The United Nations atomic watchdog agency, better known for its efforts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation, is boosting the use of radiation technology in Africa to promote development in numerous fields - from groundwater management and pest control to battling cancer and supplying energy.Nearly all of the IAEA's development activities in Africa support in some way the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said on an official visit to Algeria on Wednesday.
The MDGs seek to slash a host of social ills, such as extreme hunger and poverty, infant and maternal mortality and lack of access to education and health care, all by 2015, a press release issued by the UN Information Center (UNIC) said on Thursday.
ElBaradei cited the use of isotope hydrology as a tool in managing water resources. Because water contains different isotopes, isotopic dating can be used to estimate the origins and movement of water and determine the availability and capacity of underground aquifers.
In the field of food security, one of the most challenging problems facing Africa, IAEA is supporting pest control through the sterile insect technique (SIT), where radiation is used to sterilize otherwise healthy insects, which are then released to mate without producing offspring, thus controlling and gradually eradicating the pest population.
In human health, the IAEA helps countries in using nuclear and isotopic techniques to assess immune responses of individuals infected by various diseases, to monitor the emergence of drug resistance, and to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition strategies. Current IAEA projects support applying these techniques to national and regional efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.
