The World Health Organization has just confirmed that the newly-identified cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the Democratic Republic of Congo is genetically unrelated to the strain currently circulating in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria.
A WHO collaborating research center in Franceville, Gabon, the Centre International de Recherches Médicales, had previously identified six Ebola positive samples sent to the laboratory. They report today that, “the virus in the Boende district is definitely not derived from the virus strain currently circulating in west Africa.”
The WHO amplified that finding:
“Results from the virus characterization, together with findings from the epidemiological investigation, are definitive: the outbreak in DRC is a distinct and independent event, with no relationship to the outbreak in west Africa.”
The finding is worthy of such emphasis because of concerns that the west African outbreak had somehow spread to the DRC, formerly Zaire. The viruses in each outbreak are genetically distinct, but they are both of the Zaire species of Ebola virus, a fact that might be confused as meaning the outbreaks are related.
The form of the Zaire virus currently circulating in the DRC is most closely related to one responsible for an outbreak in 1995 in the city of Kikwit. Ebola virus first emerged in the DRC and South Sudan in 1976. The current outbreak in the DRC is the seventh on record.
The index case has been clearly identified as a pregnant woman from Ikanamongo Village who died on August 11 after preparing bushmeat that her husband had hunted.
The means of viral spread, as reported by the WHO, is typical of most Ebola outbreaks: “Local customs and rituals associated with death meant that several health-care workers were exposed and presented with similar symptoms in the following week.”
Thus far, the WHO has identified 53 cases consistent with a diagnosis of Ebola, including 31 deaths. Seven of the dead were healthcare workers.
But the WHO stressed that the outbreak is primarily occurring in a remote region of the DRC, about 750 miles from the capital of Kinshasa.
A patient suspected to have Ebola has been hospitalized in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, Reuters reported, citing local media sources.
It is reported, that a man has recently returned from a country that is included in the “risk zone,” one of the countries with previously reported cases of fatal disease.
The patient was taken to Karolinska University Hospital, where doctors put him in a detention center to run the necessary tests.
The Ebola virus has claimed 1,552 lives from 3,069 cases since December, according to the World Health Organization.
The worst Ebola epidemic in history and the first to have occurred in West Africa began in southern Guinea and soon spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
A separate outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 13 people.
The WHO says it could infect some 20,000 people before it is brought under control.
Historically, the disease has a mortality rate of about 90 percent, although the current outbreak has so far recorded fewer deaths per infection. Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids of the infected.
A WHO business plan to increase the supply of pandemic vaccines says the goal is to produce enough pandemic vaccine to inject 6.7 billion people – or the world’s entire population.
The WHO documents says the capacity to produce pandemic vaccines with adjuvants would reach 6.2 billion doses in 2010.
“This business plan evaluates the short to medium-term (2007–2017) options available to pursue the Global pandemic influenza action plan to increase vaccine supply (GAP) goal of developing enough pandemic vaccine to immunize the world’s population (6.7 billion people).”
Meanwhile a video showing the bodies of ebola victims dumped in the source of a river by the Liberian government, currently partnering with WHO, has fueled fears that Ebola is being spread through rivers.
Locals describe how the wetlands where the bodies of at least 45 ebola victims were dumped is the source of a major river located northwest of a city. Householders close by express fears that their well could be contaminated with Ebola.
The government of Sierra Leone said in a press release on August 6th, that it had overturned a WHO plan to build Ebola treatment centers in built up areas. Treatment centers are to be relocated to communities away from where people dwell or reside,” says the press release. An Ebola center already under construction is to be moved.
Violence erupted in an Ebola quarantine zone in Liberia’s capital Wednesday when soldiers opened fire and used tear gas on protesting crowds as they evacuated a state official and her family.
Four residents were injured in the clashes that flared in Monrovia’s West Point slum which has been sealed off as part of new security measures aimed at containing the deadly virus.
The death toll from the Ebola oubreak in West Africa has risen to 1,350, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, with 106 new deaths reported between August 17-18 in three countries.
