Nigeria: Why Nigeria needs a national DNA databank

The need and importance of a national Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) databank for a rapidly growing nation like Nigeria cannot be overemphasized.

DNA databank has shown to be very useful in almost all spheres of life but particularly useful in the healthcare and security sectors.

A good example of the importance of a DNA databank is the 3rd June 2012 air disaster when Dana Airline plane crashed and killed 153 passengers. This incident, though it occurred over a year ago, the Medical practitioners in charge of identifying the badly burnt passengers for onward claim and burial rites by the families are still having a hard time carrying out this task because of the unavailability of a dedicated DNA databank of the citizens.

There were even embarrassing instances where 2 families of victims of the crash engaged in fist cuffs over a corpse which both parties claimed were theirs. This kind of situations would not even have come up if we had a sort of databank to provide such information in case of emergency.

Relating DNA to the unfortunate incident involving the Dana Airline, the Director General, National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Prof. Bamidele Solomon, said that the victims of the crash could have been easily identified if there was a DNA database of the victims.

He said this during a training workshop on the theoretical and practical courses on Basic Techniques in DNA Isolation, Manipulation and Application organised by NABDA in collaboration with the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), for Biotechnology and Forensic Scientists in Africa and beyond.

He noted that a DNA databank would have been a veritable tool for efficient and effective release of bodies of the victims of the plane crash.

He said: "DNA is a history book that can tell the origin of any species and it's unique to any individual so we can isolate every species even one on one, that is where the relevance of it comes into play in the case of our recent unfortunate incidence of plane crash; the DNA fingerprinting would have been a veritable tool in that particular occasion.

"It is important that we have a national databank of all the population in a place so in case of this issue, it's just once we get any piece we can just match it right away going back to the database.

"That is the reason why the agency is working with the National Defense Academy to ensure we develop forensic DNA finger printing technology in the country."

Highlighting the importance of a DNA databank with regards to maintain security and stability in the nation, the DG said forensic experts can use DNA to investigate crimes.

Bamidele said: "In developed countries, they do not have problems with fishing out questionable elements in the society because they have a relatively efficient and effective DNA databank which they match with suspects to decipher if they were guilty of a crime.

"It makes life easy for those on the job because it is even admissible in court and it can also be used to settle some health related issues like settling of paternal disputes."

The NABDA helmsman posited that DNA databank was so versatile and not only related to health or security but was also relevant in the agricultural sector.

He said that it was already common knowledge even among rural farmers that some species of cassava contained Cyanide which could become dangerous depending on the level of consumption.

"Even at the local level, we knew these species, so the issue now is for us to be able to have markers because there are markers that can help us know which one can produce cyanide.

"There are techniques now by which the Nitrogen that are being used to form cyanide may be channeled to produce even protein so you can have cassava that is now rich in protein instead of being rich in cyanide."

In her remarks, a doctor from the Trent University, Canada, Dr Cornelya Kleutsch, explained that DNA is the blueprint of all cells, the component in the human body that contains all the information.

She said that the essence of the training was to teach the trainees how to get and analyse DNAs from any kind of material such as hair, blood, stem cells.

She said the trainees would also learn how to isolate and analyse DNAs to establish basic understanding of species.

"It would help to establish a basic understanding of how to isolate DNA, how to analyse it and this will help in essence to establish a group of scientists that are able to help with forensic applications.

'If there has been a crime committed, they can use DNA analysis to find the person who did the crime.

"If you are interested in biotechnology and in agriculture, it will help to understand how we can yield better crops that yield more so that we then can battle things like hunger in the World.

The two weeks training had participants drawn from African and Asian countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Sudan, Tunisia, Tanzania, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://allafrica.com/stories/201308131210.html

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Georgian/Abkhazian war of 1992-1993: Burying son a ‘dream come true’ for mother

Engineering student Giorgi Popkhadze was 23 when war broke out in his home town of Sukhumi in 1992.

Like his fellow-students, neighbours and friends, Giorgi stayed in Sukhumi throughout the 1992-1993 conflict, as all the young men felt obliged to protect their families and their city.

