Feed aggregator

While disposable income has dropped for the third consecutive year in some EU countries, corporations made record-high profits. We sat down with political economist Mark Blyth to discuss why that is.

"There are a lot of rural areas in Sweden and we must be able to secure people's right to healthcare and access to water, food and medicines. At the same time, we must protect the workers' right to daily rest."

While president Joe Biden has made the creation of "good-paying, union jobs" a priority, the European Union is pursuing deregulatory policies more akin to those of his predecessor, Donald Trump.

AI is at the core of our work, helping to improve our existing products and serving as a foundation for innovative new applications. It has recently hit an inflection point in capturing the imagination of the general public and people...

The average price of essential foods in Portugal went up almost 30% since 2022, with Portugal’s food and safety body estimating that a food basket went from €74.90 at the start of 2022 to €96.44 today, the government announced Thursday....

The heated pre-election that mirrors tensions, including within the coalition, should not spoil the country’s upcoming EU Council presidency, Ignacio Molina, a senior researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute think tank, told Euroefe. Spain will hold its municipal elections in...

Les familles se sont-elles réjouies trop vite? Fédéralisme et problèmes budgétaires pourraient compromettre le soutien massif pour la garde d’enfants.

Zum ersten Mal stehen in der NHL vier Schweizer für das gleiche Team im Einsatz. Mit Timo Meier sichert prompt einer aus dem Quartett den New Jersey Devils in Washington den Sieg.

A magyar férfi kézilabda-válogatott kijutott a januári, németországi Európa-bajnokságra, mivel 37-32-re nyert csütörtökön Svájcban a selejtezősorozat harmadik fordulójában.

Agents recruited by Belarusian security may be among members of Belarusian opposition in Lithuania, according to Lithuania’s intelligence. “There’s a high probability there are actively recruited KGB agents among them [Belarusian opposition members], and they provide information to the Belarusian...

The European Commission on Thursday (9 March) relaxed state aid rules for green technology that helps reduce carbon emissions, in its bid to counter the threat to European industry from US and Chinese subsidies.

Finland saw its share of foreign workers almost double over the past ten years, according to a survey by ETLA Economic Research which evaluated the effects of this trend as positive. From 2010 to 2020, the share of foreign workers...

Am Donnerstagabend werden in Hamburg mehrere Personen durch Schüsse getötet. Zahlreiche weitere Personen wurden verletzt. Die Polizei geht von einer Amoktat aus.

The Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs Taskforce (REPO) has worked to block or freeze over £48 billion in Russian assets with the help of the UK, which alone froze over €20 billion. UK Security Minister Tom Tugendhat met with the...

Uganda used public health measures like screening, testing of temperatures, and isolation of suspected cases to contain the Ebola outbreak. While those measures were successful, scientists warn that another outbreak could occur. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA & MUBENDE, Mar 10 2023 (IPS)

It is two months since the World Health Organization declared Uganda free of the most recent Sudan ebolavirus, which killed 55 people.

Uganda employed public health measures to end the outbreak. In the absence of vaccines and therapeutics, the threat of the next outbreak looms.

Scientists are yet to find answers to questions like who was the first person to be affected? Or the index case, what viral host reservoir did that patient get in contact with?

“We don’t have answers to those questions. And honestly, we are hoping that Uganda will provide us and the world with those answers,” says Emmy Bore, program director for the CDC’s Division of Global Health Protection in Uganda.

“In every Ebola outbreak we have responded to, in West Africa, in DRC, there have been attempts to trace the roots back to the very first person who got infected. When you figure out where that person went and what they ate, you can figure out how they managed to get the virus. In most outbreaks, we don’t,” she said.

With those questions answered, Lt Colonel Dr Kyobe Henry Bossa, who has been at the front lines against Ebola outbreaks and COVID-19, told IPS that it is urgent they track precisely the viral host reservoir before the next outbreak.

“We know that the reservoir lives in the jungle innocently. We suspect that the viral host reservoir is a bat circulating in the area, and the virus is maintained in nature,” said Kyobe.

Bats have long been the prime suspects for what scientists have termed as the “spillover” of novel pathogens to humans. They are believed to harbor diverse viruses more lethal to humans than any other mammals.