The U.N. health agency said that 221 new suspected, probable and confirmed cases of the deadly fever were reported across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone over the two-day period.
The crackdown in Liberia comes as authorities around the world scramble to stem the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola, which has killed at least 1,350 people across west Africa this year.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf quarantined West Point and Dolo Town, to the east of the capital, and imposed a night-time curfew as part of new drastic measures to fight the disease.
Residents of West Point, where club-wielding youths stormed an Ebola medical facility on Saturday, reacted with fury to the crackdown, hurling stones and shouting at the security forces.
“It is inhumane,” resident Patrick Wesseh told AFP. “They can’t suddenly lock us up without any warning, how are our children going to eat?”
Deaths from the epidemic that has swept through west Africa since March now stand at 1,350 after a surge of 106 victims in just two days, according to the World Health Organization.
Fears that the virus could spread to other continents have seen flights to the region cancelled, and authorities around the world adopting measures to screen travellers arriving from affected nations.
Liberia’s armed forces have reportedly been given orders to shoot people trying to illegally cross the border from neighbouring Sierra Leone, which was closed to stem the spread of Ebola.
Soldiers stationed in Bomi and Grand Cape Mount counties, which border Sierra Leone, were to ‘shoot on sight’ any person trying to cross the border, said deputy chief of staff, Colonel Eric Dennis, according to local newspaper the Daily Observer.
The order comes after border officials reported people continued to cross the porous border illegally.
Grand Cape Mount county had 35 known ‘illegal entry points,’ according to immigration commander Colonel Samuel Mulbah.
Illegal crossings were a major health threat, said Mulbah, ‘because we don’t know the health status of those who cross at night’.
Liberia closed its borders with Sierra Leone weeks ago in an attempt to contain the Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 1100 people in west Africa.
The announcement came after residents of a slum near the capital broke into an isolation centre and freed up to 30 Ebola patients, local newspaper Front Page Africa reported.
‘As I speak the police station is deserted. There is no security now in West Point,’ resident Moses Teah was quoted as saying.
The break-in to protest poor conditions at Ebola quarantine centres has raised fears that the deadly virus will spread in the slum.
More than 100 Bishops, Pastors, General Overseers, Prophets, Evangelists and other Ministers of the Gospel, under the auspices of the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC), converged Wednesday at the edifice of the St. Stephen Episcopal Church in Monrovia, Liberia to deliberate on the Church’s role in and response to the Ebola epidemic.
The meeting was called by Archbishop Jonathan B.B. Hart, President of the LCC, who was also recently elected and enthroned Archbishop of the Internal Province of West Africa.
The men of God, mainstream Episcopalians and non-denominational evangelicals alike, unanimously endorsed the following resolution:
That God is angry with Liberia, and that Ebola is a plague. Liberians have to pray and seek God’s forgiveness over the corruption and immoral acts (such as homosexualism, etc.) that continue to penetrate our society. As Christians, we must repent and seek God’s forgiveness.
That a three-day indoor fast and prayer across the nation be observed, commencing next Wednesday, August 6th, and concluding Friday, August 8th.
That an inter-denominational committee be constituted to present said resolution to government.
That if government is in agreement, the Republic of Liberia be locked up for three days of fast and prayer. All movement should be restricted during those three days. People should stay at home for three days of silence, fasting and prayer.
Africa’s deadliest ever Ebola epidemic in West Africa has officially claimed well over 600 lives, and unofficially many more.
Following the death of a Liberian government worker two days ago who collapsed in the international airport of Nigeria’s 20-million megacity, Lagos announced a “red alert” with Nigeria clamping down into a quasi-quarantine state, sending specialists to airports and seaports for containment.
In Sierra Leone, where many have more faith in traditional medicine, this has culminated in crowds gathered outside clinics and hospitals to protest against what they see as a conspiracy, in some cases clashing with police as they threatened to burn down the buildings and remove the patients.
One of Liberia’s most high-profile doctors has died of Ebola, officials said Sunday, and an American physician was being treated for the deadly virus, highlighting the risks facing health workers trying to combat an outbreak that has killed more than 670 people in West Africa — the largest ever recorded.
