Senegal’s health ministry has confirmed a first case of Ebola, making it the fifth West African country to be affected by the outbreak.
Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck told reporters on Friday that a young man from Guinea was confirmed to have contracted the virus.
The man was immediately placed in quarantine, she added.
The current outbreak, which began in Guinea, has killed more than 1,500 people across the region.
At least 3,000 people have been infected with the virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned it could get much worse and infect more than 20,000 people.
Senegal had previously closed its border with Guinea in an attempt to halt the spread of Ebola, but its frontiers are porous.
It had also banned flights and ships from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – the three worst-hit countries.
But the Guinean health services reported on Wednesday “the disappearance of a person infected with Ebola who reportedly travelled to Senegal,” according to Senegal’s health minister.
A young Guinean student later turned up at a hospital in the capital, Dakar, said Ms Seck, but he did not reveal that he had had contact with Ebola patients in his own country.
Senegal, a major transit hub for aid agencies, has a large Guinean population.
Separately on Friday, residents of Guinea’s second largest city, Nzerekore, rioted after its main market was sprayed with disinfectant in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus.
The exact cause of the riot is not clear – some people reportedly feared the spray would spread Ebola. Police responded by firing tear gas.
A 24-hour curfew is currently in place in the city, which is the capital of the Forest Region, where the Ebola epidemic has its epicentre.
However the BBC’s Alhassan Sillah in Guinea says the town has miraculously remained free of Ebola so far.
There have been relatively few cases in Guinea recently, with far higher infection rates in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and six deaths in Nigeria.
On Thursday, the WHO unveiled a plan aimed at stopping transmission of the virus in the next six to nine months.
Among its recommendations, it said countries affected should conduct exit screening to prevent the disease from spreading to a further 10 countries.
The plan calls for $489m (£295m) to be spent over the next nine months and requires 750 international workers and 12,000 national workers across West Africa.
Perhaps due to the raging Ebola scourge or as a result of pressure from several quarters, the Federal Government has just announced the lifting of the directive sacking 16,000 doctors across the country.
The order, which signifies a change of the stance expressed by the Presidency all along, is in contrast to the widely-criticised directive terminating the appointments of resident doctors at Federal.
Upon the suspension of the strike action embarked upon by the Nigerian Medical Association days ago, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu insisted that the doctors would have to notify the ministry through a letter but the latest directive has changed all that.
Mr Joseph Alozie, General Manager, Climate Services, Nigerian Metrological Agency (NiMet), on Friday said that the heavy rainfall recorded since the beginning of August would increase farm yields in 2014.
Alozie made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He said that the new rainfall pattern being witnessed would assist farmers to replant seedlings of short duration and boost their harvest.
He allayed fears of negative effect of the rains, saying that the August rainfall was not a phenomenon to be worried about in upland areas like the Federal Capital Territory.
“The new rainfall trend in August is good news for agriculture and we will expect a positive outcome in the long run for farmers.
“If farmers heeded NiMet’s forecast early this year, and with the new rainfall trend, which is positive, there is the possibility that seedlings of short duration can be replaced to improve yields.
“NiMet, through its daily, weekly and monthly monitoring of the weather, including the seasonal rainfall predictions, observed that at the end of July, 2014, there was a “water stress” in and around FCT,’’ Alozie said.
According to him, water stress means that in 30 years, there was normal rainfall in FCT but since the beginning of August the rains have picked up.
He said that from NiMet’s projection, the rainy season in the northern part of the country was expected to stop towards the middle of October “instead of end of October in areas like Sokoto, Katsina, Jigawa and Borno.”
“This is a projection and it is built around probability. Now, there is a high probability that this will happen and every time the climate changes, NiMet will also re-issue a statement based on the changing climate.
“For the rest of the country, like Abuja down to the South, the normal season is projected in August and September; these are the peak periods of the rainy season,’’ he said.
He said that 2014 rainy season would likely end earlier than expected across the country. (NAN)
Former minister of Information and political, Edwin Clark, has spoken against the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party in considering a waiver grant to former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Ribadu, to enable him contest the party’s primary for the forthcoming Adamawa governorship election.
Clark said this at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, saying Ribadu has no political value and that the enemies of President Goodluck Jonathan are those behind the former EFCC who contested as presidential candidate of now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria.