In August 1993, when it became dangerous to stay in Sukhumi, Giorgi asked his mother and underage sister to leave.

Very reluctantly, Giorgi’s mother Mzevinar and her daughter allowed themselves to be evacuated to Poti, some 150 km south of Sukhumi along the Black Sea coast.

“Every day, my daughter and I used to go to the port, to meet the ships bringing people who had fled from Sukhumi.

“I hoped to see Giorgi among them. But days passed and I had no news about my boy.

“One day, I suddenly saw one of my neighbours who had just arrived in the port. She hugged me tightly with tears in her eyes and said ‘My condolences, Mzevinar!’

“That was how I learned that my Giorgi was no longer alive. He had been killed on the last day of the war, not far from our house.”

Mzevinar Popkhadze at the grave of her son Giorgi.Mzevinar Popkhadze at the grave of her son Giorgi.For almost 20 years, Mzevinar tried to visit her son’s grave.

She heard that neighbours had buried the bodies of brutally killed young men in the garden of their house.

Days of hope and expectation, endless efforts to “get him back” as Mzevinar put it, turned into two decades of ambiguity and disappointment.

“All that time, the thing I wanted most was to have my son’s grave here, so I could grieve for him properly,” explained Mzevinar.

“Can you imagine what it’s like when your dearest dream is to have your son’s grave near you?”

Coordination mechanism brings hope

The “Bipartite Coordination Mechanism for Clarifying the Fate of Persons Missing in Relation to the Armed Conflict of 1992-1993 and After” brings together Abkhazians and Georgians and was set up in 2010, under the aegis of the ICRC.

The first exhumations and identifications of human remains took place in Sukhumi 20 years after the conflict.

One set of remains was identified as being Giorgi.

The ICRC facilitated his transfer through checkpoints and administrative boundaries to his family, who could finally bury him in accordance with their religious traditions and customs.

Many people attended the funeral, including Mzevinar’s new neighbours, who had never met Giorgi. The local priest held a special service and Giorgi was buried in the family plot.

“For a mother who knew nothing about her son for over 20 years there can be no greater happiness,” said Mzevinar.

“I will continue to pray for the ICRC, because they made my dream come true.

“I have a grave for my Giorgi and I can go there every day.”

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/features/article/georgia-burying-son-a-dream-come-true-for-mother

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Father erects statue for daughter missing since 2011 tsunami

Since Norio Kimura cannot be with his youngest daughter, who was swept away by the tsunami of March 11, 2011, he has erected a small stone deity on a hillside to watch over her and keep her company forever.

Yuna was a first-grader at elementary school and was 7 years old. She was washed away by the wall of waves near her home after she returned from school.

Yuna is one of the 208 people who remain unaccounted for in Fukushima Prefecture, two years and five months after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

The image of the Jizo guardian deity of children was erected on July 31, ahead of the third Bon holiday season since the disaster.

It stands on a wooded hillside in a coastal area of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, 3.5 kilometers south of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Kimura, 48, could not look for Yuna because he had to evacuate the following day due to the accident at the nuclear plant.

His wife, Miyuki, 37, and father, Wataro, 77, also went missing, but their bodies were later found.

Kimura is evacuating to Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture, with Mayu, Yuna’s elder sister, who is 12 years old.

He looked for Yuna along the coast and amid rubble when he was allowed to return to Okuma once every three months. The only belonging he found was one of Yuna’s shoes.

Kimura came up with the idea of erecting the Jizo statue about a year after the disaster.

He wanted Jizo to be with Yuna as a friend because she would feel lonely without anyone beside her. He hopes Jizo will keep a close eye on Yuna forever because he cannot stay with her.

One of his acquaintances had drawn a smiling Jizo on a message card to encourage him. Kimura asked a stonemason to create the image based on the drawing.

Kimura began preparations on the hill behind his former home in May when he was allowed to return to Okuma on his monthly visit.

He erected the image and memorial ahead of "Bon," in which people traditionally recognize ancestral souls, with help from his former neighbors in Okuma and acquaintances in Nagano Prefecture.

The memorial carries the names of Yuna, Miyuki and Wataro, as well as Kimura’s message for the three.

