Butembo, DR Congo | AFP | People in Ebola-hit eastern DR Congo are struggling to come to terms with high-security burials that are part of a hard-pressed strategy to roll back the disease. Anyone who dies of the highly infectious haemorrhagic fever has to be buried in carefully-controlled conditions designed …
Read More »First-ever set of sextuplets born in Poland
Warsaw, Poland | AFP | A woman has given birth to Poland’s first sextuplets with each newborn weighing about one kilogram (2.2 pounds), physicians at the University Hospital in the city of Krakow announced on Monday. “This is the first birth of sextuplets in Poland and one of the few …
Read More »Soda taxes work in cutting consumption, US study finds
Washington, United States | AFP | New research backs the argument that “sin taxes” lead to a reduction in consumption, justifying the use of the duties in combating obesity and other health issues, its authors say. The 2017 decision by city officials in Philadelphia to impose a beverage tax on …
Read More »Modi’s ‘free cooking gas’ leaves bitter taste for some Indians
Naubatpur , India | AFP | Reena Devi says her life changed when she got a cooking gas connection under a billion-dollar programme championed by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meaning she no longer has to cook with wood or coal and breathe in smelly, toxic fumes. But the programme …
Read More »Malawi rolls out ground-breaking malaria vaccine
Lilongwe, Malawi | AFP | Malawi has rolled out the world’s first licensed malaria vaccine in a landmark campaign against a disease that each year kills hundreds of thousands of people, especially African children. After more than three decades in development and almost $1 billion (890 million euros) in investment, …
Read More »One dead in attack on hospital in DR Congo Ebola outbreak
Butembo, DR Congo | AFP | A Cameroonian doctor fighting an Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo was killed in an attack on a hospital Friday, police said. The World Health Organization confirmed one person was killed and others injured in what chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described as “a very …
Read More »New limbs, new life for South Sudan amputees
Juba, South Sudan | AFP | Stephen, 12, romps confidently around the sunlit courtyard, weaving in between wheelchair-bound patients as he plays with the other children, his prosthetic leg barely a hindrance. When he was five years old, the car he and his family were travelling in hit a landmine …
Read More »Hundreds get free medicals ahead of Kabaka’s birthday fete
Ndejje, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | More than 700 people have received free medical services, in a drive organized to precede Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi’s 64th birthday, this Saturday. The main celebrations are scheduled to take place at Ndejje Secondary School in Luweero district. Most of the patients attended to …
Read More »Wishing others well boosts your health
Kind people are happier and less anxious | ANA SANDOIU | Whether it is escaping the city, going for a walk, or hanging out with our friends, we all have our strategies for reducing anxiety, coping with the stresses of modern life, or just lifting our mood. But what role …
Read More »Between 3.6 and 7.6% of US boys have had sex before age 13: study
Washington, United States | AFP | Between 3.6 percent and 7.6 percent of US boys reported having sexual intercourse before the age of 13 in a study published on Monday, but the prevalence varies widely by race, ethnicity and geographic location. The study in the latest issue of JAMA Pediatrics …
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