hernandez Cervantes, Irvin González Romo and Urenia Navarro are thanked for their help during fieldwork and preparation of graphics. Prof. Nicolas Johannes Beukes is greatly thanked for access to the Central Analytical Facility of the University of Johannesburg were SEM imagery was carried out. We would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved the manuscript.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Enhanced infection prophylaxis reduces mortality in severely immunosuppressed HIV-infected adults and older children initiating antiretroviral therapy in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe: the REALITY trial

Meeting abstract FRAB0101LB from 21st International AIDS Conference 18–22 July 2016, Durban, South Africa. Introduction: Mortality from infections is high in the first 6 months of antiretroviral therapy (ART) among HIV‐infected adults and children with advanced disease in sub‐Saharan Africa. Whether an enhanced package of infection prophylaxis at ART initiation would reduce mortality is unknown. Methods: The REALITY 2×2×2 factorial open‐label trial (ISRCTN43622374) randomized ART‐naïve HIV‐infected adults and children >5 years with CD4 <100 cells/mm3. This randomization compared initiating ART with enhanced prophylaxis (continuous cotrimoxazole plus 12 weeks isoniazid/pyridoxine (anti‐tuberculosis) and fluconazole (anti‐cryptococcal/candida), 5 days azithromycin (anti‐bacterial/protozoal) and single‐dose albendazole (anti‐helminth)), versus standard‐of‐care cotrimoxazole. Isoniazid/pyridoxine/cotrimoxazole was formulated as a scored fixed‐dose combination. Two other randomizations investigated 12‐week adjunctive raltegravir or supplementary food. The primary endpoint was 24‐week mortality. Results: 1805 eligible adults (n = 1733; 96.0%) and children/adolescents (n = 72; 4.0%) (median 36 years; 53.2% male) were randomized to enhanced (n = 906) or standard prophylaxis (n = 899) and followed for 48 weeks (3.8% loss‐to‐follow‐up). Median baseline CD4 was 36 cells/mm3 (IQR: 16–62) but 47.3% were WHO Stage 1/2. 80 (8.9%) enhanced versus 108(12.2%) standard prophylaxis died before 24 weeks (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) = 0.73 (95% CI: 0.54–0.97) p = 0.03; Figure 1) and 98(11.0%) versus 127(14.4%) respectively died before 48 weeks (aHR = 0.75 (0.58–0.98) p = 0.04), with no evidence of interaction with the two other randomizations (p > 0.8). Enhanced prophylaxis significantly reduced incidence of tuberculosis (p = 0.02), cryptococcal disease (p = 0.01), oral/oesophageal candidiasis (p = 0.02), deaths of unknown cause (p = 0.02) and (marginally) hospitalisations (p = 0.06) but not presumed severe bacterial infections (p = 0.38). Serious and grade 4 adverse events were marginally less common with enhanced prophylaxis (p = 0.06). CD4 increases and VL suppression were similar between groups (p > 0.2). Conclusions: Enhanced infection prophylaxis at ART initiation reduces early mortality by 25% among HIV‐infected adults and children with advanced disease. The pill burden did not adversely affect VL suppression. Policy makers should consider adopting and implementing this low‐cost broad infection prevention package which could save 3.3 lives for every 100 individuals treated