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230,187 | globalresearch--2019-07-27--Addressing the Climate Crisis Worldwide Reforestation and Industrial Hemp | 2019-07-27T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Addressing the Climate Crisis, Worldwide Reforestation and Industrial Hemp | Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the cheapest and most efficient way to tackle the climate crisis. So states a July 4 article in The Guardian, citing a new analysis published in the journal Science. The author explains: For skeptics who reject the global warming thesis, reforestation also addresses the critical problems of mass species extinction and environmental pollution, which are well documented. A 2012 study from the University of Michigan found that loss of biodiversity impacts ecosystems as much as climate change and pollution. Forests shelter plant and animal life in their diverse forms, and trees remove air pollution by the interception of particulate matter on plant surfaces and the absorption of gaseous pollutants through the leaves. The July analytical review in Science calculated how many additional trees could be planted globally without encroaching on crop land or urban areas. It found that there are 1.7 billion hectares (4.2 billion acres) of treeless land on which 1.2 trillion native tree saplings would naturally grow. Using the most efficient methods, 1 trillion trees could be restored for as little as $300 billion – less than 2 percent of the lower range of estimates for the Green New Deal introduced by progressive Democrats in February 2019. The Guardian quoted Prof. Tom Crowther at the Swiss university ETH Zürich, who said, He said it was also by far the cheapest solution that has ever been proposed. The chief drawback of reforestation as a solution to the climate crisis, per The Guardian, is that trees grow slowly. The projected restoration could take 50 to 100 years to reach its full carbon sequestering potential. Fortunately, as of December 2018 there is now a cheaper, faster and more efficient alternative – one that was suppressed for nearly a century but was legalized on a national scale when President Trump signed the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. This is the widespread cultivation of industrial hemp, the non-intoxicating form of cannabis grown for fiber, cloth, oil, food and other purposes. Hemp grows to 13 feet in 100 days, making it one of the fastest CO2-to-biomass conversion tools available. Industrial hemp has been proven to absorb more CO2 per hectare than any forest or commercial crop, making it the ideal carbon sink. It can be grown on a wide scale on nutrient poor soils with very small amounts of water and no fertilizers. Hemp products can promote biodiversity and reverse environmental pollution by replacing petrochemical-based plastics, which are now being dumped into the ocean at the rate of one garbage truck per minute. One million seabirds die each year from ingesting plastic, and up to 90 percent have plastic in their guts. Microplastic (resulting from the breakdown of larger pieces by sunlight and waves) and microbeads (used in body washes and facial cleansers) have been called the ocean’s smog. They absorb toxins in the water, enter the food chain, and ultimately wind up in humans. To avoid all that, we can use plastic made from hemp, which is biodegradable and non-toxic. Other environmental toxins come from the textile industry, which is second only to agriculture in the amount of pollution it creates and the voluminous amounts of water it uses. Hemp can be grown with minimal water, and hemp fabrics can be made without the use of toxic chemicals. Environmental pollution from the burning of fossil fuels can also be reversed with hemp, which is more efficient and environmentally friendly even than wheat and corn as a clean-burning biofuel. Hemp cultivation also encourages biodiversity in the soil, by regenerating farmland that has long been depleted from the use of toxic chemicals. It is a “weed” and grows like one, ubiquitously, beating out other plants without pesticides or herbicides; and its long tap root holds the soil, channeling moisture deeper into it. Unlike most forestry projects, hemp can be grown on existing agricultural land and included as part of a farm’s crop rotation, with positive effects on the yields and the profits from subsequent crops. Hemp cultivation is profitable in many other ways – so profitable that it is effectively a self-funding solution to the environmental crisis. According to an April 2019 article in Forbes titled “Industrial Hemp Is the Answer to Petrochemical Dependency,” crop yields from hemp can range from $20,000 to $50,000 per acre. Its widespread cultivation can happen without government subsidies. Investment in research, development and incentives would speed the process, but market forces will propel these transformations even if Congress fails to act. All farmers need for incentive is a market for the products, which hemp legalization has provided. Due to the crop’s century-long suppression, the infrastructure to capitalize on its diverse uses still needs to be developed, but the infrastructure should come with the newly opened markets. Hemp can break our dependency on petrochemicals not only for fuel but for plastics, textiles, construction materials and much more. It has actually been grown for industrial and medicinal purposes for millennia, and today it is legally grown for industrial use in hundreds of countries outside the US. Before the US ban, a 1938 article in Popular Mechanics claimed it was a billion-dollar crop (the equivalent of about $16 billion today), useful in 25,000 products ranging from dynamite to cellophane. New uses continue to be found, including eliminating smog from fuels, creating a cleaner energy source that can replace nuclear power, removing radioactive water from the soil, and providing a very nutritious food source for humans and animals. Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive derivative of hemp, has recently been shown to help curb opioid addiction, now a national epidemic. Hemp can also help save our shrinking forests by eliminating the need to clear-cut them for paper pulp. According to the USDA, one acre planted in hemp produces as much pulp is 4.1 acres of trees; and unlike trees, hemp can be harvested two or three times a year. Hemp paper is also finer, stronger and lasts longer than wood-based paper. Benjamin Franklin’s paper mill used hemp. Until 1883, it was one of the largest agricultural crops (some say the largest), and 80 to 90% of all paper in the world was made from it. It was also the material from which most fabric, soap, fuel and fiber were made; and it was an essential resource for any country with a shipping industry, since sails were made from it. In early America, growing hemp was considered so important that it was illegal for farmers not to grow it. Hemp was legal tender from 1631 until the early 1800s, and taxes could even be paid with it. The competitive threat to other industries of this supremely useful plant may have been a chief driver of its apparently groundless criminalization in the 1930s. Hemp is not marijuana and is so low in psychoactive components that it cannot produce a marijuana “high.” It was banned for nearly a century simply because it was in the same plant species as marijuana. Cannabis came under attack in the 1930s in all its forms. Why? Hemp competed not only with the lumber industry but with the oil industry, the cotton industry, the petrochemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry. Many have speculated that it was suppressed by these powerful competitors. William Randolf Hearst, the newspaper mogul, owned vast tracts of forest land, which he intended to use for making wood-pulp paper. Cheap hemp-based paper would make his forest investments a major money loser. Hearst was a master of “yellow journalism,” and a favorite target of his editorials was “reefer madness.” He was allied with the DuPont Corporation, which provided the chemicals to bleach and process the wood pulp used in the paper-making process. DuPont was also ready to introduce petroleum-based fibers such as nylon, and hemp fabrics competed with that new market. In fact hemp products threatened the whole petroleum industry. Henry Ford first designed his cars to run on alcohol from biofuels, but the criminalization of both alcohol and hemp forced him to switch to the dirtier, less efficient fossil fuels that dominate the industry today. A biofuel-based infrastructure would create a completely decentralized power grid, eliminating the giant monopolistic power companies. Communities could provide their own energy using easily renewable plants. None of this is new news. Hemp historians have been writing about hemp’s myriad uses and its senseless prohibition for decades. (See e.g. The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer, 1992; Hemp for Victory: A Global Warming Solution by Richard Davis, 2009.) What is news is that hemp cultivation is finally legal across the country. The time is short to save the planet and its vanishing diversity of species. Rather than engaging in endless debates over carbon taxes and Silicon Valley-style technological fixes, we need to be regenerating our soils, our forests and our oceans with nature’s own plant solutions. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Ellen Brown chairs the Public Banking Institute and has written thirteen books, including her latest, Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research. | Ellen Brown | https://www.globalresearch.ca/cheapest-way-save-planet-grows-like-weed/5684658 | 2019-07-27 18:28:58+00:00 | 1,564,266,538 | 1,567,535,599 | environment | nature |
