Kampala, Uganda | Grace Matsiko – AFP | A five-year-old boy is being treated for Ebola in Uganda, the first case since a deadly outbreak in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo 10 months ago, Health Minister Ruth Aceng said Tuesday. Uganda has been on high alert since the outbreak across …
Read More »Health workers overwhelmed as Namugongo numbers soar
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Health workers screening pilgrims at the Uganda Martyrs Shrine, Namugongo are overwhelmed with the numbers amid limited human resource and inadequate supplies. A number of screening centres were set up by the Ministry of Health in the wake of an Ebola crisis that has …
Read More »Ugandan children can only achieve 38% productivity as adults
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda is not spending enough on developing the future productivity of its citizens. Consequently, a child born in Uganda will only be 38 per cent as productive when they grow mainly because they don’t enjoy complete and good quality education and full health, a study …
Read More »Over 830,000 cholera vaccinations planned in DR Congo: WHO
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | More than 830,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province will be vaccinated against cholera, which has claimed over 240 lives this year, the World Health Organization said Monday. The campaign will be implemented by DR Congo’s health ministry with …
Read More »High-security Ebola burials spark dismay, anger in DR Congo
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 …
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