Dr. Richard Lokudu, the medical director of Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, has received barely any compensation for his work on the front line of one of Congo’s deadliest Ebola virus outbreaks. Lokudu and several of his colleagues work all day at the hospital treating an influx of patients. Notifications of suspected cases come even late at night. “I have not received my allowance [and] what happened to others could happen to me as well,” Lokudu said. “Despite all the infection prevention...
Nearly 500 Ebola cases have now been confirmed in the deadly outbreak raging in central Africa, a WHO overview showed on Saturday, amid mounting concern over the swelling scale of the epidemic. In its daily update on the situation, the World Health Organization tallied 452 confirmed cases, including 82 deaths, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), where the outbreak was declared three weeks ago. In neighbouring Uganda, meanwhile, it counted 19 confirmed cases, including two deaths. The...
Uganda reported three more cases and one more death from the outbreak which has spread from the DRC.
Vanuatu had a clear goal at last month’s annual assembly of the World Health Organization in Geneva – securing new international aid for the Pacific island nation. “I’m here to lobby for support,” said Jenny Stephens, Vanuatu’s director of public health. “We are experiencing the global funding cuts – it’s affecting our programmes like malaria, TB and HIV. We’re already struggling.” Vanuatu’s health programmes are among thousands in the Global South that have been halted or cancelled since the...
The head of the World Health Organization on Monday concluded his visit to Democratic Republic of Congo by briefing the president on the response to the Ebola outbreak, which an aid agency warned was likely much larger than official figures show. The outbreak, already the third-largest on record, persisted for weeks undetected, say health officials, who are now behind the curve and struggling to bring it under control. Arriving in DR Congo last week, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom...
WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is visiting Bunia in the DRC, the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak.
World Cup hosts agree steps to counter Ebola threat after WHO declares public health emergency of international concern
'Stopping this Ebola transmission depends entirely on humanitarian access,' said Tedros, the WHO chief.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said fighting in DR Congo was hampering efforts to stop spread
Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) updated the death toll from the Ebola outbreak to 204 late on Saturday, hours after the Red Cross said three volunteers had died there and Uganda confirmed three new Ebola cases. A health ministry statement said 204 deaths had been recorded in three provinces of the vast Central African country, from 867 suspected cases. The last World Health Organization (WHO) toll on Friday put the number of deaths at 177 from 750 suspected cases. The WHO has...
WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged all countries to monitor passengers who were on the cruise ship.
Provincial gov't in Ituri province, the epicentre of the outbreak, has banned public gatherings to stop spread of virus.
The head of the UN health agency says the risk in the wider region is "high", but it remains "low" at the global level.
The head of the World Health Organization said on Friday that the Ebola outbreak in Congo is “spreading rapidly” and now poses a “very high” risk at the national level. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the UN health agency was revising upwards to “very high” its assessment of the risk within Congo, which had previously been deemed as high. The risk remains high for regional spread and low at global levels, he told reporters. The WHO chief noted that 82 cases have been...
The Ministry has also circulated a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) covering disease surveillance, sample collection, storage and referral mechanisms for suspected Ebola cases
In today’s episode, we look at the WHO’s highest-level alert over the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa, PM Modi’s meetings with Giorgia Meloni, Vladimir Putin’s high-stakes Beijing visit, the Supreme Court’s remarks backing caste enumeration in Census 2027, and Kerala’s decision on K-Rail SilverLine project and more.
In its latest update, the World Health Organization says there have now been 139 suspected deaths and 600 cases.
An escalating outbreak of a rare Ebola strain in the Democratic Republic of Congo has kicked off a race to find vaccines and treatments that can be quickly tested and rolled out to save lives and stem the crisis. More than 130 people have died so far during the outbreak, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, as WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic”. Tedros pointed to the emergence of cases in urban...
Governments across Asia are tightening border screening and quarantine preparedness as health authorities work to contain a growing Ebola outbreak in Central Africa. Several governments have expanded screening and reporting requirements for travellers arriving from affected countries, though officials say the likelihood of local transmission remains low and no cases have been publicly confirmed in Asia. In Hong Kong, a Lantau Island isolation facility used for quarantine during the Covid-19...
