By August this year, the Rwanda drone initiative was being reported as having already delivered over 1,400 medical supplies comprising blood to remote areas in the country. Though the initiative was launched in October last year, the ripple effect with the reach and growing number of medical deliveries carried over earning it a spot as one of most acclaimed of human developments for 2017. From the lessons it has yielded, Tanzania is now set to borrow a leaf from the medical initiative for implementation in 2018. For this reason, the drone initiative ranked amongst the most notable on the continent this year meriting a number of appreciative mentions in international media platforms. On the other hand, one could dwell on the news that splashed the biggest headlines, and there’ll be no lack of something negative, about the conflicts and disasters – man-made or otherwise, that one could talk about. But there was a lot of that was positive happening during the year with the breakthroughs that often got swamped by the splashier but unhappy headlines. Like the drones, the breakthroughs did not necessarily have to have originated from Africa, except for the impact they may have in our everyday lives. Humanprogress.org tried to count and arrived at 82 breakthroughs for the year 2017 while conceding the number as “only a tiny fraction of all the advances humanity has made in the past 12 months. (See, ‘The World’s Getting Better All the Time’).” Of these, one could begin with one of the scientific breakthroughs more immediate to our situation, such as the golden-orange-fleshed bananas that are rich in pro-vitamin A created by scientists in Australia. The banana is already in the initial stages of field trial in Uganda. Fortified with vitamin A, it could save the lives of hundreds of thousands of children who die from a deficiency of the vitamin every year. Or, one could also talk about the environment. This year Rwanda launched a facility in Bugesera to recycle e-waste, of which it is foreseeable it could benefit from current scientific breakthroughs to enhance the recycling. It could, for instance, benefit from a newly discovered cost-effective method by scientists from Rice University in the US and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, that freezes and pulverizes old computers and other gadgets to dust. And, to complement policies already in place, how about the chance discovery this year of the plastic-eating worm that could help wage war on the dire plastic pollution on land and sea? This is in addition to a novel fungus identified by Chinese researchers that is capable of degrading certain plastics. With the electric car assembly plant being set up by the Canadian firm Energy Co-Invest in Ethiopia and expected to start operations by 2019 targeting the EAC market, the region is already poised for clean energy transportation. The bigger news, however, is the ongoing development of a new electrode design that could charge batteries in seconds instead of hours. The new materials being developed could let phones and electric cars charge in single-digit minutes, depending on the level of power depletion. Already, policymakers in the region are developing standards for imported electric vehicles and motorcycles, to ensure they are environmentally friendly and safe. However, back to health: Though we must continually urge caution and prevention, we now know, for instance, that living with HIV is categorised as a chronic condition with the availability of drugs to manage it. But, this year alone, there were no less than three breakthroughs promising to vanquish it. The human body has difficulty fighting HIV because of the way the virus changes and mutates. However, research carried out in the US has produced an antibody capable of attacking 99 per cent of HIV strains. Among other possibilities, new data released from other research shows that HIV DNA can be removed from the genomes of living animals to eliminate further infection, beating the innate nature of the virus to hide away in animal cells and remain latent for extended periods of time. The various research gives much hope about comprehensively dealing with the scourge in the near future. The above is only a glimpse. 2017 definitely had its bad and disappointing moments, but it also had its exhilarations and “Aha!” moments. Either way, lessons were drawn, with the year contributing to the continuum in a world that is getting better all the time. We can hope for the same in the coming one. Happy New Year! Twitter: @gituram The views expressed in this article are of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Times Publications.
