"We will gladly cooperate with American personnel in that task, and not in search of peace between the two states that have been adversaries for so many years, but ... for peace in the world, a goal that can and should be attempted," Castro wrote. "The medical personnel who heads anywhere to save lives, even at the risk of losing theirs, are the greatest example of solidarity that a human being can offer, especially when one is not driven by material interest." Cuba has already sent 165 doctors and nurses to help fight Ebola in Sierra Leone and it plans to send 296 others soon to Liberia and Guinea. Cuban officials said on Saturday that their health ministry would try to organise more aid for the affected countries in West Africa at a meeting with Cuban allies and international health organisations on Monday. The South American county's efforts have already brought unusual praise from US Secretary of State John Kerry, who was quoted saying that countries like Cuba had taken impressive steps to tackle Ebola.
0 Comments
MILAN, October 17 -- Beijing plans to earmark $16 million in aid to West African countries to combat the Ebola virus, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has told the summit of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). The Chinese premier said the country is highly prepared to fight against the Ebola virus, which poses a huge danger to the health of the whole population on the planet. Beijing will be together with the international community “until the final victory,” he stressed. Chinese President Xi Jinping said earlier this week China will ramp up efforts against Ebola. In September, China earmarked $32.5 million in humanitarian aid to West African states, in particular, for medical treatment and equipment. Beijing has also sent a group of Chinese doctors to the epidemic zone. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported earlier this week that the Ebola epidemic was spreading geographically and the death toll neared the figure of 4,500, while the number of probable and suspected cases is around 9,000. AMSTERDAM, October 16 -- Charity Doctors without Borders is launching a training programme for medical personnel and support staff who are being sent to countries where ebola is rife in Amsterdam. The charity is constructing a reproduction field hospital in an old factory, without electricity and running water and will start offering courses in November. A similar training programme already takes place in Brussels. The charity has found 13 doctors who are willing and sufficiently skilled to go to Africa to try to help combat the epidemic but says it needs 600. Utrecht University’s teaching hospital has set aside four beds in its special ‘calamity unit’ for international medical staff who have become infected with the disease. The unit has 200 beds but is only used during emergencies. If ebola patients are brought to the hospital, the unit will be sealed off and no other patients will be admitted, medical manager Loek Leenan said. WASHINGTON, October 16 -- US President Barack Obama has vowed "much more aggressive" response to Ebola cases in the United States and warned that in an age of frequent travel the disease could spread globally if the world does not respond to the "raging epidemic in West Africa".' Obama sought on Wednesday to ease growing anxiety in the US, as a second nurse was diagnosed with Ebola after treating a patient in a Dallas hospital. That patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, died of Ebola on October 8. In an interview with a local US television station, that nurse said she informed authorities several times that she had a slight fever before boarding a commercial flight, and was told that it was okay to fly. She has now been transferred to a hospital in the city of Atlanta for treatment. The president said he had directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to step up its response to new cases. "We want a rapid response team, a SWAT team essentially, from the CDC to be on the ground as quickly as possible, hopefully within 24 hours, so that they are taking the local hospital step by step though what needs to be done," he said. Obama spoke after cancelling a political campaign trip to convene a session of top Cabinet officials involved in the Ebola response both in the US and in the West African region, where the disease has been spreading at alarming rates. The meeting included the top military commander General Martin Dempsey and defence chief Chuck Hagel. Obama has been pressing the international community to step up its assistance in combating the disease. Hours before Obama canceled his trip, officials confirmed the infection of the second nurse who helped treat Duncan. The Texas developments added a new domestic element to what has developed into an Ebola crisis in the West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. 'Controlled environment' US government officials on Wednesday said the nurse should never have got on the plane. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said no one else involved in Duncan's care will be allowed to travel "other than in a controlled environment''. "We could've sent a more robust hospital infection control team and been more hands-on with the hospital from day one about exactly how this should be managed,'' he said Tuesday. Infected Ebola patients are not considered contagious until they have symptoms. Frieden said it was unlikely that other passengers or airline crew members were at risk because the nurse did not have any vomiting or bleeding. However, the CDC has alerted the 132 passengers aboard Monday's Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas' Fort Worth on Monday "because of the proximity in time between the evening flight and first report of illness the following morning''. The woman is being treated in Texas and will be flown to a specialist hospital in Atlanta where some previous Ebola patients have recovered. NEW YORK, October 15 -- Infection said to be killing seven out of 10 patients in W Africa as German hospital reports death of UN medical worker. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa kills seven out of 10 victims and new cases could hit 10,000 a week within two months if it is not brought under control, the World Health Organisation has said. Dr Bruce Aylward, WHO's assistant director-general, said on Tuesday that the death rate was higher than the official 50 percent rate and that "a lot more people will die" if the West Africa outbreak was not stopped. "What we're finding is 70 percent mortality," Aylward said, adding that he had a "working forecast" of 5,000 to 10,000 new cases a week by December to guide the international response. "It's been running at about a thousand cases a week now for about three to four weeks. The labs sometimes can't keep up with the amount of specimens they're getting." The announcement comes as the Texas Department of Health Services announced a second health worker at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has tested positive for Ebola. WHO figures released on Tuesday show 8,914 confirmed cases and a total of 4,447 people dead. However, WHO has said several times that the tallies are unreliable due to difficult recording conditions and workload. Hardest hit countries Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have been hardest hit. "There are this many cases that we're aware of, this many deaths that have been reported to us, but that doesn't mean you divide one by the other and get how many this disease kills," Aylward said. "To get that number, you need to take a bunch of people, follow them right through the course of their disease, and understand how many survive. "That subset of people, who we know were sick, and we know their final outcome, what we're finding is 70 percent mortality. "It's almost the exact same number across the three countries," he said. Aylward said WHO needs to isolate 70 percent of cases within two months to contain the outbreak. "Every time you isolate another patient, every time you have a safe burial, you're taking some of the heat out if this outbreak," he said. "But this is Ebola. This is a horrible, unforgiving disease. You've got to get to zero." Death in Germany Aylward's comments came on a day a UN medical worker infected with Ebola in Liberia died in Germany. The St Georg hospital in Leipzig said on Tuesday that the 56-year-old man, whose name has not been released, died overnight of the infection. The man tested positive for Ebola on October 6, prompting Liberia's UN peacekeeping mission to place 41 other staff members under "close medical observation". Also on Tuesday, a UN official gave warning that the world was failing to gain the upper hand against the deadly outbreak. "Ebola got a head start on us," Anthony Banbury, the British head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, said. Addressing the UN Security Council in New York by remote link from UNMEER headquarters in Accra, Banbury said: "It is far ahead of us, it is running faster than us, and it is winning the race. "If Ebola wins, we the peoples of the United Nations lose so very much. "We either stop Ebola now or we face an entirely unprecedented situation for which we do not have a plan." ROTTERDAM, October 14 -- Ebola is threatening much of the world’s chocolate supply. Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer of cacao, the raw ingredient in M&M’s, Butterfingers and Snickers Bars, has shut down its borders with Liberia and Guinea, putting a major crimp on the workforce needed to pick the beans that end up in chocolate bars and other treats just as the harvest season begins. The West African nation of about 20 million — also known as Côte D’Ivoire — has yet to experience a single case of Ebola, but the outbreak already could raise prices. The world’s chocolate makers have taken notice. The World Cocoa Foundation is working now to collect large donations from Nestlé, Mars and many of its 113 other members for its Coca Industry Response to Ebola Initiative. The initiative hasn’t been publicly unveiled, but the WCF plans to announce details Wednesday, during its annual meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, on how the money will fuel Red Cross and Caritas Internationalis work to help the infected and staunch Ebola’s spread. Morristown, N.J.