A second American, a missionary working in the Liberian capital, was also taken ill and was being treated in isolation there, said the pastor of a North Carolina church that sponsored her work.
Dr. Samuel Brisbane, a top Liberian health official, was treating Ebola patients at the country’s largest hospital, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia, when he fell ill. He died on Saturday. A Ugandan doctor died earlier this month.
The American physician, 33-year-old Dr. Kent Brantly, was in Liberia helping to respond to the outbreak that has killed 129 people nationwide when he fell ill, according to the North Carolina-based medical charity, Samaritan’s Purse.
He was receiving intensive medical care in a Monrovia hospital and was in stable condition, according to a spokeswoman for the aid group, Melissa Strickland.
The American missionary, Nancy Writebol, was gravely ill and in isolation in Monrovia.
Samaritan’s Purse spokeswoman Melissa Strickland says Dr Brantly’s wife and children had been living with him in Africa but are currently in the US.
The epidemic has a mortality rate of between 60% and 90%.
The head doctor fighting the deadly tropical virus Ebola in Sierra Leone has himself caught the disease, the government said.
The 39-year-old Sheik Umar Khan, hailed as a “national hero” by the health ministry, was leading the fight to control an outbreak that has killed 206 people in the West African country. Ebola kills up to 90 percent of those infected and there is no cure or vaccine.
Across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, more than 600 people have died from the illness, according to the World Health Organisation, placing great strain on the health systems of some of Africa’s poorest countries.
Khan, a Sierra Leonean virologist credited with treating more than 100 Ebola victims, has been transferred to a treatment ward run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, according to the statement released late on Tuesday by the president’s office.
“Health workers are prone to the disease because we are the first port of call for somebody who is sickened by disease. Even with the full protective clothing you put on, you are at risk,” Khan said earlier.
Three days ago, three nurses working in the same Ebola treatment centre alongside Khan died from the disease.
The Ebola outbreak started in Guinea’s remote southeast in February and has since spread across the region.
The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa has hit a new “milestone” as the World Health Organization reports in an update today than the number of cases have exceeded 1,000. The global health agency says the current epidemic trend of EVD outbreak in Sierra Leone and Liberia remains serious, with 67 new cases and 19 deaths reported from 15 – 17 July 2014.
While no new cases were reported from Guinea, 22 new cases with 10 deaths were reported from Liberia; and in Sierra Leone, 45 new cases and 9 deaths were tallied. These numbers include laboratory-confirmed, probable, and suspect cases and deaths of EVD.
The WHO says as of 17 July 2014, the cumulative number of cases attributed to EVD in the three countries stands at 1,048, including 632 deaths. The breakdown by country is as follows:
Guinea, 410 cases (301 confirmed, 95 probable, and 14 suspected) and 310 deaths (203 confirmed, 95 probable, and 12 suspected); Liberia, 196 cases (76 confirmed, 56 probable, and 64 suspected) and 116 deaths (54 confirmed, 40 probable, and 22 suspected); and Sierra Leone, 442 cases (368 confirmed, 48 probable, and 26 suspected) and 206 deaths (165 confirmed, 35 probable, and 6 suspected).
The EVD outbreak, the largest in history, began six months ago in Guinea.
The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa is “totally out of control,” according to a senior official for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), who says the medical group is stretched to the limit in responding.
The outbreak has caused more deaths than any other of the disease, said another official with the medical charity. Ebola has been linked to more than 330 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, according to the World Health Organization.
International organizations and the governments involved need to send in more health experts and increase public education messages about how to stop the spread of the disease, Bart Janssens, the director of operations for the medical group in Brussels, told The Associated Press on Friday.
“The reality is clear that the epidemic is now in a second wave,” Janssens said. “And, for me, it is totally out of control.”
The Ebola virus, which causes internal bleeding and organ failure, spreads through direct contact with infected people. There is no cure or vaccine, so containing an outbreak focuses on supportive care for the ill and isolating them to limit the spread of the virus.
