Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda’s Ministry of Health has confirmed there is an active outbreak of Measles in Kampala and Wakiso Districts. All the five divisions of Kampala, as well as several suburbs in Wakiso District are affected. According to a statement released Tuesday, the Ministry of Health surveillance …
Read More »Tainted eggs scandal spreads to Britain, France
Brussels, Belgium | AFP | Britain and France said Monday that some insecticide-tainted eggs may have entered the country, as millions of chickens faced being culled in the Netherlands in a growing European contamination scandal. Belgium meanwhile vowed full transparency about why it kept the scandal secret despite originally learning in …
Read More »Saudis pledge $33.7 mln to UN to battle cholera in Yemen
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia | AFP | Saudi Arabia has pledged $33.7 million to help the World Health Organization eradicate cholera in war-wracked Yemen, where the disease has killed nearly 2,000 people, the WHO said on Sunday. Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the organisation, confirmed that Saudi Arabia, which leads an …
Read More »2,000 Philippine mums show breast is best for babies
Manila, Philippines | AFP | Some 2,000 mothers in the Philippines breastfed their babies in public on Saturday in a gathering aimed at cutting infant deaths and dispelling taboos over the practice. To the upbeat sounds of local pop songs, hundreds of mothers suckled their babies inside a cavernous Manila stadium, …
Read More »Millions of Dutch eggs destroyed in growing insecticide scandal
The Hague, Netherlands | AFP | Supermarkets in the Netherlands and Germany were Thursday removing millions of eggs from their shelves believed to have been contaminated by a toxic insecticide in a widening food scandal. Amid fears the Dutch poultry industry could be facing huge financial losses, German officials said late …
Read More »Candidate AIDS vaccine passes early test
Successful trials held in South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda |JULIA BELLUZ| Developing a vaccine to stop HIV is thought to be among the most daunting challenges in medicine for one big reason: The virus is extraordinarily genetically diverse, even more so than the flu. So it’s difficult to think about how …
Read More »London doctor charged with over 100 sexual offences
London, United Kingdom | AFP | A London doctor was on Wednesday charged with over 100 sexual offences, with a pre-teen child among the alleged victims, police announced. Manish Shah, 47, is accused of 118 crimes including one charge of sexual assault on a child under 13 years old. The doctor …
Read More »COMMENT: Fighting antimicrobial resistance
Over ten million people will die from drug-resistant microbes every year by 2050 COMMENT |Jörg Reinhardt| In the first week of July, G20 leaders committed to working together to address one of the world’s most pressing and perplexing security threats: antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – a fierce and evolving adversary against …
Read More »Method for editing embryo DNA at centre of legal war
Washington, United States | AFP | As scientists announced Wednesday they had corrected a disease-causing gene mutation in human embryos for the first time, a legal dispute over who discovered the CRISPR-Cas9 “editing” tool they used, continues to rage. With the potential to revolutionise medicine and agriculture, the fight over patent …
Read More »COFFEE: ‘Coffee naps’ put to rest
How a cup before a nap helps you power through the day |CHIN MOI CHOW| Caffeine and napping have something in common. Both make you feel alert and can enhance your performance, whether that’s driving, working or studying. But some people are convinced that drinking a coffee before a nap …
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