230,482 | globalresearch--2019-08-12--Our Vanishing World Rainforests | 2019-08-12T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Our Vanishing World: Rainforests | Rainforests are a crucial feature of Earth’s biosphere. Apart from being critical to Earth’s climate and vital carbon sinks, the major player in Earth’s hydrological (water) cycle, a massive producer of oxygen and home to most of the world’s species, rainforests are the home of a large indigenous human population. They are also the source of many vital resources, including medicines, used by humans around the world. However, the vast range of ecological services that rainforests have provided ongoingly for the 400 million years of their existence, and which have been critical to the survival of homo sapiens since we first walked the Earth 200,000 years ago, are not measured and valued by accountants and economists: Have you ever seen a balance sheet or set of national accounts that includes an entry for ‘Value of ecological services taken from nature and on which life and our entire production of goods and services depend’? Because these services have been available without the need for human management or intervention, and given the primitive conception of accounting and economics that humans use, the ecological services of rainforests are given no monetary value. Hence, essential ecological services are treated as worthless by virtually everyone in the industrialized world. As a result, modern industrialized humans have decided to systematically destroy the rainforests in order to extract a vast amount of short-term profit for the benefit of a few and the temporary satisfaction of many. So if we do not value ecological services such as oxygen and water generation as well as climate and weather-moderating capacities, what is it that we do value by destroying rainforests? A small proportion of rainforest is logged to provide attractive rainforest timbers – such as teak, mahogany, ebony and rosewood – for a variety of decorative purposes, including making furniture, which can last hundreds of years. However, a much wider range and vastly greater quantity of rainforest trees are cut or burnt down for purposes such as the following: acquiring timbers used in construction, clearing land to establish cattle farms so that many people can eat cheap hamburgers, clearing land to establish palm oil plantations so that many people can eat processed (including junk) foods based on this oil, clearing land to establish palm oil and soy bean plantations so that some people can delude themselves that they are using a ‘green biofuel’ in their car (when, in fact, these fuels generate a far greater carbon footprint than fossil fuels), mining (much of it illegal) for a variety of minerals (such as gold, silver, copper, coltan, cassiterite and diamonds), and logging to produce woodchips so that some people can buy cheap paper, including cheap toilet paper. In essence then: We trade the essential life-giving and sustainably-available ecological services of Earth’s rainforests, also home to indigenous peoples and countless wildlife, for hamburgers and other processed junk foods, carbon-intensive ‘biofuels’, paper and some building and furniture materials, as well as some minerals. Obviously, some humans are far from clever at ‘making deals’. But if you think that is bad, consider this: ‘by one estimate, a hectare of livestock or soy is worth between $25 and $250, while the same hectare of sustainably managed forest can yield as much as $850’ harvesting, depending on the location, such products as medicinal plants, rubber, nuts and fruits while benefitting from a range of ecotourism services and research opportunities. See ‘Rainforest on Fire: On the Front Lines of Bolsonaro’s War on the Amazon, Brazil’s Forest Communities Fight Against Climate Catastrophe’. Of course, you have to know how to manage the forest sustainably to yield this much income but that sort of intelligence is rare and invariably escapes those focused on destruction for short-term profit. So how bad is this rainforest destruction? Well, worldwide we are currently destroying rainforests for these unsustainable and mainly short-term products at the rate of 80,000 acres each day. See ‘Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World’s Rainforests’. Moreover, beyond the devastating impact this has on indigenous peoples, forcing increasing numbers of them to leave their destroyed homes in the rainforest to try to survive elsewhere, this rainforest destruction is also the key driver of species extinctions globally with one million species of life on Earth threatened with extinction. As reported in the recent Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services researched and published by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – the scientific body which assesses the state of biodiversity and the ecosystem services this provides to society – ‘Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history. The IPBES Global Assessmentranks, for the first time at this scale, the 5 direct drivers of change in nature with the largest global impact. So what are the culprits behind nature’s destruction?’ Number 1. on the IPBES list is ‘Changes in land and sea use, like turning intact tropical forests into agricultural land’. Let me briefly illustrate the nature and extent of this destruction by discussing rainforests in just three locations (the Brazilian Amazon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia/West Papua) where the destruction of rainforest was greatest in 2018 – see ‘The World Lost a Belgium-sized Area of Primary Rainforests Last Year’– and which are representative of elsewhere around the planet where even World Heritage listed areas are ongoingly under threat. IBAMA operation against illegal loggers in the Brazilian Amazon, courtesy of IBAMA. While the Amazon in South America occurs in several countries, two-thirds of it lie within the borders of Brazil. Unfortunately, since his fraudulent election in 2018, the neofascist, corrupt and insane president Jair Bolsonaro – see the definition of sanity, which Bolsonaro does not come close to meeting, in ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’– has promptly eliminated years of painstaking effort by committed indigenous and environmental activists to convince previous governments to protect the Brazilian Amazon from the worst corporate and other depredations. For just a taste of the documentation on Bolsonaro’s actions in accord with elite interests and to the detriment of indigenous and environmental well-being, see ‘Bolsonaro Caps Natives’ Lands, Pleasing Farmers in One of First Acts’, ‘Rainforest on Fire: On the Front Lines of Bolsonaro’s War on the Amazon, Brazil’s Forest Communities Fight Against Climate Catastrophe’, ‘Bolsonaro’s Clearcut Populism. “The Barbarism has Begun”’, this report from Amazon Watch: ‘Complicity in Destruction II: How northern consumers and financiers enable Bolsonaro’s assault on the Brazilian Amazon’ and ‘Amazon Deforestation Accelerating Towards Unrecoverable “Tipping Point”’. The key drivers of rainforest destruction in the Amazon are soy production and cattle ranching. Brazilian soy accounted for 14.3% of the country’s total exports, generating $31.0 billion in 2017, while cattle exports accounted for about $5.4 billion. Because Brazil leads the world in exports of both of these commodities, it is the world market for these products that is driving these industries to aggressively expand activities to the detriment of the rainforest and indigenous peoples. But the Amazon is huge, you might say: Does it matter if we destroy some of it for soy and cattle farming? Well, one recent study suggested that deforestation of 20–25% of the Amazon would be the tipping point beyond which it would cease to be a functioning rainforest ecosystem and this, as you might expect, would be catastrophic. Moreover, recent severe droughts appear to be ‘the first flickers of this ecological tipping point’ suggesting that it is already imminent. See ‘Amazon Tipping Point’. So, to reiterate, the key driver of rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon is consumer-generated demand for certain products in other parts of the world. And while the US and European countries play critical roles in destruction of the Amazon, China is the largest importer of agricultural products from Brazil so its government and consumers are complicit too. For example, as China’s demand for Brazilian soy surges due to the trade war between the United States and China, ‘it could drive further ecological catastrophe: 13 million hectares (50,000 square miles) in the Amazon and Cerrado could ultimately be cleared to meet this additional demand.’ See ‘Complicity in Destruction II: How northern consumers and financiers enable Bolsonaro’s assault on the Brazilian Amazon’. The point then, is this: governments and ordinary people (in their role as consumers) in other parts of the world can play a vital role in defending the Amazon and its indigenous peoples – see, for example, Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation– by choosing what they buy from Brazil. Boycotting rainforest timber, beef and soy bean products are powerful options to consider. But don’t forget, there is no point simply identifying and boycotting Braziliantimbers, beef and soy beans. If you want impact on the total market (to prevent one country’s timber, beef and soy beans being substituted for another’s), then you must boycott them all (unless you can clearly identify the source of the product as local and sustainable). Obviously, this takes commitment. The future of the Amazon depends largely on enough of us making that commitment. The Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa The rainforests of the Congo Basin in central Africa are the second largest on Earth. Much of this rainforest lies within the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, crippled by corrupt government for decades and a new president elected earlier this year who has inherited a corrupt and inefficient state apparatus. See ‘Democratic Republic of the Congo: Overview of corruption and anti-corruption’. Unfortunately, therefore, rainforests in the Congo have long been under siege on several fronts. With rebel soldiers (such as the Rwanda-backed M23), miners and poachers endlessly plundering inadequately protected national parks and other wild places for their resources, illegal mining is rampant, over-fishing a chronic problem, illegal logging (and other destruction such as charcoal burning for cooking) of rainforests is completely out of control in some places, poaching of hippopotami, elephants, chimpanzees and okapi for ivory and bushmeat is unrelenting (often despite laws against hunting with guns), and wildlife trafficking of iconic species (including the increasingly rare mountain gorilla) simply beyond the concern of most people. The Congolese natural environment – including the UNESCO World Heritage sites at Virunga National Park and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, together with their park rangers – and the indigenous peoples such as the Mbuti (‘pygmies’) who live in them, are under siege. In addition to the ongoing mining, smaller corporations that can’t compete with the majors, such as Soco, want to explore and drill for oil. For a taste of the reading on all this, see ‘Virunga National Park Ranger Killed in DRC Ambush’, ‘The struggle to save the “Congolese unicorn”’, ‘Meet the First Female Rangers to Guard One of World’s Deadliest Parks’ and ‘The Battle for Africa’s Oldest National Park’. Unfortunately too, as with rainforests elsewhere, ‘What Happens in the Congo Basin Doesn’t Stay in the Congo Basin’: it impacts on regions across Africa playing a part, for example, in recent droughts in Ethiopia and Somalia causing millions of people to depend on emergency food and water rations. See ‘Congo Basin Deforestation Threatens Food and Water Supplies Throughout Africa’. As with the Amazon, you have some powerful options to consider if you want to save the Congolese rainforests and their indigenous peoples. Again, refusing to buy rainforest timbers, conflict minerals and wildlife products is a good start but remember that key minerals in your computer and mobile phone are illegally sourced from the Congo so your thoughtful consideration of minimizing how many of these devices you own can play a part too. For a fuller account of this exploitation and its destructive impact on the rainforests and its indigenous peoples, with references to many other sources, see ‘500 years is long enough! Human Depravity in the Congo’. Indonesia has the most extensive rainforest cover in Asia – and is home to hundreds of distinct indigenous languages and over 3,000 animal species including Sumatran tigers, pygmy elephants, rhinoceros and orangutans – but the forests are being systematically degraded and destroyed. Rainforest cover has steadily declined since the 1960s when 82 percent of the country was covered with forest; it is less than 50 percent today. The rainforest is being destroyed by logging, mining, large-scale agricultural plantations (especially for palm oil), colonization, and subsistence activities like shifting agriculture and cutting for fuelwood. Much of the remaining cover consists of logged-over and degraded forest although large areas, including of the island of Kalimantan/Borneo (shared with Malaysia and Brunei), have been stripped bare. Logging for tropical timbers and pulpwood (to make paper) is the biggest cause of rainforest destruction in the country where as much as 75 percent of the logging is illegal. Indonesia is the world’s largest exporter of tropical timber, which generates more than $US5 billion annually. And more than 48 million hectares (55 percent of the country’s remaining rainforests) are concessioned for logging. Destruction of the rainforest in Indonesia has opened up some of the most remote places on Earth to development: as rainforests in less remote locations have been decimated, timber corporations have stepped up practices on the island of Kalimantan/Borneo and the occupied West Papau, where great swaths of forests have been cleared in recent years. In fact, 20 percent of Indonesia’s logging concessions are in West Papua, despite ongoing resistance by West Papuans. Unfortunately, the fastest and cheapest way to clear rainforests for plantations is by burning. Hence, every year ‘hundreds of thousands of hectares go up in smoke as developers and agriculturalists feverishly light fires before monsoon rains begin to fall. In dry years – especially during strong el Niño years – these fires can burn out of control for months on end, creating deadly pollution that affects neighboring countries and causes political tempers to flare’. See ‘Indonesian Rainforests’. Mining operations, including for coal, also have a devastating impact on the rainforests and their peoples. See ‘New report exposes World Bank links to destructive coal mining in Indonesia’. By far the worst of these projects, however, is the gigantic gold, silver, and copper mine in occupied West Papua, run by Freeport-McMoRan. As widely documented, the mining company has dumped appalling amounts of waste into local streams, rendering downstream waterways and wetlands ‘unsuitable for aquatic life’. Relying on large payments to Indonesian police and military officers, the mining operation is ‘protected’; this has resulted in many West Papuans being killed. The waste from the mine, estimated by Freeport at 700,000 tons each day, covers several square miles and Government surveys have found that tailings from the mines have produced levels of copper and sediment so high that almost all fish have disappeared from vast areas of wetlands downstream from the mine. Like other powerful corporations in Indonesia (and elsewhere), Freeport-McMoRan is well aware that there is little official interest in its abuses of local people and the environment as long as corrupt officials are given sufficient incentive to ignore them. As elsewhere in many parts of the world, therefore, corporate access to resources includes serious human rights abuses and persistent conflicts between companies and local communities which is ignored by corrupt politicians. See ‘Indonesian Rainforests’. Apart from the rainforest itself and the millions of people who live in them, destruction of the rainforest threatens the habitat of iconic species like Sumatran tigers and orangutans, as well as many others, and plays a part in destroying the climate too. But the damage does not stop with the issues noted above. Forests across the world are being destroyed to make fabrics for clothing we wear every day. Fabrics like rayon, viscose and modal are all made from trees and, every year, more than 120 million trees are cut down to make clothing. This is done by companies such as Forever 21, Under Armour, Foot Locker, Prada Group and Michael Kors. You can join the Rainforest Action Network in campaigning to get these laggard companies to adopt responsible sourcing policies for their forest-based fabrics. See ‘Does your clothing contain rainforest destruction?’ Bizarrely, while its incredible rainforests, along with its coral reefs and beaches, play a part in attracting tourists from across the world to see Indonesia’s charismatic native species – such as orangutans, Sumatran tigers, Komodo dragons, whale sharks, sea turtles and manta rays – and to experience its adventure and dive destinations, this tourism also contributes significantly to the destruction as rainforests make way for tourist facilities. So, as with Brazil and the Congo, you can boycott rainforest products from Indonesia and other countries where rainforests are being destroyed. Along with suggestions made earlier, responsible choices about the clothing you wear and the tourist destinations you choose (or boycott) will all make a difference. The ‘Big Picture’ Fight for the Rainforests: What can we do? A great deal. Halting rainforest destruction might be a complex undertaking but it is imperative if we are to have any prospect of preserving life on Earth. So I hope that you will consider the many options I have offered above and those I mention now and do as many as you can, even if you are already working on other critical issues such as the climate and the struggle to end war and the threat of nuclear war. If you want easy options, you can support the campaign efforts of organizations that defend rainforests, indigenous peoples and wildlife such as the Rainforest Action Network, the Rainforest Information Centre, the Rainforest 4 Foundation and Rainforest Rescue which work closely with indigenous and local communities while campaigning against the governments and corporations destroying rainforests, as well as the banks and insurance companies that support this destruction. If you recognize the pervasiveness of the fear-driven violence in our world, which also drives the massive over-consumption of resources by people in industrialized countries – see ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’ – then consider addressing this directly starting with yourself – see ‘Putting Feelings First’ – and by reviewing your relationship with children. See ‘My Promise to Children’ and ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’. If you want to understand and address the fundamental cause of violence in our world, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’. If you wish to campaign strategically in support of indigenous peoples and local communities in their struggles to halt the destruction of Earth’s rainforests. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy. The governments and corporations that profit from the destruction of the rainforests are deeply entrenched and not about to give way without strategically focused campaigns to make it untenable and unprofitable for them to do so. This will include convincing key personnel, whether company directors of corporations involved in rainforest destruction, cargo ship owners, trade unionists (in many industries) and the many other agents involved in the rainforest destruction-to-customer supply chain, as well as ordinary consumers of rainforest products, to make conscious choices about the products they supply, use and/or buy. So strategy is imperative if we are to get corrupt and/or conscienceless governments and corporations, as well as people further removed from the source of the destruction, to end their role in rainforest destruction before it is too late. The big deforestation drivers are timber, palm oil, cattle and soy while mining, oil drilling, clothing and dam construction all play significant roles too, depending on the country. And, as reported by the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project): ‘The ABCD (The Archer Daniels Midland Company [ADM], Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus Company) trader companies have a large impact on countless commodity supply chains. For example, they represent up to 90% of the global grain trade. With a wide array of clients that go from Nestlé to McDonald’s, their role in managing deforestation risk is crucial’ and, so far, grossly inadequate. See ‘Revenue at risk: Why addressing deforestation is critical to business success’ which contains a long list of hundreds of companies (on pages 39-46) which are making zero effective effort to end their rainforest-destroying business practices. Given the strategic sophistication necessary to tackle this complex problem effectively, if you want to view a 15 minute video of (or read a couple of short articles about) the inspirational Melbourne Rainforest Action Group (MRAG) that successfully led a national campaign from 1988 to 1991 to halt imports of rainforest timber into Australia, you can view it here: ‘Time to Act’. In those cases where corrupt elites control or occupy countries, such as those controlling Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and West Papua, it might be necessary to remove these corrupt governments as part of the effort – see Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy – thus helping to restore the political space for local populations to defend rainforests and their rights. You might also consider joining the global network of people resisting violence in all contexts by signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’. But if you do nothing else while understanding the simple point that Earth’s biosphere, including its rainforests, cannot sustain a human population of this magnitude of whom more than half endlessly over-consume, then consider accelerated participation in the strategy outlined in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. Or, if none of the above options appeal or they seem too complicated, consider committing to: Out of love for the Earth and all of its creatures, and my respect for their needs, from this day onwards I pledge that: I wish I could, in all sincerity, offer you that option. If it were still 1990, I would. But the time for simple actions to make a difference is long past and time is now incredibly short. See ‘Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival’. In essence, you have a choice: understand and act on the crucial importance of rainforests before we destroy their integrity and lose them completely. Or help to accelerate the human rush to extinction as a consequence of failing to do so. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. | Robert J. Burrowes | https://www.globalresearch.ca/our-vanishing-world-rainforests/5686159 | 2019-08-12 10:36:52+00:00 | 1,565,620,612 | 1,567,534,335 | environment | nature |
230,688 | globalresearch--2019-08-27--What Everybody Needs to Know About the Amazon Rainforest | 2019-08-27T00:00:00 | globalresearch | What Everybody Needs to Know About the Amazon Rainforest | The Amazon Rainforest biome has an extension of about 6.7 million square kilometers shared between Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam and the French Guyana. Some 62% of it is in Brazil, where 84% of its original area at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500 A.D. are preserved. This mostly untouched area is about the size of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Holland, Italy, Spain and Portugal together; if it were a country, it would be the world seventh in extension, larger than India. The Amazon Rainforest must not be confused with the Legal Amazon (Amazônia Legal), a geographical region delimited for the purpose of establishing special tax regimes in order to encourage economic activities in the nine Northern Brazilian states. These states comprise 61% of the national territory but harbor less than 13% of the country’s population, and account for less than 8% of Brazil’s GDP. Their low living standards can be assessed by the fact that only 13% of its urban inhabitants have access to sewage systems; a great part of the 4 million Brazilians who do not have a simple toilet at home live there. The region also holds significant parts of other two Brazilian biomes, the Cerrado (savannah) and the Pantanal (wetlands). The Legal Amazon has 5.1 million sq.km; the Brazilian part of the Rainforest, 4.2 million sq.km. The Rainforest is not the “lungs of the world”; its vegetal and animal biotas consume all the photosynthesis-generated oxygen in their process of respiration (yes, plants do breathe), so the net budget is near zero. (And lungs do not produce oxygen, after all.) It is not a functional “carbon sink” either, because as a stable climax ecosystem its net carbon budget is also close to zero (except when it burns). Anyway, if people are worried about carbon, they should support the clearing of the forest and