Ribadu, who recently defected from the All Progressives Congress to the PDP, has collected the party’s Expression of Interest form to participate in the October 11 bye-election in Adamawa.
However, in an open letter addressed to the national chairman of the PDP, Adamu Mu’azu, read to journalists, at the conference, said there is nothing positive about Ribadu and that he would bring nothing to the ruling party in the long run.
“What, really, is our party receiving so joyfully? What is the political value of this emerging treachery, the well-established bone-marrow trademark of the man, Ribadu?
“In 2011 election, Ribadu ran for president on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, lost at his family home polling booth, and also his ward, scored a mere 32 votes in Yola, and 32,786 total in Adamawa, against Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s 344,526 and President Goodluck Jonathan’s 508,314,” Clark said.
According to the South South region leader know for his controversial statements, Ribadu has never expressed gratitude to President Goodluck Jonathan despite the president saving him from public disgrace by converting his dismissal to retirement as Assistant Inspector General of Police.
“Seemingly, not imbued with a spirit of gratitude, Ribadu has, up till this moment, failed to show respect to Mr. President, who magnanimously saved him the odious stigma of the status of ‘dismissed-with-ignomy’ to the honourable one of ‘retirement-with-full-benefits’
“Not only that, Jonathan’s administration dressed him up with a high-profile appointment as chairman of the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force Committee, against the run of play.
“His response? A failed drama of trumped-up indictment of government, the fingers that thought to feed his thinned-out public image, following battering it rightly received during the Yar’Adua administration, Clark added.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has said that more than 57 per cent of the people in West Africa were without access to electricity.
The bank stated this in its “West Africa Monitor Quarterly”, for the second quarter of 2014 report, which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.
It said that the percentage approximated the average for sub-Saharan Africa,” but extremely low compared with 23 per cent in the developing world and 18 per cent globally.”
According to the report, with inadequate generation capacity, low electrification, and sporadic, unreliable and expensive service, energy is at the top of questions requiring adequate policy intervention.
It explained that access rates varied from country to country, with eight per cent in Niger and 15 per cent in Burkina Faso, Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau.
The report added that about 70 per cent of the population in Ghana had access to electricity while 87 per cent were hooked to supply in Cape Verde.
It also said that there were disparities in access to electricity between rural areas and urban centres in the sub-region, with urban dwellers having more access than rural people.
According to the bank, the trend is more glaring in Ghana where 87 per cent of urban dwellers have access to electricity, compared with the five per cent in rural areas.
It disclosed that West African countries had joined the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative towards achieving universal energy access by 2030, with renewable energy shared improvement and efficiency.
It pointed out that the sub-region had great potential to expand its use of renewable energy sources, which included modern biomass, hydropower, solar, and wind and had remained untapped.
“Using such sources would help to expand access while reducing reliance on traditional biomass, increase reliability and affordability, and contribute to climate change mitigation.
“Hydropower in West Africa has an estimated potential of 25,000 megawatts, yet only 16 per cent has been exploited and despite its wealth in waterways, it only holds 214 dams out of 1,282 dams in Africa.
“In addition, several in-country lakes and dams hold promise for renewable energy development,” it said.
The report said that the Volta River held great potential for Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo while Lake Chad could be used to serve Niger, Nigeria, Cameroun and Chad.
It acknowledged that solar power projects were spreading across the sub-region, including the 155 MW Nzema solar power plants in Ghana, one of the largest in Africa.
The bank revealed that Burkina Faso, Ghana and Guinea had potential for hydropower while Mali and Niger had for solar energy, and Cape Verde, Gambia and Senegal for wind resources. (NAN)
The Nigeria Football Association (NFA) has insisted that matches in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) would go on as scheduled this weekend.
In a statement by its Assistant Director (Communications), Ademola Olajire, it urged all stakeholders to disregard a statement from the League Management Company (LMC) that the matches had been suspended.
“It has come to our notice that the LMC has been issuing notices to clubs in the Premier League that matches are being suspended from this weekend.
“This is totally untrue. If the LMC received a notice from the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA) about a purported withdrawal of referees, the LMC should have brought this to the notice of the NFA.
