Virologists made a scary new discovery in the investigation of the Ebola outbreak in Guinea.
It’s a new strain of the virus.
Researchers say that the discovery means that the outbreak has no connection to any previous outbreak in Africa. Ebola has a pattern of outbreak in the western parts of the country and the surprise outbreak in east Africa caught many health officials by surprise.
The scientists say that the new virus has been confirmed to have the same unknown ancestor of the western viruses. They say the virus likely was introduced into the region in December 2013.
The virus was also found in fruit bats within the region and it’s possible that the virus had mutated within the bats.
The virologists say that the new strain could be a potential catastrophe among the region as the area has never experienced a major Ebola outbreak until now.
The outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa is so out of control that airlines are now banning anyone with flu like symptoms from boarding planes.
A simple fever is cause to be prohibited from boarding any flight from nations that are confirmed to have an outbreak of the virus.
“It’s probably one of the more complicated outbreaks because it is occurring in a very densely-populated urban area, unlike previous outbreaks,” Dr. Tim Jagatic of Doctors Without Borders told NBC.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN traveled to Conakry, Guinea and said the flight into the country was nearly empty as were hotels. The outbreak in the city has caused hundreds of thousands to flee into the rural areas. However, the rural part of the country is where the outbreak first began months ago.
The Guinea health ministry, however, is cautiously optimistic they have the outbreak now under control after reporting significantly fewer deaths from the virus during the last week. 106 of the 159 confirmed or suspected victims of the virus have died since the beginning of the outbreak.
The World Health Organization said it could take two to four months to truly control the outbreak.
The U.S. Department of Defense has opened a laboratory in neighboring Liberia because of an increase in Ebola cases connected to the Guinea strain.
The head of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon said that the only entity still operating inside the Central African Republic is the Catholic Church.
“The State no longer exists,” Samuel Kleda, the archbishop of Douala, said. “The only institution that is functioning is the Catholic Church. The displaced are living in Catholic parishes.”
Violence in the Central African Republic has skyrocketed since interim President Michel Djotodia resigned from that post earlier this year. The United Nations says the conflict has led to the deaths of tens of thousands and a peacekeeping force is being formed to try and help restore the peace.
Kleda and other leaders in the region are calling on Christians around the world to provide supplies and funds to the Catholic Church’s relief efforts within the country to provide food, medicine and shelter.
The Central African Republic is a mostly Christian nation that is 25 percent Catholic. Muslim rebels who have been attempting to take over the country have been in retreat from a Christian backed militia to the point they have fled the southern and western parts of the nation.
The outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa is growing into more of a concern for world leaders.
Mali reported their first possible cases of Ebola since the beginning of an outbreak in neighboring Guinea. Government officials have isolated three people in Mali as they await confirmation testing from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Guinea reported their 90th death from the outbreak leading Doctors Without Borders to say this could become an unprecedented epidemic in a region that has extremely poor health care systems.
The outbreak has reached a point that foreign mining companies in Guinea have closed their operations and pulled their employees to their home nations. French officials say they are preparing screening at the airports for travels from the former French colonies.
In addition to Guinea, confirmed cases have been found in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Liberia confirmed three new deaths in the last 24 hours bringing their total to four.
DWB officials are concerned with the dense living conditions in cities where the virus has been found because it will be hard to stop the virus should it break out in a crowded living area.
Polin Pumandele just wanted to sell some firewood to buy food to eat.
Instead, around 9:30 in the morning, a gang in the middle of a street in Bangui, Central African Republic murdered him in cold blood.
Why? Because he was a Christian. No other reason.
A Washington Post reporter was standing near the attack as the mob of Muslims grabbed Pumandele and slit his throat before throwing his body in a ditch to watch him die. The group threatened the reporter until he fled the area.
After Pumandele was dead, the gang loaded his body into a wheelbarrow, pushed it to the nearest Red Cross office and dumped the corpse on the doorstep.
According to sources connected to international peacekeeping forces in the area, the Muslims tried to claim that Pumandele had been part of a group that threw grenades into a mosque and thus his murder was justified. However, an investigation showed there was no grenade attack on the mosque.
The violence in the country is still onging despite 6,500 French and African soldiers in the country that try and maintain peace. Christians are being killed by Muslims on a daily basis.
GlaxoSmithKline is seeking approval for the world’s first malaria vaccine.
Testing of the drug with African children showed it cut the number of malaria cases. The trial showed an approximate 25% decrease in cases among infants. Tests also showed that 18 months after vaccination, children up to age 5 had a 46% reduction in infections.
Worldwide, a child dies from malaria every 30 seconds. It is the leading cause of illness and death in the world. At least 800,000 people every year die from the mosquito-borne parasite.
“Malaria is not just one of the world’s biggest killers of children, it also burdens health systems, hinders children’s development and puts a brake on economic growth. An effective malaria vaccine would have an enormous impact on the developing world,” UK International Development Minister Lynne Featherstone told the BBC. “We welcome the scientific progress made by this research and look forward to seeing the full results in due course.”
Divers entering the wreckage of a sunken boat that carried refugees from Africa to Italy reporting finding 38 bodies in the hull that were “so entwined one with the other” that they’ve had difficulty bringing the remains to the surface.
The discovery of the bodies has raised the death toll from the accident to 232 people.
The boat caught fire and sank near the Sicilian island of Lampedusa carried more than 500 refugees from Somalia and Eritrea.
“Some [bodies] we have found with their arms outstretched. We try not to notice this kind of thing too much, otherwise the task is too difficult,” police diver Riccardo Nobile told the BBC. “We can see a woman’s hair floating out of a broken porthole. But we haven’t been able to get to her.”
The United Nations says that 3,000 people try to flee Eritrea every month.
One of Africa’s most wanted terrorists has released a video announcing his group has merged with another terror group aiming to take revenge on France for its intervention in Mali.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who has a $5 million bounty on his head by U.S. authorities, said his Masked Men Brigade will join with a Mali-based terror group to form Al-Murabitoun. Belmokhtar is the man believed to have masterminded the terror attack and hostage execution in Algerian plant in January. Continue reading →
A new study released by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity is showing the world overall is growing more religious and will likely continue in that trend for many more years.
According to the report “Christianity In Its Global Context, 1970-2010”, an almost ten percent increase in religious belief is expected by 2020. In 1970, 80 percent of the world’s population was religious, 88 percent in 2010 and is predicted to be 90 percent by 2020. Continue reading →
Consumers love falling oil prices because of the corresponding drop in gas prices at the pump.
However, a significant slide in the price of oil could end up causing major civil unrest in the Middle East and other oil producing nations according to multiple economists and researchers. Continue reading →