-based Transmar Group, an international cocoa supplier, already has pledged $100,000, and Mars has indicated its support, too. “As a member of the WCF and a supporter of the CocoaAction strategy, Mars is pleased to see the industry coming together to help organizations on the ground in the prevention and eradication of the Ebola virus,” the company said in a statement provided to POLITICO. “We look forward to the WCF partnership meeting in Copenhagen next week where we will learn more about the industry effort.” Ivory Coast, which produces about 1.6 million metric tons of cacao beans per year — roughly 33 percent of the world’s total, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization — closed its borders in August to Guinea and Liberia. More than 8,000 have been diagnosed with Ebola, and nearly 4,000 have died in those two countries and Sierra Leone. Next to Ivory Coast is Ghana, the world’s third-largest producer of cacao beans — 879,348 metric tons per year — or 15 percent of the world’s total. Tim McCoy, a senior adviser for the WCF, said signs that Ivory Coast residents already are concerned were immediately obvious during his last trip to the country in September. “Going into meetings where … you always shake hands and often times, with men and women, you do the cheek kiss thing … They weren’t doing that,” McCoy said. The market is worried, too. Prices on cocoa futures jumped from their normal trading range of $2,000 to $2,700 per ton, to as high as $3,400 in September over concerns about the spread of Ebola to Côte D’Ivoire, noted Jack Scoville, an analyst and vice president at the Chicago-based Price Futures Group. Since then, prices have yo-yoed down to $3,030 and then back to $3,155 in the past couple of weeks. Africa has been politically backward and naïve throughout the last century with so many atrocities, anomalies and injustices. Its children thought that, one day, things will be better, but since the era of independence dawned the situation has remained the same or even got worse. Ills, evils and self-destructions of all kinds continue to plague the African continent. Africa has lost its natural, human and material resources to wars and massacres. Coups and counter-coups have continued to play havoc with African society. Should confidence have been reposed in the statements of the likes of Kwameh Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara and Patrice Lumumba, to the effect that Africa's problems will turn to brightness? Is there any optimism for Africa? Will African children live to see this happen? One may ask why Africa has remained the poorest continent the world has ever produced. The answer is simple. Firstly, the self-centredness and mass corruption of African leaders plays a pivotal role in the continent's Waterloo. Most African heads only came into power to enrich themselves. The poor and the underprivileged are always the victims of these despots. Statistics have revealed that millions of African farmers go without a piece of farmland when their leaders have uncountable hectares of farmland in and out of the continent; millions are dying of sicknesses and diseases everyday when potential medical facilities would be more than enough; millions are suffering from starvation and malnutrition when there is sufficient food; and millions more are living in absolute poverty when individual leaders are saving millions of dollars in foreign banks for their own interests. Secondly, the intolerance and lack of respect for one another among Africans, combined to invite trouble in Africa. Africans are killing each other and destroying the continent's resources all because of these leaders' power hunger. It is enough to mention the gun rule and slaughtering of people in Algeria, massacres in Burundi, Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and killing of innocent civilians in Cassamance (southern Senegal) among others. These indicate that African leaders are themselves responsible for Africa's underdevelopment and political mayhem. With this era of political ignorance and naivety occupying Africa, there is more than ever need for a continent, indeed a world, without leaders or political borders. As we entered the dawn of the new millennium, intellectual sycophants have started howling and trumpeting that it will be a millennium of African peace and development. One renowned intellectual was quoted as saying that "in the next millennium, Europeans will come to Africa as refugees." Is it not during this prelude stage of the millennium that floods occurred in Mozambique, killing hundreds of people? That hunger and starvation entered Ethiopia? That thousands died in Nigeria as a result of the religious wars? That mass religious suicide occurred in Uganda? That the senseless land dispute heated up in Zimbabwe? And the wars in Rwanda, Cassamance and Burundi intensified? With these madnesses in our midst, only the insane would predict a bright future for Africa. Until socialist politics is introduced in Africa, the gloom of this "Heart of Darkness" shall continue. LONDON, October 10 -- Health authorities in many European countries have been preparing for the possible arrival of suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola, following guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation. The British government announced on Thursday it was stepping up its Ebola screening at airports, responding to growing public