September 2022

Uganda has confirmed seven cases of Ebola including that of a 24-year-old man who died earlier this week, and an additional seven deaths are being investigated as suspected Ebola cases, a health ministry official said on Thursday. The man who died had developed a high fever, diarrhea and abdominal pains, and was vomiting blood. After initially being treated for malaria, he was diagnosed as having contracted the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus. “As of today, we have seven confirmed cases, of whom we have one confirmed death,” Dr Kyobe Henry Bbosa, Ebola Incident Commander at the Ugandan Ministry of

Malawi has become the first country in southern Africa to eliminate trachoma, the leading infectious cause of blindness, the World Health Organization announced. It is the fourth country in Africa to stamp out the bacterial infection, after Ghana, Gambia and Togo. The WHO said in a statement that Malawi has been known to be endemic for trachoma since the 1980s. The disease received due attention in 2008 following a survey conducted in support of the WHO and Sightsavers, a nongovernmental organization. The findings spurred the country to step up efforts against trachoma by establishing a national taskforce which implemented the

The World Health Organization warns noncommunicable diseases kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 74 percent of all deaths globally. A new global report by the World Health Organization finds noncommunicable diseases now outnumber infectious diseases as the top killers globally. Each year, it says 17 million people under age 70 die prematurely from noncommunicable diseases or NCD. The biggest killers are cardiovascular diseases, followed by cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes. WHO director of noncommunicable diseases, Bente Mikkelsen, says most of these deaths are preventable. “Every two seconds, someone under the age of 70 is dying from an

Commenters in China’s tightly controlled online communities are raising an angry howl at what they see as the latest outrage stemming from President Xi Jinping’s draconian zero-COVID policy. After at least 27 people died when a bus in southwest China’s Guizhou Province crashed while transporting them to a coronavirus quarantine facility, online comments revealed the magnitude of frustration of ordinary citizens enduring a policy that forces them into lengthy lockdowns and daily testing in the effort to contain COVID. “27 people, who did not die in the coronavirus, but died in the bus accident [on the way to] quarantine? Even

Infrastructure Malta rebuilt another 128 residential roads in the first eight months of this year, an average of four roads per week. This was announced by the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects Aaron Farrugia who explained that complementing major infrastructure projects, the daily works on residential and rural roads are ongoing, according to the needs of the people. The 128 residential roads it rebuilt between January and August add up to around another 27 kilometers of roads with a higher quality infrastructure. The thousands of families who reside on these streets can now be counted among others,  whose

Speaker of the House of Representatives Angelo Farrugia and his delegation held talks with Mr Eamon Ryan TD, Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communication of the Republic of Ireland. During the meeting, Speaker Angelo Farrugia stated that, due to the current situation regarding energy, all countries need to keep working hard towards securing longer-term goals, in particular by diversifying the energy supplies, yet continuing to keep their climate targets. He continued by saying that all countries have to be prepared for any eventuality by diversifying their energy supply, ensuring adequate energy storage, and investing in clean energy. Speaker Farrugia