The current outbreak, which began in Guinea either late last year or early this year, had appeared to slow before picking up pace again in recent weeks, including spreading to the Liberian capital for the first time.
“This is the highest outbreak on record and has the highest number of deaths, so this is unprecedented so far,” said Armand Sprecher, a public health specialist with Doctors Without Borders.
According to the WHO, the highest previous death toll was in the first recorded Ebola outbreak in Congo in 1976, when 280 deaths were reported. Because Ebola often touches remote areas and the first cases sometimes go unrecognized, it is likely that there are deaths that go uncounted during outbreaks.
The multiple locations of the current outbreak and its movement across borders make it one of the “most challenging Ebola outbreaks ever,” Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, said earlier in the week.
But Janssens’ description of the Ebola outbreak was even more alarming, and he warned that the countries involved had not recognized the gravity of the situation. He criticized WHO for not doing enough to prod local leaders; the U.N. health agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“There needs to be a real political commitment that this is a very big emergency,” he said. “Otherwise, it will continue to spread, and for sure it will spread to more countries.”
But Tolbert Nyenswah, Liberia’s deputy minister of health, said the highest levels of government are working to contain the outbreak, noting that Liberia had a long period with no new cases before this second wave.
The death toll in west Africa’s three-nation Ebola outbreak has risen to 337, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, making it the deadliest ever outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever.
The new toll marks a more than 60-percent hike since the WHO’s last figure on June 4, when it said 208 people had succumbed to the deadly virus.
Including the deaths, 528 people across the three countries have contracted Ebola, one of the deadliest viruses known to man, the WHO said.
A majority of cases, 398 of them, have surfaced in Guinea, where west Africa’s first ever Ebola outbreak began in January.
Sierra Leone has registered 97 cases in total, while Liberia has seen 33.
That outbreak, until now the deadliest, killed 280 people, according to WHO figures.
Scene in Cameroon with Mount Cameroon in the background
by Anne Mireille Nzouankeu and Kristin Palitza
It happened a long time ago, two full decades, but Raissa Nana’s painful memories have remained fresh.
“My mother began to flatten my chest when I was 11. Every evening, she heated a stone in boiling water and pressed it on my breasts,” the 31-year-old remembered, her anger still written all over her face.
Dressed in a plain T-shirt that betrayed her flat chest, Nana recalled the physical abuse and humiliation she endured throughout puberty: “I cried out in pain, while my aunts were holding me down.”
By “ironing” her bust for years, the mother damaged Nana’s breast tissue irreparably.
The practice of “breast ironing,” in which mothers try to flatten their daughters’ developing breasts with heavy, heated objects is common in Cameroon as well as in many other West African countries, including Nigeria, Togo, Guinea, Chad and Ivory Coast.
Some women use stones or pestles to prevent breast growth, while others pound the tissue with heated plantain peels.
In nations where teenage pregnancy and rape are rife, trying to forcibly eliminate signs of puberty to protect their daughters seems worth the pain to many mothers.
A quarter of girls fall pregnant under the age of 15 in Cameroon, according to 2011 government statistics, while an estimated four per cent of women and girls are being raped.
“Mothers don’t want their daughters to get involved in early sexual activity, become pregnant and drop out of school,” explained Dr. Flavien Ndonko, technical adviser and anthropologist of aid organization German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Cameroon.
In a society, where discussing sexuality with children is a taboo for cultural and religious reasons, mothers resort to methods that have serious implications on their daughters’ health and psyche, according to Ndonko.
“They don’t realize how traumatizing breast ironing is,” he said. “It’s a very, very painful practice.”
But behavioural patterns are hard to change and myths difficult to set straight.
Even today, Nana’s mother, 52-year-old Emilienne, continues to believe the “benefits” of breast ironing outweigh the physical and emotional suffering it causes.
“I myself underwent breasts ironing. I did it to my daughter because I wanted the best for her,” she told dpa.
In Cameroon, 12 per cent of women have had their breasts ironed, according to a new study, for which GIZ surveyed about 6,000 girls and women between the ages of 10 and 82.
