TheNewsGuru

Tag: congo

  • Postponement: Fate of ex-Congolese president awaits you next Saturday, CUPP tells Buhari

    The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) on Saturday attacked President Muhammadu Buhari for blaming the Independent Natiaonal Electoral Commission (INEC) for positioning the elections.

    The coalition insisted that President Buhari was part of reasons for the unfortunate postponement.

    It described President Buhari as dishonourable and a desperate despot afraid of losing to the opposition.

    Recall that INEC on Saturday postponed the elections earlier scheduled to commence today. This shocking postponement has since attracted condemnations within and outside the country.

    The president also condemned the commission on Saturday for subjecting Nigerians to so much embarrassment despite according the commission all the needed support and corporation.

    Read CUPP’s full statement below:

    CUPP reaction to President Buhari statement on election shift

    Your statement on election shift shows you are a dishonourable , lying desperate despot scared of impending defeat.

    ..You are pained because you didn’t get staggered election which was why your government security forces sabotaged election materials distribution

    ..Your Air Force called off pilots midair into distribution. Your Central Bank locked strong rooms midway into distribution of electoral materials, your security forces aided bandits to steal supplied materials.

    You used Amina Zakari to compromise about eight Federal Commissioners to support you plan to conduct staggered election. Your security forces looked the other way while your supporters burnt INEC offices and card readers.

    Despite the mayhem your government and security forces unleashed on INEC, you wanted the election to hold with only 50 percent state ready and thinking that INEC will give you staggered election.

    Though INEC failed Nigerians , the commission disappointed you more by refusing staggered election and you shamelessly issued a statement blaming them after you set the nation on the path of fire and bloodshed by sabotaging distribution.

    Bow your head in shame, Mr.President.

    We shall meet you again on Saturday February 23 2019.

    The fate of President Kabila of Congo awaits you. In case you don’t know, after burning down Congo’s electoral body’s offices and materials, Kabila’s party was defeated.

    Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere
    CUPP Spokesperson

  • Nigeria, Congo home to world’s poorest people by 2050 – Gates Foundation

    Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo have been estimated to be home to 40 per cent of the poorest people in the world by 2050.

    Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation President Mac Suzman stated this while presenting data from the Goalkeepers 2018 Report on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the first Goalkeepers event in Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa on Saturday.

    Suzman said the two countries are among the dozen in Sub-Saharan Africa that would house 90 per cent of the world’s poorest people.

    He added that while extreme poverty had reduced significantly in East and Central Asia in the last 27 years, it had increased in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    Suzman said: “There are about a dozen countries with a huge number of poor people. In fact, more than 40 per cent of the world’s extremely poor people would live in two countries in 2050 – the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.”

    However, Suzman added that the large population of young people in both countries could be their strengths – but only if they get the right investment in health and education now.

    “If the overall youth population stays the same, it means everywhere else the youth population will shrink. That means by 2050, one in every three young people in the world will be African. These young people have the potential to be a real force for change with their ambition, ingenuity and innovation.

    “But they will only be able to do that if they are able to fulfil their potential. And that will depend on a large part on key investment in two very basic things – health and education,” he said.

    However, wife of the late Nelson Mandela Graca Machel urged youths not to accept the statistics but collaborate to change the narrative.

    Mrs. Machel said: “We don’t need to accept this 2050 as the numbers are saying here. I want really to challenge you: it cannot happen in your life time. You have the power to change things. And when I say movement, it is because none of us alone in our countries can be movements – a young people movement.

    “Begin to become a network and in that network, we are creating a platform to support you so there is no door that can be shut in your face.

    “Take it as a challenge of your time; connect; build movements and the movements will give you the power to do what our political ancestors, the Madibas, the Zulus, etc did and were able to say, ‘Apartheid, No’. You have to say, ‘extreme poverty, No’; ‘discrimination against women, not in my lifetime’.”

    Also speaking, UN Deputy General Secretary Aisha Mohammed said there was need for collaborations between governments, private sector and individuals to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

    She also urged young people to hold their governments accountable and call them out when they do not deliver.

    “I think you should shadow your governments report in 2019 at the General Assembly. Are they really moving on the indicators? You should be specific about calling them out and I think no government likes to be called out,” she said.

    The programme climaxed with the presentation of the first “Change-maker Award’ to Natalie Ruby of Kenya for her advocacy against Female Gender Mutilation (FGM).

    The award was received on her behalf by Christine Alphonso, who shared how Natalie’s work helped her to overcome the challenges of FGM, which claimed her father’s life when he tried to protect his girls from it.