“It was not for it (the LMC) to take a decision to suspend the League on its own,” the statement quoted the NFA Chairman, Chris Giwa, to have said in Abuja on Thursday.
It said Giwa expressed his unhappiness with the NRA for the threat to withdraw referees from the Premier League, and said the NFA would not take the matter lightly.
“As the owners of the League, the NFA is hereby making it clear that Premier League matches have not been suspended. Matches scheduled for this weekend will definitely take place,” Giwa was quoted as saying.
The statement said the NFA has therefore called on all referees appointed for the weekend matches to go for their matches.(NAN)
Photos posted online appeared to show dozens of men being marched through the desert
Jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) appear to have executed “dozens” of Syrian army soldiers, activists say.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the soldiers were captured while attempting to flee to Hama province after IS stormed the Tabqa airbase.
Twitter accounts belonging to jihadists had boasted about 200 deaths, it added.
On Wednesday, photos and a video were posted online appearing to show more than 100 men in their underwear being marched through the desert at gunpoint.
In the video, militants shout “Islamic State” and “There is no going back”.
In images published earlier this week, IS fighters wearing balaclavas could be seen shooting dead at least seven kneeling men at the airbase.
Tabqa airbase – near the northern city of Raqqa, an IS stronghold – fell to IS on Sunday after weeks of fierce fighting.
The Observatory said 346 IS fighters and more than 170 members of the security forces were killed in the final battle, which lasted five days.
The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdul Rahman, told the AFP news agency that about 1,400 troops had been stationed at the airbase, 700 of whom managed to escape.
Two hundred appeared to have been caught and executed by IS as they attempted to cross the desert to government-held territory in the Orontes Valley to the west, he said. Another 500 men were on the run, he added.
After the airbase’s capture, Syrian state television said the army was “regrouping” and that a “successful evacuation” had taken place.
On Tuesday, UN investigators said Islamic State militants had committed “mass atrocities” in Syria and had recruited children as fighters.
Their report said public killings were a “common spectacle” in areas run by the jihadist group and that local people were forced to watch.
At the same time, the investigators said that Syrian government forces had also committed atrocities by dropping barrel bombs and chlorine gas from helicopters, shelling hospitals and torturing and killing civilians.
A doctor who treated one of those who had direct contact with Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, has died from the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).
The doctor, resident in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, was said to have treated the patient who escaped from where he was quarantined after suspicion he must have come down with the EVD again.
Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, who made the disclosure on Thursday morning, said the widow of the doctor informed the authorities of the death of her husband.
The corpse of the doctor, according to Chukwu is “not yet disposed of.”
Chukwu said at the briefing: “This primary contact of Mr Sawyer’s evaded our surveillance team in the last week of July 2014 and travelled out of Lagos to Port Harcourt where, as we now understand, he consulted with a doctor and was apparently treated for some symptoms. After four days, following a manhunt for him, he returned to Lagos by which time he was found to be without symptoms.
“This case would have been of no further interest since he had completed the 21 days of surveillance without any other issue, but for the fact that the doctor who treated him died last Friday, 22nd August, 2014.
“Following the report of this death by the doctor’s widow the next day, the case had been thoroughly investigated and laboratory analysis showed that this doctor died from EVD. As a result, several contacts have now been traced, registered and placed under surveillance. However, because the widow is now symptomatic, she has been quarantined pending the outcome of laboratory tests on her.
“The Incident Management Committee has already deployed a very strong team to Port Harcourt to work with the health authorities of Rivers State. Just like the situation has effectively been managed in Lagos and Enugu, the situation in Port Harcourt will also similarly be effectively managed and we have begun to do so.”
Chukwu said with the death of the doctor, the number of those who had died from the EVD in Nigeria now stands at six.
He said: “The total number of deaths from Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria, therefore, is now six, the index case (Mr Sawyer), the four primary contacts that died in the isolation ward in Lagos, and a doctor that died in Port Harcourt whose blood sample tested positive after death. Also, 70 persons have been placed under surveillance in Port Harcourt.
“I want to charge the residents of Port Harcourt not to panic over this situation as the experience we have gathered from Lagos and Enugu respectively indicates that there is no cause for alarm when you have the government fully in control of the situation.
“Once again we appeal to all contacts under surveillance to abide by the advice given to them by the Incident Management Committee.