Ugandan Veterinarian and Epidemiologist Dr Monica Musenero Masanza is no stranger to fighting viruses like Ebola and Marburg in Uganda and West Africa. Musenero came to be commonly known as Dr Kornya—loosely translated as a female warrior for her fight against Ebola in Port Loko in northern Sierra Leone. She told IPS that Ebola is categorized among emerging or re-emerging diseases.

“And those diseases show up with a lot of drama. Ebola, when it shows up, there is a lot of drama. Now those emerging and re-emerging diseases are attracting a lot of attention. Unfortunately, because we don’t know much about them, there is usually little we can do about them in the immediate except control,” said Musenero.

According to Musenero, now that Uganda successfully ended the Sudan ebolavirus, efforts should be geared towards finding pathogen X otherwise, another outbreak is guaranteed. “It’s not a matter of if, but when. That is why we should get to the jungles to find the host reservoir,” she said.

On September 20, 2022, Uganda declared an Ebola disease outbreak caused by the Sudan ebolavirus species in the Mubende district.

It was the country’s first Sudan ebolavirus outbreak in a decade and its fifth of this kind of Ebola. There were 164 cases (142 confirmed and 22 probable), 55 confirmed deaths, and 87 recovered patients.

The outbreaks have over the years occurred in a very similar region, with the suspected viral host reservoir suspected to be a bat.

Dr Trevor Shoemaker, an epidemiologist in the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology at the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases at the Center for Disease Control (CDC), suspects that bats carrying the virus are circulating in that area.

“It is not unexpected that there would be an outbreak where we have seen previous outbreaks in the central region of Uganda,” said Shoemaker.

According to Shoemaker, during the course of testing for ebolavirus cases in the just-ended outbreak, three of the samples were negative for ebolavirus but tested positive for another viral hemorrhagic fever called Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever.

“There are pathogens that we know about, and there are those we know. So we need to trace them before they spill over to humans,” said Shoemaker.

Scientists from the University of Bonn have in the past confirmed the presence of Crimean Congo viruses in African bats and therefore suggesting that bats could play a role in spreading the virus.

Others studies have linked Crimean Congo viruses to ticks. While bats have been suspected as reservoirs of the Sudan ebolavirus, no conclusive evidence exists.

The district of Mubende and Kasanda forested with indigenous trees. Some private plantation forests are also thriving. Late in the evening, different species of bats fly into the darkening sky.

Fortytwo-year-old Bright Ndawula is an Ebola survivor. He tells IPS that there are as more as ten types of bats that he knows of “Some are tiny, they live under the rooftops, some are big, and they live in trees. Health workers told us that bats carry Ebola, but we don’t know one,” said Ndawula who lost his wife and three family members to the virus.

So far, scientists have been able to identify only one species of African fruit bat (R. aegyptiacus) positive for Marburg virus infection. No evidence of the Marburg virus was identified in the other species of insect-eating or fruit bats tested.

A few kilometers out of Mubende town, IPS comes across farmers and loggers living on the edge of the forest, risking some of the infectious diseases that may spill over from bats to humans.

Dr Charles Drago Kato leads a surveillance team with USAID funded project named Strategies to Prevent Spillover, or STOP Spillover. It targets viral zoonotic diseases—infections that originate in animals before they “spill over” into humans. His teams have been to Districts like Mubende, Kibale, and parts of the Rwenzori Mountains, specifically researching bats and humans.

He told IPS that under the project, they are trying to trace pathogens in bats that may be dangerous when they cross over to humans.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Energy: Why Africa Must Be Part of Nuclear Energy Appetite
• Tragic Irony of Hunger Deaths in Karamoja, Uganda Amidst Plenty of Climate Adaptation Technologies
• Smallholder Farmers in Uganda Recruit Black Soldier Fly for Green Fertiliser

The construction of an expanded electricity line connecting Germany and Austria has begun, with the €600 million investment expected to increase grid stability and help provide cheaper power to industry in the region.

The European Commission and Germany’s Digital and Transport Ministry are confident an agreement on the EU combustion engine ban can be reached, after a call between Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP/Renew Europe) and EU Climate Chief Frans Timmermans on Thursday....

