Africa
Harvard scrambles to distance itself from honour to Zimbabwe's first lady
The Global Health Catalyst (GHC) group has “clarified” its honouring of Zimbabwe’s first lady Auxillia Mnangagwa hours after several US diplomats wrote to ask it to rescind the honour. A Daily Maverick report says at the same time, Harvard...Zimbabwean doctors protest ZHDA president's abduction
A group of Zimbabwean doctors marched at the country's biggest hospital Sunday, demanding the release of one of their leaders who they say was abducted after calling for a pay strike, says an IoL report. Several government critics, including a...Burundi starts Ebola vaccinations for health workers — WHO
The Burundian Ministry of Public Health and AIDS Control has kicked off the vaccination campaign for front-line staff against the Ebola virus disease. The campaign started at the Gatumba entry point at the border with the Democratic Republic of...Two Ebola treatment trials show promise of a cure
A trial of four experimental Ebola treatments carried out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been stopped early after two of them showed strong signs of being able to save patients’ lives, says a Science Mag report. The preliminary...Congo doctors arrested for murder of WHO medic
Three Congolese doctors have been arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the killing of a World Health Organisation (WHO) medic, BBC News reports a military prosecutor has said. Cameroonian doctor Richard Mouzoko was shot dead in April at...More Ebola cases in eastern DRC 'cross-roads' city
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo are racing to contain an Ebola epidemic, after a gold miner with a large family contaminated several people in the east’s main city of Goma before dying of the haemorrhagic fever. The DRC government...
Concern over contraceptive solutions for women at high risk of HIV
August 7th, 2019 Over the past three days, the World Health Organisation guideline development group has been meeting to discuss its recommendations for the use of contraceptive methods by women at high risk of contracting HIV. A Daily Maverick report says that in...Lesotho opens 'lowest cost in world' cannabis processing plant
Lesotho, long home to an illicit cannabis farming industry, is poised to become one of the world's biggest producers of medicinal cannabis oil with the opening of a British-owned processing plant, reports The Daily Telegraph. The company's...DRC Ebola epidemic declared a global emergency – at last
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been declared a global emergency, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) calling for international support to stop its spread, according to a New Scientist report. It says this...Death toll in the DRC Ebola outbreak passes 1,500
More than 1,500 people have died in a nearly 10-month-old outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the DRC Health Ministry is quoted in The Citizen as saying. As of Sunday, 1,506 people have died out of 2,239 recorded cases, it...Bafflement as WHO says DRC Ebola crisis 'not an international health emergency'
Controversially, the World Health Organisation has decided that while the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo - with new cases this week in Uganda - does not meet the criteria for 'an international health emergency'. The...85 health workers killed or injured in DRC as epidemic pass 2,000
A mob killed an Ebola health worker and looted a clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, underscoring a breakdown in public trust that is hampering efforts to contain the deadly virus. Attacks on treatment centres by armed groups and mistrust...WHO issues new Ebola vaccine recommendations
The World Health Organisation’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) has issued new recommendations to address vaccination challenges in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The recommendations include...Madagascar's devastating measles epidemic takes 1,200 lives
As Madagascar faces its largest measles outbreak in history and cases soar well beyond 115,000, an IoL report says that resistance to vaccinating children is not the driving force. Just 58% of people on Madagascar's main island have been vaccinated...Hospital reports a jump in cholera cases in Kenyan capital
The Kenyan capital of Nairobi has experienced a jump in cholera cases, one of the city's top hospitals has announced, adding that eight of its own staff had been infected by the disease. "There is an upsurge of cholera cases in the county of...