The German parliament has backed a new law to allow the recreational use of cannabis.

Under the law, over-18s in Germany will be allowed to possess substantial amounts of cannabis, but strict rules will make it difficult to buy the drug.

Smoking cannabis in many public spaces will become legal from 1 April.

Possession of up to 25g, equivalent to dozens of strong joints, is to be allowed in public spaces. In private homes the legal limit will be 50g.

Already police in some parts of Germany, such as Berlin, often turn a blind eye to smoking in public, although possession of the drug for recreational use is illegal and can be prosecuted.

He wants to undermine the black market, protect smokers from contaminated cannabis and cut revenue streams for organised crime gangs.

But legal cannabis cafes will not suddenly spring up all over the country.

A ferocious debate about decriminalising cannabis has been raging for years in Germany, with doctors’ groups expressing concerns for young people and conservatives saying that liberalisation will fuel drug use.

After a stormy session on Friday in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, the vote was eventually passed by 407 votes to 226.

Simone Borchardt of the opposition conservative CDU told MPs that the government had gone ahead with its “completely unnecessary, confused law” regardless of warnings from doctors, police and psychotherapists.

But Mr Lauterbach said the current situation was no longer tenable: “The number of consumers aged between 18 and 25 has doubled in the past 10 years.”

After the vote he said the law would “dry out the black market” and fix “a failed drug policy”.

As so often in Germany, the law approved by MPs is complicated.

Smoking cannabis in some areas, such as near schools and sports grounds, will still be illegal. Crucially, the market will be strictly regulated so buying the drug will not be easy.

Original plans to allow licensed shops and pharmacies to sell cannabis have been scrapped over EU concerns that this could lead to a surge in drug exports.

Instead, non-commercial members’ clubs, dubbed “cannabis social clubs”, will grow and distribute a limited amount of the drug.

Each club will have an upper limit of 500 members, consuming cannabis onsite will not be allowed, and membership will only be available to German residents.

Growing your own cannabis will also be permitted, with up to three marijuana plants allowed per household.

This means that Germany could be in the paradoxical position of allowing possession of rather large amounts of the drug, while at the same time making it difficult to purchase.

Regular smokers would benefit, but occasional users would struggle to buy it legally and tourists would be excluded. Critics say this will simply fuel the black market.

Over the next few years, the government wants to assess the impact of the new law, and eventually introduce the licensed sale of cannabis.

But given how tortuous the debate has been so far, nothing is certain.

Source: BBC

Cameroon’s higher education and health authorities have decried the exodus of young graduates in the medical field to countries in the developed world – a situation that has put the country’s health sector at peril due to a shortage of highly skilled professionals.

According to Dr Manaouda Malachie, Cameroon’s minister of public health, there is a demand for health personnel in most parts of the country despites thousands of medical students graduating annually. The situation is alarming, necessitating urgent measures to halt the brain drain, he said.

“Many of our young graduate doctors are migrating to seek better work and financial incentives elsewhere, leaving our healthcare services in a predicament,” Malachie said in an address to health workers earlier in January.

He called for a halt to the crisis.

According to a report of the ministry of public health, about 30,000 healthcare practitioners are needed in Cameroon to align with the World Health Organization’s recommendation of one doctor to 10,000 people.

The report puts Cameroon’s current doctor-patient ratio at one doctor per 50,000 persons. It blames the shortage on the massive number of Cameroonian doctors who have been forced to travel abroad to seek better employment.

Greener pastures

Higher education authorities have repeatedly condemned the disappearance of young medical graduates.

Presiding over the graduation of some 600 medical doctors from the University of Yaoundé 1 at the end of last year, Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo, the minister of higher education, said statistics show that one-third of every graduating batch of young doctors abandon their jobs for greener pastures abroad no sooner have they begun work. He called on the graduates to show a sense of patriotism by serving their country with love and dedication.

“The country is in need of your services. I enjoin you not to follow in the footsteps of those who have abandoned their country to look for greener pastures elsewhere,” he told graduates.

This call was echoed by Dr Rodolphe Fonkoua, formerly a board member of the Cameroon Medical Council (CMC), and the newly elected council president.

“As professionals, we are called to respect medical ethics and laws related to medical professions, to serve selflessly and uphold professional standards. Abandoning service in your country after training should be discouraged,” Fonkoua said at the end of an extraordinary elective general meeting on 10 December 2023.

But, medical students in training say there’s a likelihood the trend will continue because of the absence of an enabling working environment.