Contrary to general assumptions, breast ironing is not an old tradition. “It’s a social issue that is much more prevalent in urban than in rural areas. It originates from modern problems around sexuality,” explained Ndonko.
The psychological trauma the practice induces is immense.
“Girls get to understand that it’s not normal to have breasts, which has a long-term impact on their body image and sexual life,” said Ndonko.
“More than half of the women we interviewed associate breasts with shame,” he added.
Although Cameroon’s ministry for family and women’s empowerment classified breast ironing as a “violation of women’s rights” in 2011, the government has not legislated against the practice.
Eighty per cent of the women surveyed by GIZ said their breasts were permanently deformed by breast ironing. Nine per cent said they had difficulty breastfeeding their babies.
“We have seen girls developing cysts, infections, deformation and dissymmetry of the breast and psychological illness,” explained Sarah Ako, spokesperson of women’s rights group National Network of Aunties, which works closely with GIZ in capital Yaounde.
More than 10,000 women across Cameroon have joined the network to fight for the rights of younger generations. They run educational campaigns in schools, churches and on national radio to mobilize against breast ironing.
The good news is that the campaign has shown success. The 12 per cent of women suffering today from breast ironing represents a halving of the number in 2006, when an initial GIZ survey found that one in four women were affected by the practice.
“That’s a positive trend. It’s encouraging, but we’ll only be happy when we have zero cases,” said Ndonko.
Nana is one of the women who want to help break the cycle. As part of the Aunties network, she consults young women on issues relating to their sexuality.
Nana says she certainly won’t flatten the breasts of her own daughter, who just turned 14: “I don’t think it’s a solution to prevent premature sexuality.” – dpa
Asylum seekers queuing in front of a Home Affairs office in Pretoria
Government should take measures to assimilate foreigners into the diversified South African community, an asylum-seeker rights group said on Wednesday.
Foreigners in South Africa lived on a knife’s edge, International West Africa Asylum Seekers Foundation managing director Victoria Philips-Olaboye said.
“You need to see the multitude of people which gathers at Marabastad [home affairs offices]. They come from all over to get asylum papers in Pretoria and it is not easy.
“Some have to sleep on the ground through the night. We have a lot of rape victims there and the people are being robbed. Some of the people are pregnant, some have small children.”
She said the influx of immigrants to South Africa, particularly from West Africa, was influenced by political upheavals, economic hardship, and family disputes.
“The belief is that South Africa is better than any country in West Africa so they think they can make it here. Some have sex-related issues, they are not accepted because they are gay.”
She said her organisation wanted to engage South African authorities to help provide housing for asylum seekers.
“We have not seen much from the government. We would like to see more being done regarding the welfare of asylum seekers,” said Philips-Olaboye.
“Around 90 percent of asylum seekers are not working. They tell us that even though they are qualified, South Africans are preferred for job opportunities.”
According to Philips-Olaboye, the organisation had more than 700 members who were constantly exposed to xenophobia, discrimination, and crime.
Providing jobs for immigrants would also discourage them from venturing into crime, she said.
Nigerian immigrant Omokhagbor Michael said he arrived in South Africa two months ago in the hope of finding better economic opportunities in the entertainment sector. He said his stay so far had been horrific.
“Most of the language used in addressing us [foreigners] is vulgar; we just have to bear it. Being Africans, I think we should be treated politely,” he said.
“We had a number of challenges, including riots and [a] political crisis [in Nigeria]. In these days you find yourself in a situation where you have to go and seek shelter. In running for your life, you find yourself anywhere.”
Michael’s renewable asylum-seeker permit had since expired and he said he had not been able to renew it.
“The South African government has been wonderful to us. Somebody who gives you a house definitely wants you to be there. We face the problem of individuals who want to satisfy their pride.
“I have been trying to renew my asylum-seeker permit for two weeks. I was initially given one month to stay. One becomes scared and you keep turning left and right,” he said.
On Monday, the Somali government called on South Africa to protect Somali nationals living in the country after a spate of attacks on foreigners.