    An array of stars, including Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Femi Kuti, Tiwa Savage and WizKid yesterday performed at the Global Citizens Festival in commemoration of Mandela’s 100th post-humous birthday at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.

  • Ebola virus infects 300 people in eastern Congo

    The deadly Ebola virus has infected 300 people in Congo since an outbreak erupted almost two months ago in the country’s east, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

    Ebola is a deadly disease caused by a virus, though there are five strains, and four of them can make people sick.

    After entering the body, it kills cells, making some of them explode, it wrecks the immune system, causes heavy bleeding inside the body, and damages almost every organ, though it is scary, but it’s also rare.

    “The virus has killed 186 people in the North Kivu and Ituri regions, while 88 others have been cured,’’ the ministry said on Monday.

    According to authorities, about 26,000 people in the central African nation have meanwhile received a vaccine to prevent Ebola.

    Earlier this month, the health ministry said it will install health checkpoints at the entrances to all polling stations in Congo’s Ebola-affected region during the December presidential election, when millions of Congolese are expected to come out to vote.

    The outbreak is concentrated in a region where numerous militia groups are fighting over Congo’s rich natural resources.

    Besides militia attacks that have hindered health workers, the region’s high population density and movements across the borders to Uganda and Rwanda pose additional risks that the highly lethal fever disease could spread in the region.

    The outbreak began shortly after the government declared an end to another outbreak in the west of the country in June and lauded those involved for managing to swiftly contain the spread of the disease.

     

  • Congolese doctor infected with Ebola in high insecurity zone

    A doctor in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is hospitalised with Ebola, and 97 of his contacts have been identified in an area almost entirely surrounded by armed militia, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.

    “It is the first time we have a confirmed case and contacts in an area of high insecurity.

    “It is really the problem we were anticipating and at same time dreading,” Dr. Peter Salama, WHO deputy director-general for emergency preparedness and response, told a news conference.

    The town of Oicha is almost entirely surrounded by Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) Ugandan Islamist militia, there are “extremely serious security concerns”, he said, adding that the group held hostages.

    NAN reports that authorities said 61 people have died in the latest outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    The health ministry’s General Directorate for Combatting Disease said 103 cases of Ebola had been recorded in the eastern DRC as of Aug. 22, 76 of which had been confirmed by laboratory tests.

    Of the 103 cases, there were 61 deaths, 34 of which been confirmed by lab tests, while 27 others were considered “probable” cases of Ebola.

    The outbreak began on Aug. 1 in Mangina in North Kivu province, and cases have been reported in neighbouring Ituri province.

    It is the 10th outbreak to strike the DRC since 1976, when Ebola was first identified and named after a river in the north of the country.

    The health ministry added that “four additional experimental therapeutic molecules” had been approved by its ethics committee for treating infected patients.

    Their laboratory names are ZMapp; Remdesivir; Favipiravir; and Regn3450 – 3471 – 3479.

    The drugs — which have not been licensed but undergone safety trials — add to a prototype treatment called mAb114, whose use was announced on Aug. 14.

    The first therapeutic drug against the virus to be used in an active Ebola epidemic in the DRC, mAB114, has so far been given to 10 patients “who are responding positively,” the ministry said.

    Developed in the United States, the prototype drug is a so-called single monoclonal antibody — a protein that binds on to a specific target of the virus and triggers the body’s immune system to destroy the invader.

    The experimental treatments are being used alongside an unlicensed vaccine called rVSV-ZEBOV, which was shown to be safe and effective in previous trials in an Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

    Immunisation with rVSV-ZEBOV has been given to 2,179 front-line health workers, the ministry said.

    The WHO has expressed concern that the violence in the province Kivu — entailing militias who often fight for control of resources, including a notorious Ugandan rebel force called the ADF, — could hamper the fight against rolling back the disease.

    The outbreak in eastern DRC was declared a week after WHO and the government hailed the end of a flareup in northwestern Equateur province, at the other end of the vast country, which killed 33 people.

    The government has earmarked 43 million dollars to fight the latest scare.

    Ebola is a highly contagious haemorrhagic fever caused by a virus which is believed to have a natural home in species of tropical bats.

    It causes serious illness including vomiting, diarrhoea and in some cases internal and external bleeding. It is often fatal.

    In the worst Ebola epidemic, the disease struck the West African states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from 2013 to 2015, killing more than 11,300 people.

     

  • Uganda opens Ebola treatment units at border with DRC

    Uganda has opened two Ebola treatment units in the border districts with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a World Health Organisation (WHO) official said.