fears about the spread of the virus to Europe, and following reports of the death of a British citizen in Macedonia. The government announced that screening will start at London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports, and at the Eurostar train terminal. British authorities said travellers from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea will be asked about recent travel, who they have been in contact with and their onward travel plans. Medical assessment could be given by trained staff on site. The Russian Emergencies Ministry displayed on Thursday a Russian plane designed to transfer any infected Ebola patients. The ministry has also offered help to European states to work with those who are infected with Ebola. The news of the unidentified Briton's death in Skopje on Thursday comes as the head of the World Bank and West African leaders warned that the virus threatens the entire African continent. Health officials in the Macedonian capital, however, cautioned that the diagnosis could not be confirmed until a German laboratory had completed its analysis. Britain's Foreign Office in London said it was investigating the case. The Briton was taken to Skopje's hospital for Infectious Diseases after the hotel where he was staying called the emergency services, Macedonia's health ministry spokeswoman Jovanka Kostovska said. He complained of stomach pain and "refused to eat or to see a doctor," she said. The patient was admitted to the hospital and passed away shortly after. Officials said the man's symptoms, and the speed at which they developed, led them to suspect Ebola. Under quarantine The Skopje hotel where he was staying was sealed off and those thought to have had contact with him were put under quarantine. Health officials did not name the victim, saying only that he was born in 1956. The man arrived in Macedonia from London on October 2 and was not thought to have travelled to any countries affected by the Ebola virus, his friends were reported to have said. The world's largest outbreak of the disease has killed 3,865 people out of 8,033 infected so far this year, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to the World Health Organisation's latest count. Source: Agencies BEIJING, September 24 -- The government of China has offered Ebola disease prevention materials worth $840,000 to Benin, an unnamed source in Cotonou told Xinhua on Wednesday. The corresponding agreement was signed by Benin's Foreign Minister Arifari Bako Nassirou and China's ambassador to the country Tao Weiguang on Monday. Weiguang also announced that the Chinese Embassy would give $20,000 to the Benin Red Cross to speed up preparations for the Ebola disease. The current Ebola outbreak was first reported in the beginning of the year in Guinea and then spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. The Ebola death toll in West Africa has risen to more than 2,800 since the epidemic started, according to the latest WHO estimates. There has been no recorded Ebola cases in Benin yet but the country, which borders Nigeria in the east, fears that commercial traffic from Lagos (Nigeria's economic capital) might trigger the outbreak of the disease. There is no officially approved medication for Ebola. However, several countries, including Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, are currently working on vaccines. Source: Xinhua WASHINGTON, September 16 -- The United States plans to send 3,000 military personnel to the West African countries fighting against the Ebola outbreak, according to the President Barack Obama administration. Obama, who has called the US response to the disease a “national-security priority,” is expected to detail the plan during his visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta later on day. Washington plans to construct 17 new Ebola treatment units for a total of 1,700 beds. The effort will also see the US train 500 health workers per week. The United States has called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday to discuss the Ebola crisis in West Africa. The death toll from the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has exceeded 2,400 among 4,784 reported cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week. Most victims died in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. WHO officials expect several thousand more cases in Liberia over the next three weeks. The worst-ever Ebola outbreak began in December 2013 in Guinea. Cases have also been reported in Nigeria, where eight people died, and in Senegal, where one patient is being treated in hospital. The Ebola virus disease (formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever) was first reported in 1976 in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) and took its name from the river, in the northern Congo basin of central Africa, near which the first outbreak occurred. It is a severe, often fatal illness, with a case fatality rate of up to 90% The infection is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected animals or people. Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. Source: Agencies |
Thank you for choosing to make a difference through your donation. We appreciate your support.
Categories
All
Archives
March 2024
|