World Health Organization says death toll from outbreak has risen to 134, as experts warn of continued challenges.
Hong Kong authorities have prepared a quarantine facility on Lantau Island as they step up efforts to guard against the potential spread of the deadly Ebola virus following an outbreak in Central Africa. The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said on Tuesday it was working closely with stakeholders to implement stringent prevention and control measures after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern”. The latest outbreak began...
The good news is researchers in India are working to identify priority fungal pathogens circulating within its borders, both including and beyond a list of species the WHO released in 2022. They are also working to map antifungal resistance in pathogens in the environment and develop newer therapeutics such as antimicrobial peptides
A panel of experts led by the WHO is to meet to discuss vaccine options for new epidemic.
The World Health Organization chief voiced concern on Tuesday about the “scale and speed” of an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo which has killed an estimated 131 people. The WHO has declared the surge of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever an international health emergency and was expected to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis on Tuesday. No vaccine or therapeutic treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola responsible for the latest outbreak of the disease,...
Recent outbreaks of hantavirus and Ebola are tied to funding cuts to the WHO, the WHO chief and other UN leaders said.
The World Health Organization opened a meeting of global health ministers on Monday amid concern over deadly hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks and uncertainty over announced US and Argentinian withdrawals. While the rare hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship that has gripped global attention is not officially on the agenda, it is expected to feature prominently in discussions, alongside the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The two outbreaks “are just the latest crises in...
The World Health Organization declares the epidemic a global health emergency.
An Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain has killed dozens in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 80 as authorities warned there was no vaccine for the strain in a crisis that the World Health Organization declared an international health emergency on Sunday. A total of 88 deaths and 336 suspected cases of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever have been reported, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Africa) said in an update on Saturday. The Geneva-based WHO said early on Sunday the outbreak...
The agency added that the outbreak, with around 246 cases and 80 deaths, does not meet the criteria of pandemic emergency.
The report was developed in response to requests from countries seeking authoritative guidance from WHO on nicotine pouches and how governments should respond
World Health Organization has reiterated that the risk of hantavirus spreading is 'low'.
World Health Statistics report says the pandemic reversed a decade of gains in life expectancy and exposed deep vulnerabilities in global health systems, even as progress was recorded in HIV, sanitation, and disease control
World Health Statistics report says the pandemic reversed a decade of gains in life expectancy and exposed deep vulnerabilities in global health systems, even as progress was recorded in HIV, sanitation, and disease control
A Spanish passenger evacuated from the cruise ship at the centre of a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive for the virus, Spain’s health ministry announced on Tuesday as the World Health Organization said it has now confirmed 11 cases, including three people from the cruise who died. The passenger with the new confirmed case of hantavirus was in quarantine in a military hospital in Madrid, where 13 other Spanish nationals evacuated on Sunday – who all tested negative for the virus – also are...
The situation could still change and there might be more confirmed cases, warns the head of the World Health Organization.
US officials say 18 Americans are being monitored for symptoms, as WHO insists risk to public remains low.
A cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak is headed for Spain’s Canary Islands, where most of the nearly 150 people on board will be evacuated and flown home after weeks at sea. The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is expected to reach waters off Tenerife at dawn on Sunday, where WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is due to help coordinate the ship’s evacuation. Three passengers from the ship – a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman – have died, while others have fallen sick with the...
WHO chief says Hantavirus outbreak ‘is not COVID’
"This is not another Covid," Tedros Ghebreyesus tells islanders before MV Hondius docks on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump says a hantavirus cruise ship cluster is ‘under very good control.’
Two new suspected cases of hantavirus were reported on Friday, one in Spain and the other on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, as experts race to contain an outbreak that began on a luxury cruise ship. The announcements in locations thousands of kilometres (miles) apart will fuel concern about a cluster of cases so far associated with three deaths – though the World Health Organization has repeatedly said the risk to the wider public is low and the virus does not transmit...