    Yonas Woldemariam, WHO Representative in Uganda, told Xinhua that the two treatment units have been established in the western border districts of Kasese and Bundibugyo to respond to any deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever alert case or outbreak.

    He said the units are fully equipped and ready to manage any Ebola case in the east African country.

    “Ebola Treatment Units are where patients can get the best care possible – with access to rehydration methods and protection from infecting their family and community,” said Woldemariam.

    Although there is no confirmed Ebola case in Uganda, the country remains on high alert following an outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever in neighbouring DRC.

    A WHO situation report dated Aug. 20 said of the 59 deaths from the hemorrhagic fever in the DRC, 32 were confirmed and 27 were probable.

    The Ebola virus is highly contagious and can cause a range of symptoms including fever, vomiting, diarrhea, generalized pain and in many cases internal and external bleeding.

    Mortality rates of Ebola fever, according to WHO, are high, with the human case fatality rate ranging from 50 per cent to 89 per cent, depending on viral sub-type.

     

  • Congo approves more experimental Ebola treatments as cases rise

    Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)has approved four more experimental treatments against the deadly Ebola virus, the health ministry said as it raced to contain an outbreak in its violence-torn east.

    Health authorities on Aug. 11, started administering the U.S.-developed mAb114 treatment to Ebola patients, the first time such a treatment had been used against an active outbreak.

    The DRC health ministry said in a daily bulletin that the 10 patients who received mAb114 since Aug. 11 have experienced a “positive evolution”, but the outbreak has continued to grow.

    The four additional treatments approved by Congo’s ethics committee are Remdesivir, made by Israel’s Gilead Sciences; ZMapp, an intravenous treatment made by San Diego’s Mapp Pharmaceutical; Japanese drug Favipiravir; and one referred to as “Regn3450 – 3471 – 3479”.

    Remdesivir was administered to its first patient in the town of Beni on Tuesday, who is doing well, the ministry said in its bulletin.

    The ministry said six new cases and four new deaths have been confirmed from the haemmorhagic fever, which causes vomiting and severe diarrhea.

    That brings the total number of deaths to 59 and confirmed cases to 75 since July.

    Congo, whose heavily forested interior makes its a natural home for Ebola, is at the forefront of a global campaign to combat the virus, which killed more than 11,000 people when it swept through West Africa from 2013 to 2016.

    The Central African country has experienced ten Ebola outbreaks since the virus was discovered in northern Congo in 1976, more than twice as many as any other country and 33 people died in a flare-up in the northwest that ended last month.

    In addition, a vaccine manufactured by Merck, which proved effective against the earlier outbreak in northwestern Congo, has been administered to 1,693 health workers and contacts of Ebola patients.

    Insecurity in Congo’s eastern borderlands with Uganda has continued to complicate the response, with some contacts of Ebola patients located in so-called “red-zones”, which are off limits to emergency responders due to militia activity.

    Instead, local health workers in those areas are monitoring the contacts and no Ebola cases have yet been confirmed there.

     

  • Congo battles to contain ebola outbreak in conflict zone – Official

    Authorities in troubled eastern Congo are battling against multiple militia groups and a deteriorating security situation in their efforts to respond to an Ebola outbreak that has killed 55 people in the region.

    The outbreak of the deadly virus began shortly after the country’s government in June declared an end to another outbreak – in the west of the country – and lauded those involved for managing to swiftly contain the spread of the disease.

    But access to Congo’s eastern “red zone” is more difficult due to the region’s ongoing conflict.

    There is also the added problem of the movement of internally displaced people in North Kivu province, and their possible cross-border travel into Uganda or Rwanda.

    The World Health Organisation has warned that some areas are inaccessible because of the more than 100 armed groups that are mainly fighting over access to mineral resources.

    The government has rolled out a vaccination campaign that has so far managed to treat more than 1,200 people.

    However, the number of cases has almost doubled in a week, with the Ministry of Health saying late Monday that 96 people were suspected or confirmed to have contracted the disease.

    “In red zones that are more difficult to access … we are working with the local registered nurses who are tracking these people and sending reports by phone every day,” Jessica Ilunga, spokesperson at the Ministry of Health, told dpa on Tuesday.

    Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga said during a visit to the region Monday that medical teams were being provided with security and patients were being treated in safe spaces.

    “The response to the Ebola outbreak is not easy because the disease has been declared in a red zone,” he said.

    “Health personnel and materials are accompanied by an escort when travelling.”

    To try and contain the virus authorities are manning the entrances to the town of Goma, border posts and the busy port, and are taking the temperatures of those arriving from elsewhere in North Kivu.

    Basins and soap have been placed at all these points as well as at churches so that people can wash their hands.