“I was grateful because everyone got together for Yuna and the others,” Kimura said.

The death toll from the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami totaled 15,883, and 2,656 people remain unaccounted for in six prefectures.

Police, the Japan Coast Guard and other relief workers have searched for bodies mainly on and around the 11th of every month. But only 102 bodies have been recovered since Sept. 11, 2011, with only four this year.

“We have looked almost everywhere we can on land, such as ditches and ponds,” a senior official of the Miyagi prefectural police said. “All we can do is to find a body washed ashore.”

Yuna is the only person who remains unaccounted for in Okuma. Kimura still looks for Yuna by himself on his monthly visit. He is grateful for the police efforts but has mixed feelings about the ongoing search.

“I wonder whether the search activities should continue amid high levels of radiation because it is becoming difficult to find her,” he said.

In the hardest-hit prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima, 2,652 people remain unaccounted for.

For most of them, bereaved families have filed death registrations. In Fukushima Prefecture, registrations have not been submitted for only five persons.

Yuna is among them. Kimura said he knows she will not return home anymore, but he still wants her to remain among the ranks of the living.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/life_and_death/AJ201308110036

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Death toll in Argentina gas explosion at 21; no more people missing and search called off

Rescue workers searching the rubble of an apartment building destroyed by a gas explosion last week in Rosario, Argentina’s third-largest city, on Monday found three more bodies, bringing the confirmed death toll to 21.

The first body found on Monday is that of an 86-year-old woman, municipal Health Secretary Leonardo Caruana said.

At the time, he said authorities would continue searching for two people still listed as missing in the wake of the powerful explosion last Tuesday that toppled the 10-story building and damaged two other structures in downtown Rosario.

Later in the afternoon, officials quoted by the state-run Telam news agency confirmed that two more as yet unidentified bodies had been found.

Local media outlets reported that the pair of bodies were found in the area near the ruined building’s elevators.

Their remains were taken to the Forensic Medical Institute, where authorities await further details in order to report the families and confirm both identities.

The explosion injured about 60 people and damaged the homes of 240 families who have not been able to return.

Investigators are focusing on the gas company employee who was working at the building before the blast and remains under arrest.

Litoral Gas, the Belgian-Argentine utility that serves the area, is also under investigation for having “very limited and primitive” controls in place, prosecutors said.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=939197&CategoryId=14093

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Four still missing at Kulda open cast mines

The rescue team on Monday did not recover more bodies from the coal heap of Kulda open cast mines in Sundargarh district. "We had made a list of missing persons from nearby villages and four among them are still untraceable," said ADM (Sundargarh) RabindraMishra. They have been identified as SurekhaNaik, MamataMajhi, Tilu Sane and SebatiDhandi, all residents of Balinga village, he added.

Locals claimed some drivers of dumpers and tippers, who were taking bath at the spot, could be buried in the coal heap. "We will continue the search operation till all the missing persons are found," said general manager of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (Basundhara coal mines) A K Singh. Ten bodies have been pulled out of the coal heaps in the last two days.

Seven bodies, however, had to be brought back to the district headquarters hospital morgue after villagers refused to cremate them, demanding Rs 25 lakh compensation and action against officials of MCL.

Sources said among the 10 bodies, eight were identified and handed over to their families on Saturday. While the victim of Kurla village was cremated, families of the other seven, belonging to Balinga village, staged a protest at Balinga police outpost. They also lodged an FIR against MCL officials, holding them responsible for the incident and demanded Rs 25 lakh compensation and jobs for the displaced.

Some villagers lead by Sundargarh Sadar MLA Jogesh Singh barged into the MCL office and forced the employees to stop all work. The production and coal dispatches at Basundhara coal mines had come to a halt after the incident on Saturday. Former BJP state president Jual Oram along with some villagers also staged a demonstration and blocked the road in front of Balinga police outpost, pressing for the demands of the locals.

"Since the administration was not in a position to fulfil their demands immediately, they left the bodies at the police outpost. We had no option but to bring them back to the morgue," the ADM said.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/Four-still-missing-at-Kulda-open-cast-mines/articleshow/21791910.cms

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