its replacement by the secondary regeneration vegetation (called “capoeira”) instead, that captures the atmospheric carbon during its growth, indeed. By the way, between 2008 and 2012, the area of “capoeiras” increased twice and a half faster than the area of cleared forest (there aren’t more recent data). (Disclaimer: I’m not suggesting this course of action.) The Rainforest is obviously relevant for the biogeochemical cycles of the biosphere but it does not have any significant impact upon the world climate. Its chief contribution for the atmospheric dynamics is to recycle some half of the rainwater coming westwards from the Atlantic Ocean back to the atmosphere by means of evapotranspiration, forming a water vapor flow that is partly re-directed southward. This process is important for the Rainforest itself and its surroundings but its influence can hardly be regarded as being global. The much-ballyhooed projections about a feared “tipping point” of deforestation beyond which the Rainforest would supposedly suffer an irreversible “dieback” are just products of mathematical models without factual evidence. These models may be useful as academic drills but should not be the turf of policymaking. If other biomes are useful for comparison, the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica), with a biodiversity similar to the Rainforest, covered 1.3 million sq.km of the Brazilian territory along the coast in the 16th century, and has lost over 80% of its original area since but it has not suffered such a “dieback” so far. The hypothetical deforestation “tipping point” for the rainforest is 20%, a number that grants appealing apocalyptic forecasts and shocking media headlines but does not fit with the hard facts and the common sense. The annual deforestation rates in the Legal Amazon have been decreasing steadily since the last decade, and are now well under 10,000 sq.km a year. Taking into account that much of this deforestation occurs in the Cerrado, a hypothetical linear projection using such rates suggests that it would take well over 400 years to clear the Rainforest entirely – an absurd scenario that is unimaginable by anyone in their right mind except some delusional and uninformed radical environmentalists, anyway. Much of the deforestation occurs in private properties and government-sponsored settlement areas for small family farmers, meaning that it is legal. The Brazilian 2012 Forest Code allows that 20% of the property areas in the Rainforest and 50% in the Cerrado be cleared for economic use. Unfortunately, the deforestation rates regularly trumpeted in the media do not make this needed distinction. The number of fires in the Legal Amazon (including the Cerrado) has also been falling since the record years of 2004-05; the projections for 2019 point that they will reach half or so the numbers of those years. A good deal of such fires occurs in private properties where people have been using fire as a method of cleaning the terrain for centuries; it’s not the best method but it is what they have access to. It’s relevant to notice that most of the fires are not located in the Rainforest itself but in its Southern transition zone to the Cerrado and in the Cerrado itself, as can be seen in the Fire Information for Resource Management System website (See this – the Rainforest is roughly delimited by the huge dark green and light green area north of parallel 15oS). Incidentally, one can also observe that Brazil is far from being alone in the current worldwide fire season. There are over 25 million people living in the Legal Amazon, most of them in precarious socio-economic conditions. The vast majority of people who cut trees or make use of fire are not criminals but do it because they need to eke out a living somehow (of course, there are criminals that manage to avoid the law enforcement and the due punishment, like everywhere else). Keeping in mind the respective proportions, nobody but some stubborn environmentalists is regarding the Germans as environmental criminals because the remnants of the Hambach Forest near Köln are intended to be felled by the RWE energy company, in order to get the lignite in the subsoil needed to fuel thermoelectric plants, after chancellor Angela Merkel ordered the closing of several of the country’s nuclear plants for purely political reasons. Brazil is a developing country and is still struggling to find its way towards the full development of its human and natural resources. For the Amazon region, the path is not “preserving” it as a gigantic combo of botanic garden and zoo, as many people seem to think naively. It must begin with the long overdue tasks of land rights regularization, ecological-economic zoning, adding value to the local productions and resources with the best techniques available, improving and expanding the infrastructure needed to enable quality of life gains for the local populations and a massive effort of research and development of its vast biodiversity resources, combining research institutions, private enterprises and the precious traditional knowledge of its inhabitants. In short, a kind of an Industrial Amazon 4.0, an impulse capable of bringing most of its inhabitants to the levels of wellbeing permitted by the 21st century knowledge. All this can and must be done with the needed care for the environment and, hopefully, we will be able to put this rational agenda in practice but a fundamental prerequisite for this is to dispel the myths and hysteria about the region and its development. So, people, including foreign leaders and personalities, should inform themselves better before ridiculously blaming Brazil of “threatening the world climate”, or asking for sanctions against the country (mostly motivated by political and economical reasons). And the same goes for many Brazilians who are always willing to reverberate any criticisms against the country coming from abroad, regardless of their seriousness or lack thereof. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Geraldo Luís Lino is a Brazilian geologist, former environmental consultant and co-founder and director of the Ibero-American Solidarity Movement (MSIa – www.msiainforma.org); e-mail: [email protected]. | Geraldo Luís Lino | https://www.globalresearch.ca/everybody-needs-know-about-amazon-rainforest/5687352 | 2019-08-27 14:11:27+00:00 | 1,566,929,487 | 1,567,543,653 | environment | nature |
383,906 | npr--2019-02-13--Hungry Deer May Be Changing How Things Sound In The Forest | 2019-02-13T00:00:00 | npr | Hungry Deer May Be Changing How Things Sound In The Forest | Hungry Deer May Be Changing How Things Sound In The Forest Hungry deer in the northeastern U. S. are likely changing the acoustics of their forests by eating up bushes, small trees and other leafy plants that normally would affect the transmission of natural sounds such as bird calls. "The deer are very, very over abundant," says Megan Gall, an ecologist at Vassar College who studies how the environment shapes animals' senses. "It's much lusher when there are fewer deer around, and so that's a big change in the structure of the environment." She got intrigued by the possibility that deer might affect the soundscape after talking with a couple of colleagues who were studying how browsing deer could transform a forest ecosystem by munching through the entire lower level of leafy plants. Gall already knew that sound travels differently through open fields than through the woods. She also had previously studied how human-generated noise can impact wildlife communication. To see how deer might change what other animals hear, she decided to do some experiments in a couple of forested areas that her colleagues had set up for their deer studies. One area was fenced off in a way that kept out the deer. The other area was marked off but left open so that deer could enter and graze. Gall and two students, Timothy Boycott and Jingyi Gao, set up audio equipment around these areas. They broadcast different sounds and checked to see how those sounds changed after traveling through each environment. Rather than using specific bird calls, the researchers played a series of pure tones, white noise and trills. "All of these things are found in different kinds of animal sounds," Gall says. "We wanted to have sort of a very broad palette of sounds to look at." They checked sounds that they sent through the lowest level of the forest, in the middle-level of the forest and at angles going from the ground upward. The results, published in the journal PLOS One, show that the overall loudness didn't change much — which didn't really surprise the researchers, since they were measuring only over short distances of 36 feet or less. But the structure of a sound changed a lot when it was propagated through a lush, green understory that the deer hadn't snacked on. "When deer were browsing, we actually found that