    The government has also relaxed rules about motorcycle commuters wearing helmets in order to avoid the spread of infection.

    Motorcycle-taxis are a popular form of transport in Congo, and motorcycle-taxi driver Hakim Balole told dpa he thought it was a good idea for passengers not to share helmets.

    “The disease can easily be transmitted by sweat,” he said.

    Ebola, which can also spread through blood, vomit and other bodily fluids, is a highly infectious disease that causes a fever and often leads to massive internal bleeding and death.

    dpa/NAN

  • Officials discover 14 bodies after 15 were kidnapped in eastern Congo

    Officials discover 14 bodies after 15 were kidnapped in eastern Congo

    Officials said on Tuesday that 14 bodies were found in the north-eastern city of Beni in Congo, five days after suspected rebels kidnapped 15 people, officials said on Tuesday.

    “The death toll has reached 14 bodies,” the spokesman for the mayor of Beni, Zachee Mathina, said, indicating that now all 15 people abducted during an attack on the town on Aug. 2 had been found dead.

    On Aug. 2, another body had already been found in a remote area of Beni, according to Mathina.

    The rebels attacked Beni and kidnapped 15 people after they had been pushed back by the army.

    The Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan rebel group that has operated in the region since 1995, are believed to be behind the attack and kidnapping.

    The group is responsible for the deaths of more than 1,500 people and 800 kidnappings since 2014, according to local civil society organisations.

    Beni lies west of the Virunga National Park and the Rwenzori Mountains, close to the Uganda border.

    Xinhua/NAN

  • Congo declares four new Ebola outbreaks in eastern province

    Officials from the Health Ministry said four people have tested positive for Ebola in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo just days after another outbreak that killed 33 people in the northwest of the huge country was declared over.

    Twenty people have died from hemorrhagic fevers in a densely populated area near the town of Beni close to the Ugandan border, the ministry said in its statement, without saying when these occurred.

    The ministry said there was no evidence linking this outbreak with the last one, which began in April and occurred over 2,500 km (1,553 miles) away.

    A team of 12 experts from the health ministry will arrive in the zone on Thursday to set up a mobile lab, the ministry said.

    This is the central African country’s 10th outbreak of Ebola since 1976, when the virus was discovered near the eponymous river in the north.

    Congolese and international health officials deployed an experimental vaccine during the last outbreak, which helped contain its spread after it reached a large river port city..

    Ebola, believed to be spread over long distances by bats, causes hemorrhagic fever, vomiting and diarrhea and is spread through direct contact with body fluids.

    It often spreads to humans via infected bush meat.

     

     

  • Two Ebola patients died after attending church

    Two Ebola patients died after attending church

    Two Democratic Republic of Congo Ebola patients who fled hospital in the city of Mbandaka on Monday attended a prayer meeting with 50 people hours before they died, Jean-Clement Cabrol, an emergency medical coordinator at Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), said on Thursday.

    Health officials are scrambling to contain an outbreak of the deadly disease in the heavily populated port city in northwest Congo that is believed to have killed 22 people since April.

    Two new deaths from Ebola and seven new confirmed cases have been recorded in Democratic Republic of Congo, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

    One of the deaths occurred in the provincial capital of Mbandaka, according to a daily bulletin.

    A nurse also died in the village of Bikoro, where the outbreak was first detected, ministry spokeswoman Jessica Ilunga told Reuters.

    The ministry said the seven new confirmed cases were registered in Bikoro.

    Health officials administered an experimental vaccine on Monday to 33 medical workers and Mbandaka residents, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.

    The vaccine manufacturer Merck has provided WHO with 8,640 doses of the vaccine and an additional 8,000 doses are expected to be available in the coming days, WHO said.

    Congo’s ninth outbreak of Ebola since 1976 is believed to have killed at least 28 people so far.

    Officials are particularly concerned by its appearance in Mbandaka, a crowded trading hub on the Congo River with road, water and air links to Congo’s capital, Kinshasa.

    WHO said it will need 26 million dollars for the Ebola Response in the DRC over the next three months.

    WHO said it had also released two million dollars from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies, to scale up the Ebola response.

    The Government of DRC, with the support of WHO partners, is preparing to vaccinate high risk populations against Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in affected health zones.

    The organisation said health workers operating in affected areas were being vaccinated on Monday and community outreach had started to prepare for the ring vaccination.

    More than 7,500 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine have been deployed to DRC to conduct vaccination in the northwestern Equator Province where 46 suspected, probable and confirmed Ebola cases and 26 deaths have been reported – as of Friday.

    NAN