Health

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed 164 lives, according to health authorities. In mid-October, Congolese authorities said they were facing a “second wave” of the outbreak centred on Beni, a town in North Kivu near the border with Uganda. …

Kampala, Uganda | LOUIS JADWONG | A Special Project feature story by Annika McGinnis and Fredrick Mugira exploring how urbanization has destroyed a critical Kampala wetland, has won the 2018 Uganda WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) media awards overall prize. The story project “Swamp City – How urbanization destroyed a …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | British boxer Tyson Fury has revealed that suffering from depression meant he “wanted to die so bad”. The 30-year-old, who faces Deontay Wilder for the American’s World Boxing Council heavyweight title in Los Angeles on December 1, also had problems with drug addiction and …

Niamey, Niger | AFP | Niger has launched a mass polio vaccination campaign targeting more than three million children under five after new cases were detected, an official said Friday. The programme kicked off Thursday in the regions of Zinder, Maradi, Agadez and Diffa, said Rabi Souley, who is in …

The Hague, Netherlands | AFP | Scientists on Thursday unveiled a revolutionary way of screening children for tuberculosis, which they say will prevent hundreds of thousands each year from contracting the world’s deadliest infectious disease. A multinational team based at the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation in The Hague have developed a …

Limoges, France | AFP | The father of two boys, aged three and four, has been jailed in France for feeding them nearly exclusively on Coca-Cola, the children’s lawyer said. The father, who can “neither read, nor write, nor count, doesn’t realise the seriousness of the situation and spent all …

HIV PREVENTION: Researchers dive into finding new ways of increasing prevention innovations uptake | Douches, gels and lubes explored Madrid, Spain |  FLAVIA NASSAKA | A condom is cheap. It’s readily available and has been proven to be over 99% effective if used correctly at not only preventing HIV infection …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | A bucket containing a soupy green mixture sits under a table in Nduna Ewrong-Nxumalo’s consultation room in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic hub. The traditional healer, or sangoma, has trusted and prescribed the pungent mixture — cannabis tea — to his patients for years. …

Paris, France | AFP | A new treatment for a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis can cure 80 percent of sufferers, according to a trial hailed Monday as a “game changer” in the fight against the global killer. Doctors in Belarus — a country with one of the highest rates of …

Paris, France | AFP | Women’s bodies undergo a “striking” change during a specific week of pregnancy that can significantly reduce their risk of developing breast cancer later in life, scientists said Tuesday. Previous research has highlighted how women under the age of 30 can reduce their risk of contracting …