the sound was clearer," Gall says, "and that's probably because there was less vegetation in the way. You don't have as many sounds bouncing off of leaves and sticks and things like that. When deer are browsing, the sound actually has higher fidelity as it moves through environment." Bernard Lohr, a biologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who did not work on the study, says this is an intriguing finding. "In one sense, I kind of think, why hadn't anyone thought of doing this before?" he says, noting that human activity has resulted in an explosive growth in deer populations. "That should have obvious implications for the acoustics of the habitat." Lohr says you'd expect the resident birds to adapt their songs. "Something like this should change the acoustic structure of the signals, especially learned signals which evolve culturally," he says, "and so that can happen quite quickly." Birds could start using higher frequencies that don't normally transmit well in forests, Lohr says, adding, "Some of that acoustic niche may be opened up to them." Birds' communications could change in other ways, as well. Gall says that many times, birds aim their message toward another specific individual and would rather not be overheard by rivals, predators or other eavesdroppers. "If you're a very territorial species, like a cardinal for instance, having your signal propagate in a way that's more efficient could be bad for you," Gall says, "because you might end up in a lot more altercations." On the other hand, she says, social birds such as chickadees could benefit from more clarity as they flock together in the winter and alert each other to dangers. Lohr thinks researchers could look to see whether bird songs have a different structure in areas that haven't been cleared out by deer. "The challenge is to find places that have not been browsed," he says, "to see if any of these changes have already occurred. Deer are so pervasive. You'd really have to look hard to find areas that have not been browsed." | Nell Greenfieldboyce | https://www.npr.org/2019/02/13/693905954/hungry-deer-may-be-changing-how-things-sound-in-the-forest?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-02-13 19:01:09+00:00 | 1,550,102,469 | 1,567,548,697 | environment | nature |
386,950 | npr--2019-09-09--Saving Californias Kelp Forest May Depend On Eating Purple Sea Urchins | 2019-09-09T00:00:00 | npr | Saving California's Kelp Forest May Depend On Eating Purple Sea Urchins | A favorite dish for purple sea urchins living off the coast of California is kelp. Problem is, those kelp forests are shrinking dramatically and that's hurting the marine ecosystem. So a group of scientists ran an experiment to see if these sea urchins can themselves become a top menu item. Just off the Monterey Peninsula, a boat sways in the ocean. Three divers get ready to jump in. They're students from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, a graduate school for marine scientists. The assignment: Count purple sea urchins. "Catch you on the flip side," says Shelby Penn. Their professor, Luke Gardner, waits on deck. He expects they'll find plenty of urchins. And that's not a good thing. "What they do is they just eat everything in sight," Gardner says. These spiny creatures are mowing down California's kelp forests. Kelp is a vital part of the ecosystem. It provides food and shelter for numerous animals, including abalone, rockfish and sea otters. The problem began around 2014. That's when Gardner says warmer ocean temperatures began affecting the reproduction of kelp. It's also when a disease killed off sunflower sea stars, a predator of purple sea urchins. The purple sea urchin population skyrocketed. "So with the increase in purple sea urchins, what we've seen is a dramatic reduction in kelp cover, primarily in Northern California. But it's slowly creeping further south. And now we're starting to see a fair bit of it on the Central Coast," Gardner says. Urchin barrens are areas that used to be full of kelp and are now full of urchins. One of these is below the boat. Diver Daniel Gossard takes video of it with a GoPro camera. The video shows rocks covered in spiny, ball-shaped creatures that can fit in the palm of your hand. "The kelp was nonexistent," Gossard said on the boat ride back. The divers didn't come up empty-handed. They bring Gardner some purple urchins. "They've just got a bunch of spines, bright colors," says Gardner. What's inside is the part we eat, the uni — a part of the sea urchin considered a delicacy in Japanese cuisine. (You might have encountered it on the menu at a sushi restaurant.) Commercial divers have been harvesting urchins in California for decades — primarily red sea urchin, because they're bigger. Gardner says we should be eating more of the purple ones. "The problem with these guys is that when you open them up ... there's nothing in there," he says. Since the urchins have eaten up their food supply, they're basically skeletons. Enter aquaculture, or the farming of aquatic organisms. Gardner is also an aquaculture specialist with the California Sea Grant, a state and federal partnership that uses science to help coastal communities solve issues. So he had his students run a research trial on this problem. The goal was to make these urchins valuable by turning them into a delicacy. Graduate student Katie Neylan helped run the experiment. She and her classmates removed 500 purple sea urchins from the ocean and transplanted them into big, blue tanks at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories Center of Aquaculture. "We came out and fed them every three to five days. We had red algae that we fed them, called ogo or Gracilaria pacifica. We fed them kelp, which is just giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera," Neylan says. The ones eating ogo reached market size faster, in just eight weeks. Neylan says it showed how ogo is more nutritious than kelp. The proof is in the eating Then, it was time for the taste test. On a typical foggy day in Carmel-by-the-Sea, the class crowds into the kitchen of Michelin-starred restaurant Aubergine. Here, Executive Chef Justin Cogley serves uni from around the world. He uses tweezers to open up the purple urchins, revealing the orange uni inside. His favorite is the ogo-fed. "Honestly, it's rich and buttery. I think this one might be a touch [cleaner], tastes a little bit cleaner," Cogley says. "It's a great story and everyone's trying to do their part to save the ocean, too," Cogley says. He prepares the uni on a fried potato with a sweet soy glaze for everyone to try. It's a tasty end to the project. But this could be just the beginning. A company called Urchinomics has been selling its ranched urchins in Japan. Now, it is working to secure a site in California. It's all in an effort to save the state's dwindling kelp forest and help the thousands of animals that depend on it. | Erika Mahoney | https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/09/09/756929657/saving-californias-kelp-forest-may-depend-on-eating-purple-sea-urchins?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-09-09 16:01:17+00:00 | 1,568,059,277 | 1,569,330,709 | environment | nature |
502,720 | sottnet--2019-06-26--Extinct creatures found alive deep within Honduras rainforest | 2019-06-26T00:00:00 | sottnet | 'Extinct' creatures found alive deep within Honduras rainforest | A team of scientists have discovered an ecosystem filled with rare and endangered species, including species that were thought to be extinct, in a "lost city" deep within a rainforest in Honduras., in the Mosquitia rainforest and found a diverse hub of wildlife, including hundreds of species of butterflies, bats and reptiles.Scientists also rediscovered three species that were thought to be no longer living in Honduras:Trond Larsen, the director of Conservation International's Rapid Assessment Programme (RAP), said they were "shocked" to discover such a rich environment of rare species."The 'White City' is one of the few areas remaining in Central America where ecological and evolutionary processes remain intact," he added.The RAP also discovered 22 species that have never been recorded in Honduras before, such as the endangered Great Green Macaw, and a livebearing fish that researchers believe is new to science.Mr Larsen said the diversity of the area's wildlife made it a high priority for conservation."One of the main reasons we found such high species richness and abundance of threatened and wide-ranging species (e.g., peccaries) is that, unlike much of the region," he said."This makes the area a high conservation priority for maintaining the broader landscape connectivity that is essential for the long-term persistence of biodiversity through Central America."Explorers have searched for decades to find the White City, which is thought to have been home to an ancient civilisation in the pre-Columbian era.Due to the lack of infrastructure in the region, scientists had to be flown in by helicopter and guarded by armed soldiers to protect them from drug traffickers and predators in the area.Mr Larsen said the biggest threat to the region was illegal deforestation for cattle ranching, despite the "lost city" being officially protected by Honduras' president in 2015.Dr John Polisar, a member of the RAP expedition team, called for strong protection to allow the newly-discovered wildlife to thrive."We have been doing field work in the indigenous territories of La Moskitia for 14 years, and this site stood out as being simply gorgeous," he said."Because of its presently intact forests and fauna the area is of exceptionally high conservation value. It merits energetic and vigilant protection so its beauty and wildlife persist into the future." | null | https://www.sott.net/article/415642-Extinct-creatures-found-alive-deep-within-Honduras-rainforest | 2019-06-26 11:51:07+00:00 | 1,561,564,267 | 1,567,538,113 | environment | nature |