“With regard to Enugu, all secondary contacts will be followed up till tomorrow when they are all expected to be discharged from our surveillance.”
Chukwu said the escaped victim is a Nigerian but works for the ECOWAS Commission.
On the wife of the doctor, Chukwu said: “As we speak, she is still in Port Harcourt quarantined. We are taking her specimen this morning and send it to Lagos. We don’t know what the result will turn out to be but certainly if it turns out positive; it’s likely we will move her to Lagos.”
On the number of those under surveillance, Chukwu said: “In Enugu, we have six.
“In Port Harcourt, we have 70.
“In Lagos, we have 141.
“Since we started this journey of Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria, 200 contacts have completed their 21 days and we are no longer tracking them.
“Out of the 70 in Port Harcourt, only one person has symptom presently.”
He continued: “The contact tracing moved immediately on Saturday to Port Harcourt.
“Then the treatment group moved in yesterday morning.
“The mobile laboratory will move to Port Harcourt on Saturday.”
On the escaped ECOWAS staff, Chukwu said: “We have brought him under quarantine.
“He’s not symptomatic.
“He doesn’t have Ebola virus in his blood.
“But we are also looking at other possible secretion….
“The man has anti-bodies showing that he has suffered it before but he’s not ill today.”
Sawyer brought Ebola into Nigeria on July 20 and died in a Lagos hospital on July 25.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has sealed off seven shops and confiscated contraband food products worth millions of Naira in Kano.
Mr Shaba Mohammed
The NAFDAC Assistant Director (Enforcement), Mr Shaba Mohammed, disclosed this in Kano on Thursday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
NAN reports that six of the affected shops were located at the popular Singer Market, while the other shop was situated at Galadima area in Sabon Gari.
He explained that the operation was conducted on Tuesday to measure the level of compliance to regulation, particularly on food products.
“The items of interest in the operation are mainly sugar, flour, vegetable oil and macaroni or spaghetti which is contraband.
“In fact, we don’t want to see any imported macaroni in Nigerian markets because they are contraband products,’’ he said.
He expressed regret that the environment where the seized palm oil was being repackaged at one of the affected shops was completely unhygienic.
Mohammed said that this was unacceptable to the agency.
“The environment where these things were being done is very dirty and unhygienic that is why we sealed off the place.
“The vehicles being used to bring the palm oil are tankers for petroleum products and this is also unacceptable,’’ he said.
He explained that some of the seized items would have to undergo test at the laboratory to ascertain the level of their quality before taking any further action on them.
Mohammed said the country had factories that had the capacity to meet the local demands of macaroni, hence the decision to ban its importation into the country.
He said that the agency would continue to carry out similar operations across the country so as to safeguard the public health.
“The mission and vision of the agency are to safeguard the public health,’’ Mohammed said.
NAN reports that the operation, which was conducted under tight security, was led by the assistant director of the agency who came from Lagos. (NAN)
At the Health and Climate Conference organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres, calls on Health Ministers to support the climate change agreement that will come into effect next year in Paris, France. She describes the pact as ‘so strong that it improves the quality of life for citizens now and for generations to come’
Figueres
I applaud Dr Margaret Chan for once again pointing the WHO towards recognising the critical link between public health and climate change. Even if as public health officials you must deal with current emergencies such as Ebola, you must at the same time turn your attention to realities that over time are quickly increasing their negative effects on public health.
From the health perspective, climate change is precisely that accelerating phenomenon that is already affecting, in particular, the most vulnerable populations due to impacts that are no longer preventable. At the same time, climate change is a global reality that threatens to impose much more severe and widespread health impacts, which could be avoided with timely measures.
Let us take a quick look at both of these aspects.
It does not take much scientific research to show the current effects of climate change on public health. Using fossil fuels to meet growing energy demand is increasing respiratory disease and cancer from carbon pollution. Changes to rainfall patterns is causing a scarcity of clean, safe water to some places and floods to other places, with the respective host of health problems and food insecurity to each. And global temperature increase is expanding the range of vector and water-borne diseases.
As the world becomes hotter and more densely populated, and as the demand for food, water and energy grows, these health impacts will exponentially spread and accelerate, potentially overpowering the response capacity of health and disaster reconstruction sectors.