Residents in a township near Johannesburg rioted against the Somali community last week. Tensions also flared in Port Elizabeth and other parts of the country.
Scores of people were arrested following the attacks, which were reminiscent of the wave of xenophobic violence that left at least 60 foreigners dead in 2008. – Sapa
Canada is investigating an allegation by the Algerian Prime Minister that one of its citizens co-ordinated the terror raid at the Saharan gas plant in which dozens of hostages were killed.
Westerners, including a man with blond hair and blue eyes, are believed to have been among the Islamist militants who launched last week’s attack on the Tigantourine complex near Algeria’s border with Libya.
A French jihadist, previously unknown to authorities, and two Canadians are suspected to have been involved in the hostage-taking, and reports also claim that a man with a Western accent was among the extremists who lured terrified gas workers from their rooms during the hostage crisis.
Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal told reporters that a man, judged “by his English accent” to have been Canadian, was among the 32 Islamists whose raid on the Algerian refinery prompted a global crisis. One of the Canadians, identified only as “Shaddad”, is alleged to have played a leading role in the attack which left 58 hostages – including 37 Westerners – dead after a four-day battle with Algerian forces. Five further Western workers are still unaccounted for. “A Canadian was among the militants,” Mr Sellal said. “He was co-ordinating the attack.”
The militant group also included men from Tunisia, Egypt, Mauritania and Niger, Mr Sellal said. At least 29 Islamists from eight nationalities were killed in the operation to end the siege, with the remaining three captured alive. The make up of the attacking group – an al-Qa’ida splinter brigade who call themselves “Those Who Signed in Blood” – will be carefully examined as security experts try to assess the scale of the terror threat across North and West Africa.
Concern at the international composition of the Algerian kidnap brigade will be compounded by reports from residents in Diabaly, Mali, that Islamists who overran the town last week contained English-speakers and militants of European appearance. Speaking to The Independent yesterday after French and Malian forces had retaken the town, student Amadu Dumbia said: “I definitely heard them and there’s no chance that I made a mistake with another language. They spoke like they were from England, but had darker skins.”
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the leader of the group who is suspected of masterminding the gas plant attack from outside Algeria, yesterday warned that there would be more attacks on those participating in the military campaign in neighbouring Mali. In a statement to a radio station in Mauritania, which received regular communications from the militants during the In Amenas plant siege, the Algerian-born militant said: “We warn all the states who took part in the Crusader campaign against the Azwad region [northern Mali] that if they do not retreat from their decision there will be more operations.”
He also insisted that the brigade which undertook the attack was not local, saying “only five Algerians” took part in the attack and “none of them were locals from the city”.
Prime Minister David Cameron today told the Commons that the West faced a “generational struggle” in combating the “poisonous ideology” of Islamic extremists in the Sahel. Mr Cameron said that Britain would join the manhunt for Belmokhtar and promised extra support for the French campaign in Mali. Echoing the language used by Tony Blair in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, he said: “This is the work our generation faces and we must demonstrate the same resolve and sense of purpose as previous generations have with the challenges that they faced in this House and in this country.”
A spokeswoman for Canada’s Foreign Affairs Ministry yesterday said that they were still seeking clarity on a possible Canadian connection to the raid. “We are in close contact with Algerian authorities, but nothing [has been] confirmed yet,” Chrystiane Roy told Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
The Algerian authorities have declined to confirm whether the alleged Canadian co-ordinator was among the 29 militants who died.
One of the hostage takers was a North American who took part in the killing of numerous Japanese workers, the AFP agency reported. An Algerian employee of a Japanese engineering firm working at the site, identified as Riad said the Islamist attackers shot three Japanese who were in a bus, then went straight to the rooms occupied by the Japanese.
“One terrorist shouted ‘Open the door’ with a North American accent, then fired,” he told AFP. “Two other Japanese died and we found four other Japanese bodies inside the base.”
One of the kidnappers was tall, blond with blue or green eyes and spoke English, an Algerian military source told the Norwegian daily Aftenposten. Norway’s Statoil energy company was one of the two foreign firms operating at the gas complex. – The Independent
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