Source: University World News

The world’s first routine vaccine programme against malaria has started in Cameroon, in a move projected to save thousands of children’s lives across Africa.

The symbolic first jab was given to a baby girl named Daniella at a health facility near Yaoundé on Monday.

Every year 600,000 people die of malaria in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Children under five make up at least 80% of those deaths.

Cameroon is offering the RTS,S vaccine free of charge to all infants up to the age of six months old.

Patients require a total of four doses. Health officials say these will be given at the same time as other routine childhood vaccines to make it easier for parents.

It comes after successful pilot campaigns in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi – where the vaccine caused a 13% drop in malaria deaths in children of eligible age, says Unicef.

The jab is known to be effective in at least 36% of cases, according to US researchers, meaning it could save over one in three lives.

While the rollout is undoubtedly a relief and a life-saver, its relatively low efficacy rate means that it is not a “silver bullet”, argues Willis Akhwale at End Malaria Council Kenya.

But for medics it is an important additional tool in the fight against malaria alongside mosquito nets and malaria tablets. Using all three together potentially gives children 90% protection from malaria, one UK-led study estimates.

“We have a capacity to considerably reduce the number of cases and deaths from malaria and accelerate the elimination of the disease,” Cameroonian doctor Shalom Ndoula, who helped to lead the vaccine rollout in his country, told BBC Newsday.

Development of the RTS,S vaccine has taken 30 years of research by the British drug-maker GSK.

The World Health Organization, which approved the vaccine, hailed the launch in Cameroon as a historic moment in the global fight against the mosquito-borne disease.

There was another breakthrough earlier this month, when Cape Verde became the first sub-Saharan African country in 50 years to be officially declared malaria-free by the global health body.

‘Safe, effective and free’

Fears and doubts among some Cameroonians about the safety and efficacy of the doses have raised concerns about vaccine hesitancy.

“When people say we are being used as guinea pigs, that’s not particularly true,” Wilfred Fon Mbacham, who is a Cameroonian king and also a professor of public health biotechnology specialising in malaria, told BBC Newsday.

“We as scientists have to do much more to educate the public on what it is, and the benefits it has, so that we can calm their fears.”

Vaccination official Daniele Ekoto at Monday’s launch told the BBC she was reassuring mothers after administering doses to their children, insisting that “it’s a vaccine that’s safe, effective and free”.

But for others the benefits are obvious.

“I decided to vaccinate my child to avoid malaria. It’s a bad thing and when it affects a child, they can easily die,” one mother told the BBC at the same vaccination centre in Soa, near Yaoundé, where Monday’s launch happened.

In 2021, Africa accounted for 95% of malaria cases globally and about 96% of related deaths.

“I have prayed and waited all my life for this vaccine”, Mr Mbacham told the BBC.

The WHO says Cameroon records about six million malaria cases every year, with 4,000 deaths in health facilities – most of them children below five.

Six-month-old children in 42 districts with the greatest rates of morbidity and mortality will receive four doses until the age of two.

Twenty other countries aim to roll out the programme this year, according to the global vaccine alliance, Gavi. Among them are Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone.

There is already a big demand for doses, but only about 18 million are available for allocation before 2025, according to Gavi.

It falls short of what is needed by the countries the vaccine alliance has recommended for approval.

The anticipated rollout of a second jab – R21 – developed by Oxford University, is expected to significantly increase the number of doses available for use.

This is to be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, which aims to make 100 million doses per year, so long as it successfully passes the regulatory approvals following its recommendation for use by the WHO last year.

Source: BBC

Some children with cancer are receiving a new type of drug treatment far less toxic than chemotherapy.

Arthur, 11, is one of the first to try it, at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, for his blood cancer.

His family calls the therapy “a little bit of sunshine”, since it worked without making Arthur feel much sicker.

And because it could be given on the go, rather than just in hospital, he spent more time at home with his family, enjoying more of what he loves.

He carried it with him in a rucksack – his “blina backpack”.

For Arthur, blinatumomab or blina was his only real option after his chemo had failed to clear all of his cancer and had left him very weak.

Blina is already licensed to treat adults with cancer – and experts hope to show it can safely help children too.

Some 20 centres around the UK are using it off-label for children with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL).

The drug is an immunotherapy that seeks out cancer cells so the body’s own immune system can recognise and destroy them.

And this death hunt is precisely targeted – healthy cells are untouched, unlike with chemo.

Source: BBC