Ladies and gentlemen, when looking at the immense challenge of climate change, it is easy to think that climate change is the equivalent of a disease. However, climate change is not a disease. Climate change is actually the symptom.
The disease is something we rarely admit. The disease is humanity’s unhealthy dependence on fossil fuels, deforestation and land use that depletes natural resources.
At the heart of an effective response to climate change is the challenge of taking responsibility for our actions and above all, making tough decisions to change the patterns that have been at the base of our development over the past 100 years, if we are to prevent severe worsening of health and quality of life conditions over the next 100 years.
In the health sector, treatment and prevention, the two integral parts of health management, are usually different, requiring separate funding and differentiated measures and approaches.
In addressing climate change, treatment and prevention are fortunately nested in each other. For climate change, the treatment is the best combination of policy and financial instruments that lead to a transformation of energy and land use.
That means policy in communities, cities, regions and countries and at the international level, and financial instruments that are appropriate and effective for each of the various sectors that need transformation. This is the treatment that starts to shift from wasteful, high-carbon products and lifestyles toward low-carbon, resources efficient ones.
The prevention of worst case scenario for health is the expansion and acceleration of these same measures. To get to prevention we must take the policies and financing that constitute treatment to scale and to speed.
Allow me to briefly recount the progress we already have in the treatment, and then let you know what you can do to accelerate this progress and ensure the prevention.
If policy is the treatment, then right now governments at all levels are writing prescriptions.
GLOBE International reports almost 500 climate change laws in more than 60 countries covering more than 80% of emissions. Most of these laws promote clean, efficient energy that provides price stability and eliminates carbon pollution.
At regional and local levels, we find that more and more cities – a major source of emissions – are adopting climate friendly policies because they benefit revenue and cost, citizen satisfaction and water, food and energy security. These policy prescriptions bode well for public health and welfare.
At the individual level, people increasingly find that electric cars, bike sharing, public transport and energy efficient homes powered by renewables all make sense.
Investors analysing the risk from stranded assets find opportunity in the growing green bond and clean energy markets. And there is increasing understanding that looking past the next quarter is sound strategy in a carbon-constrained world.
Institutions such as universities, faith groups and even the British Medical Association are looking at their pension funds, procurement and practices. They are discovering that divesting from fossil assets guarantees better retirements and efficient operations save money. Corporations are reporting carbon footprints and seeing significant bottom line improvements by reducing their footprints and greening supply chains. And they realise reputation gains from offsetting the carbon they cannot eliminate.
All of this is good news, it is good treatment, but it is not enough to prevent the major impacts of climate change. In order to prevent the worst, governments of the world must build the international regulatory structure that provides irrefutable evidence of their commitment to tackle climate change.
Here there is also good news. At the international level under the UNFCCC, governments are progressing towards a new, universal climate change agreement in Paris in 2015. This agreement will be universal and applicable to all countries. It will address current and future emissions. If strong enough, it will prevent the worst and chart a course toward a world with clean air and water, abundant natural resources and happy, healthy populations, all the requirements for positive growth.
Seen in this light, the climate agreement is actually a public health agreement. And this is where you as leaders of the health sector come in.
Above all other sectors, the health sector understands that prevention makes fundamental social and economic sense. This is nowhere truer than in our effort to tackle climate change.
If you have not already, I ask that you be in direct contact with your peers in the environment sector, as they are leading your countries’ efforts to address climate change. They need to know that this is important to you also.
Furthermore, in early 2015, the draft agreement that governments are currently authoring will be brought by environment ministers to the cabinets of each of your countries. You will discuss the strengths and shortcomings of the draft agreement.
Honourable ministers, I ask you to support your colleagues, Ministers of Environment and Foreign Affairs, by endorsing a meaningful agreement; an agreement so strong that it improves the quality of life for citizens now and for generations to come.
Dear Margaret, as much as would like you to, I am fully aware of the fact that you have not convened the international health regulations emergency committee to consider climate change as a public health emergency of international concern. However, we are not very far from this.
Climate change carries implications for public health beyond national borders and requires a coordinated international response. Knowing that health officials must use every available avenue to secure our global public health future, I invite you all to look to work towards a new climate change agreement as a way to strengthen and sustain international response.
