A small Sri Lanka tragedy

One of the victims of the Sri Lanka flooding this month ( January 2011)

Rose Charities Sri Lanka staff deliver emergency food to children and families stranded by the flooding. Motorcycles can often go where other vehicles cannot

Noot Seear (co-founder of Rose Charities USA) has a lovely website...

 "During the last 13 years of her career, Noot has remained established in the fashion industry, and yet has found time to work on outside projects close to her heart. Brought up in a family dedicated to raising money and awareness for children in the developing world, Noot became the chairman of the board of Rose Charities in 2005. Rose produces events in New York City and Vancouver, to raise money and support for the likes of survivors of natural disasters and children born with birth defects in third world countries.  Her commitment to Rose has taken her around the world to visit Rose supported clinics in Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Vietnam..."

See    http://nootseear.com

Care with codeine

Codeine is a commonly used painkiller in both developing and non developing countries. Often it is sold as a combination with acetaminophen / paracetamol in 'cocktail' drugs. It is cheap and usually readily available.  Research at the University of British Columbia (Stuart MacLeod and Noni MacDonald) indicates that it should be used with more caution than previously condsidered.

Codeine acts by being metabolized to morphine in the body, but the degree of metabolism depends on a person's genetic make-up. Thus the amount of morphine produced can be seriously unpredictable.This it may be that for some persons, the drug has almost no pain-killing effects

For infants, the problem can be particularly serious. The researchers have cited two children who died after being given codeine following a tonsillectomy, and two studies have shown toxicity in infants being breastfed by mothers taking codeine.

While for the vast majority, codeine remains a very useful  analgesic for pain control  its effects must neither be taken for granted by users/prescribers/health workers, nor assumed to always be benign for everyone.
This combined with the non-existent controls on the sale of of strong drugs in many developing countries is a cause for concern. 

Phaeco can be expensive for developing countries

(click article above to enlarge)