Suffer the children
Christmas, they say, is for children, and as the festive season draws near again, the youngest generation is occupying an increasingly prominent place in the international consciousness.
Here in the UK in recent days we have enjoyed or endured - depending on your point of view - the 25th annual BBC Children in Need fund-raising bash, and the release of the rehashed Band Aid recording to raise money for famine relief in the Sudan, two decades on from the original initiative. Furthermore, November 20th is officially designated Universal Children's Day, founded in 1954 by the UN General Assembly and embraced with particular enthusiasm by McDonald's to support a range of in-house child-orientated charities.
According to the United Nations World Food Programme, almost 10 million people die around the world every year through starvation, and hunger and malnutrition kill more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. And the depressing thing is that the overall picture never seems to get any better.
Throwing millions of pounds, dollars or euros at the problem makes little perceptible difference. Inadequate infrastructure, civil conflict, corrupt administration, unfavourable climate and environmental disasters are all cited as reasons for the lack of progress. Exactly the same reasons, in fact, as those given by international pharma companies to explain the futility of pouring large quantities of drugs into countries without the means to distribute them properly or monitor compliance.
In contrast to the media hype surrounding these high profile events, another story - which offers far greater hope to many of the world's sickest children - passed quickly and almost unnoticed out of the head-lines.
A clinical trial involving HIV-positive children in Africa was stopped prematurely because it became obvious that a daily dose of the common antibiotic co-trimoxazole could reduce by half the number of such children dying from AIDS-related conditions.
Every day as many as 1,300 children die from HIV and Aids-related illnesses across the world, and for a cost of less than 10 cents per child per day, many of these can now be saved.
So before you succumb to compassion fatigue, just give a thought to how much can be done for so many with so little, and dig a bit deeper to give someone a chance of life in 2005.
On behalf of everyone at Manufacturing Chemist, may I send you all season's greetings and wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.