L’Allemagne « reconnaîtra et ne s’opposera pas » aux projets visant à reconnaître la contribution de l’énergie nucléaire aux objectifs de décarbonation européens, a déclaré jeudi un conseiller spécial du Chancelier allemand Olaf Scholz.

Tizenhat határrendész letartóztatását, továbbá egy határrendész és egy civil személy bűnügyi felügyeletének elrendelését kezdeményezte a Debreceni Regionális Nyomozó Ügyészség azokkal a gyanúsítottakkal szemben, akiket minősített vesztegetés gyanújával vettek őrizetbe az ártándi határátkelőnél kedd este végrehajtott nagyszabású bűnügyi akciót követően.

A Központi Nyomozó Főügyészség (KNYF) korábbi közleménye szerint a Biharkeresztes Határrendészeti Kirendeltség állományába tartozó határrendészek szolgálatban rendszeresen korrupciós bűncselekményeket követtek el. Az Ártánd, illetve Nagykereki közúti határátkelőhelyen szolgáló 17 határrendész 2022 áprilisa előtt megállapodott abban, hogy az átkelőhelyen átutazóktól rendszeresen jogtalan előnyt fogadnak el, majd az összegyűjtött készpénzt a szolgálatot követően egymás között előre meghatározott arányban elosztják.

Az elkövetők között tiszti rendfokozatú nincs, a legmagasabb beosztású határrendész az átkelőhelyeken szolgálatot ellátó szolgálatirányító parancsnok és átkelőhely-ügyeletes volt.

A két-két szolgálatirányító parancsnok, illetve átkelőhely-ügyeletes közvetlenül nem fogadott el jogtalan előnyt, alárendeltjeiket a bűncselekmények elkövetésében azzal segítették, hogy kívánságuknak megfelelően olyan sávokra osztották be, ahol nagyobb esély volt a vesztegetési pénzek megszerzésére. Továbbá elöljárói kötelességüket megszegve a tudomásukkal zajló korrupcióról nem tettek jelentést, azzal szemben nem léptek fel, s ezért cserébe kaptak a vesztegetési pénzből.

A Készenléti Rendőrség Nemzeti Nyomozó Iroda Vagyonvisszaszerzési Hivatala az ügyészség felkérésére több mint 190 millió forint értékben biztosított vagyontárgyakat. A nyomozással párhuzamosan folytatott vagyonvisszaszerzési eljárás keretében a gyanúsítottaktól hat gépkocsit, egy nagyobb értékű luxus órát, valamint nagy mennyiségű készpénzt és kriptovalutát foglaltak le, továbbá négy ingatlan zár alá vételéről döntöttek. A 18 gyanúsítottól közel 57 millió forint készpénzt foglaltak le, amelynek felét külföldi devizákban, döntően euróban tartották – ismertette a főügyészség.

A Debreceni Regionális Nyomozó Ügyészség üzletszerűen és bűnszövetségben elkövetett hivatali vesztegetés elfogadása és más bűncselekmények miatt nyomoz, és 17 határrendész, illetve egy civil őrizetét rendelte el, a gyanúsítotti kihallgatások folyamatban vannak – közölték. A kényszerintézkedésekről a Debreceni Törvényszék Katonai Tanácsa pénteken dönt – írták.

Kedden mintegy háromszáz rendőr és ügyész hajtotta végre az akciót az ártándi magyar-román közúti határátkelőhelyen, amelyről aznap este a KNYF azt közölte: a bűnügyi akcióban a Nemzeti Védelmi Szolgálat, a Készenléti Rendőrség Nemzeti Nyomozó Iroda Vagyon-visszaszerzési Hivatala, a Készenléti Rendőrség, a Terrorelhárítási Központ, valamint a Hajdú-Bihar, a Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg és a Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén Vármegyei Rendőr-főkapitányság bűnügyi és közterületi támogató alosztályai vettek részt.

 

The post A korrupcióval gyanúsított ártándi határrendészek letartóztatást kezdeményezte az ügyészség appeared first on .

The decision to liberalise visas for citizens of Kosovo was approved by the 27 EU ministers at the Council of Internal Affairs in Brussels on Thursday, which must come into effect no later than 1 January 2024. Kosovo was the...