684,035 | theguardianuk--2019-01-08--Voice of the forest George the snail last of his kind dies at age 14 | 2019-01-08T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | 'Voice of the forest': George the snail, last of his kind, dies at age 14 | As New Year’s Day broke in the Hawaiian Islands, one rare creature was not there to emerge from his shell and greet it: George, the last snail of his kind and a local celebrity, was dead at age 14. The passing of George, a member of the Achatinella apexfulva species and a tree snail who fed on tree fungus, algae and bacteria, epitomizes the decline of biodiversity on the Hawaiian islands, where climate change and invasive predators have taken a heavy toll on native animals and insects. Snails like George also played a part in the songs and stories of native Hawaiian culture, which holds that snails make sounds and are “the voice of the forest”. George, who never lived in an actual forest, was still a mascot for endangered Hawaiian snails. After a pathogen outbreak in the lab where he lived, he became the only surviving member of his species and was visited by hundreds, if not thousands, of schoolchildren. Despite his celebrity status, George wasn’t the prettiest snail to look at. David Sischo, the snail extinction prevention program coordinator for the Hawaii Invertebrate Program, described him as “old and grizzled” and said that George was also “bit of a hermit”, who would stay in his shell at times when most other nocturnal snails emerge. Although scientists had hoped that George, a hermaphrodite, would have offspring, his solitary life ruled out that possibility. Snails like George used to be ubiquitous throughout the Hawaiian islands. In fact, the Achatinella apexfulva was the very first snail species to be written about by non-native scientists, said Sischo. In the 1780s, when British captain George Dickson arrived in Hawaii, he was given a lei made with the shells of George’s ancestors. Back then, the snails hung from trees in giant clusters, easy pickings for scientists and collectors. “In a few minutes I collected several hundred specimens, picking them from trees and low bushes as rapidly as one would gather huckleberries from a prolific field,” a collector named DD Baldwin wrote in 1887. At that time, Hawaiian land snails existed in a mind-boggling 752 varieties – about as many as exist in the mainland US and Canada combined. The snails likely arrived by hitchhiking on sea birds that came to the islands millions of years ago, where they thrived and developed into different species – many of which are only found in a single area of one forest on one island. They had no natural predators, and even after the Polynesians brought rats to the island, still lived in abundance. But when Europeans began arriving, that all changed. By the early 1900s, many of the species were “collected” to extinction. Then came the wolfsnail. Like numerous other destructive invasive species, the rosy wolfsnail was introduced to Hawaii on purpose. In 1955, it was brought to the islands in hopes of controlling populations of the giant African snail, a foot-long, “sex-crazed” species with shells that can pierce tires and which had been released there by accident. It didn’t. Instead it binged on native snails. Unlike Hawaiian snails, which eat decomposing leaves or the fungus that grows on trees, the wolfsnail eats other snails by tracking their slime and attacking with brutal efficiency. When Michael G Hadfield, an emeritus professor of biology at the University of Hawaii, began studying Hawaiian snails in the 1970s, he was stunned by their incredible diversity. He and other scientists began making trips into forests on Oahu and other islands where they would mark out a five by five-meter patch of forest, study and label the population of snails with a fine-pointed pen and some waterproof lacquer. They would return a month or so later to see how the snails were doing, and soon amassed information about the snails’ lifespans, behaviors and the role in the ecosystem, where before they had only been appreciated for their attractive shells. Notably, Hadfield studied a population of Achatinella apexfulva – the same species as George – living in the Waianae forest on Oahu for years. The snails were unusual in that they gave birth to large offspring measuring 4 to 5mm in length, but didn’t begin reproducing until they reached the age of five, and then only a handful of times a year. On trips to visit the Achatinella apexfulva and other snails, Hadfield often witnessed a foreboding site: rosy wolfsnails hunting for prey. The longer Hadfield worked, the more destruction he saw. He and other scientists would often arrive at a study site to find a scattering of empty shells, like little tombstones. “We were just watching snails disappear, disappear, disappear,” Hadfield said. “We could see them vanishing before our eyes.” By the early 1980s, Hadfield and his colleagues had begun bringing snails into their laboratory to preserve preserving them. In 1997, a group of about 10 Achatinella apexfulva was brought to the lab. Two of them were George’s parents. Despite the sad fate of the Achatinella apexfulva, Sischo said that the Oahu lab he works in now has thousands of native snails in residence, and that scientists have begun re-introducing some of the adults into remote forests where they hope they will thrive. So far, the locations have been kept secret, in part, Sischo said, so that humans don’t go trampling around looking for them. As for George, his shell and body are being preserved, along with a two millimeter live sample of his “foot” which was sent to San Diego’s Frozen Zoo with the goal of one day cloning him and reviving the species. No funeral will be held, scientists said. | Breena Kerr in Honolulu | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/08/george-the-snail-tree-snail-hawaiian-islands-biodiversity | 2019-01-08 11:00:07+00:00 | 1,546,963,207 | 1,567,553,484 | environment | nature |
714,822 | theguardianuk--2019-11-16--Reforesting the UK: 'Trees are the ultimate long-term project' | 2019-11-16T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Reforesting the UK: 'Trees are the ultimate long-term project' | “This whole area wants to be a wood,” says Edward Milbank, sweeping his arm across the former hill farm in Northumberland. Small saplings of birch have invaded the cleared ground, but many more trees are being pushed into the soil by hand. The bracken and rhododendron that had overrun the hillside took heavy machinery three months to rip out. “When you disturb the soil, it becomes a wood very quickly,” says Milbank. “But the Forestry Commission forced us to put in Scots pine as well. The entire area could be birch without spending a penny, but you have to be seen to be doing something to justify the [planting grants].” This former sheep and cattle farm, Doddington North, is being converted into England’s largest private new woodland in 30 years, with 680,000 trees being planted over the 350 hectares. Moving down the hill, Milbank points and says: “The reason we were able to raise the investment is that – sitka spruce.” The commercial timber tree will occupy 40% of the land, with native broadleaf trees such as birch, alder, aspen and oak on about a third and the rest managed as open grassland. Milbank, whose company Pennine Forestry is running the project, hopes it will encourage more wildlife, such as the red squirrels that live in an adjoining wood, and the kestrels that already fly overhead searching for the shrews that dart between tussocks. The UK needs 1.5bn more trees, according to the government’s official climate change advisers, to suck up carbon dioxide and help restore wildlife. But the question of how they will be delivered – private or public, commercial or wild – remains open, despite the pioneering effort at Doddington North, which should be completed this winter. James Trayte, who leads the team of planters, has done more than most. He reckons he has planted more than 2m trees in his 12-year career. Out since dawn, he has planted about 2,000 so far today, plucking the two-year old sitka saplings from bags around his waist, then prodding them into the hole he makes with a deft twist of the planting spade. “It was pure love at the start, getting paid to walk around on the hillsides, battling the weather.” After 12 winter seasons, the best time to plant trees, he is more blunt about the motivation. “It’s a brutal job and my elbow is going. What brings me back now is the money.” Milbank says: “Most local people have been incredibly supportive of the project, but not everyone. They thought we were taking away good agricultural land to put in trees.” But, if the national tree target is to be met, he says: “There will have to be some land that comes out of agricultural production and goes into forestry.” Much of the timber – and the carbon it contains – gets locked up in new buildings, he points out. All the saplings planted are UK grown, but global heating is already exerting an influence. “We take them from nurseries in the south of England, as that will be the climate we have here in the north in the future,” Milbank says. Very few plastic guards are used, though that has meant killing deer that would destroy the saplings and putting up fences. “It will be lovely to have deer back in here in 10 years”, when the trees are established, he says. Milbank is clear that management is essential to create and maintain woodland, such as removing some trees to let light through the canopy, a task that large wild herbivores would have done in the past. He thinks rewilding 25% of the nation, as proposed by Rewilding Britain, is unrealistic: “I can’t see land just being left – we are too small an island, with 66 million people.” Rebecca Wrigley, at Rewilding Britain, says: “We are not suggesting people are taken off the land across the country and that everything is fully rewilded. We’d like to see a mosaic, maximising rewilding but also production where that is necessary. Rewilding has to work for people and nature, economy and ecology.” But she thinks management is a forestry mindset and often not necessary: “Woodlands have been doing OK for millions of years without human management, though obviously you need fully functional ecosystems.” The government is not far off track in delivering the 11m trees over five years in England that it promised to fund in 2017: 3.6m were planted in the last two seasons, about 2,300 hectares. But, overall, planting in England fell in 2019. There was a jump in UK figures, thanks to Scottish planting, but only to 13,400 ha. That is well below the 20,000 ha target set for 2020 by the government advisers, the Committee on Climate Change. It wants 27,000 ha a year by 2030, a level not seen since the 1970s, when huge monoculture plantations fuelled by tax breaks earned forestry a bad name. “It is wildly optimistic,” says Milbank, but not impossible. “If the incentives are there, farmers will follow.” Mark Bridgeman, the new president of the CLA, the Country, Land and Business Association, and whose Fallodon Estate is near Doddington North, agrees. “Right now it is not going to happen. It’s about creating a market for timber,” he says, noting that the UK imports 80% of its timber. “That is ludicrous – we have one of the greatest climates for growing trees.” But both say the government now has a perfect opportunity for change with the proposed post-Brexit subsidy regime potentially providing public money for public goods, such as carbon removal, flood protection and cleaner air – all things that trees can deliver. “Trees are the ultimate long-term project,” says Bridgeman. Sitkas double their weight – and carbon removal – between the ages of 30 and 40, but the cost of planting is upfront, creating a financial obstacle. A new £50m government scheme launched last week makes a start on tackling that, with people planting trees able to get regular payments for carbon storage. Another obstacle is the cost of getting permission to plant trees. “It was blooming hard to get Doddington North through,” says Milbank, whose company spent £125,000 and 18 months preparing the planning application. “There should be a presumption in favour of planting,” not against it, says Bridgeman. John Tucker, at the Woodland Trust, a charity that has planted 10m native broadleaf trees in the past two years, agrees. He supports the Doddington North project, despite its commercial timber component, saying: “We need more trees, full stop – of all sorts.” All projects now have to meet the UK Forestry Standard, he adds, meaning no monocultures or ugly clear-cutting. Back on the chilly Northumberland hillside, Milbank is confident there is change in the air, “Climate change is now at the forefront of people’s minds and I think the political will is there,” he says. “It will be easier to plant trees in future.” | Damian Carrington Environment editor | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/16/reforesting-the-uk-trees-are-the-ultimate-long-term-project | Sat, 16 Nov 2019 08:00:31 GMT | 1,573,909,231 | 1,573,907,070 | environment | nature |
747,747 | theindependent--2019-02-16--Massive restoration of worldaposs forests would cancel out a decade of CO2 emissions analysis sug | 2019-02-16T00:00:00 | theindependent | Massive restoration of world's forests would cancel out a decade of CO2 emissions, analysis suggests | Replenishing the world’s forests on a grand scale would suck enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to cancel out a decade of human emissions, according to an ambitious new study. Scientists have established there is room for an additional 1.2 trillion trees to grow in parks, woods and abandoned land across the planet. If such a goal were accomplished, ecologist Dr Thomas Crowther said it would outstrip every other method for tackling climate change – from building wind turbines to vegetarian diets. Lack of accurate information meant for years experts severely underestimated the number of trees on Earth. Combining data from ground-based surveys and satellites, Dr Crowther and his colleagues arrived at a figure of three trillion – over seven times more than a previous Nasa estimate. The same approach, using machine learning and AI to analyse the enormous data set, allowed the researchers to predict the number of trees that could feasibly be planted in empty patches around the world. Dr Crowther said undervaluing trees means scientists have also been massively underestimating the potential for forests to combat climate change. Project Drawdown, a group that compares the merits of different emission-cutting techniques, currently places onshore wind power and improved recycling of fridges and air conditioners at the top of its list. If rolled out on a realistic scale, each of these techniques would cut over 80 gigatons of emissions, while growing forests languishes in 15th place with a saving of just 18 gigatons. New research undertaken by Dr Crowther has used the 1.2 billion figure to estimate the potential scale of carbon capture that could be achieved by planting trees, and reveal their true potential. “There’s 400 gigatons now, in the 3 trillion trees, and if you were to scale that up by another trillion trees that’s in the order of hundreds of gigatons captured from the atmosphere – at least 10 years of anthropogenic emissions completely wiped out,” he said. While the exact figures are yet to be released, he said trees had emerged as “our most powerful weapon in the fight against climate change”. Dr Crowther discussed his findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington DC. Full restoration of all sites identified is clearly unrealistic, but tree planting is increasingly being recognised as a critical activity to preserve life on Earth. The United Nations initially ran a project known as the Billion Tree Campaign, but in light of Dr Crowther’s findings this has been renamed the Trillion Tree Campaign. It has already seen 17 billion trees planted in suitable locations around the world. “We are not targeting urban or agricultural area, just degraded or abandoned lands, and it has the potential to tackle the two greatest challenges of our time – climate change and biodiversity loss,” said Dr Crowther. “It’s a beautiful thing because everyone can get involved. Trees literally just make people happier in urban environments, they improve air quality, water quality, food quality, ecosystem service, it’s such an easy, tangible thing.” | Josh Gabbatiss | http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/forests-climate-change-co2-greenhouse-gases-trillion-trees-global-warming-a8782071.html | 2019-02-16 20:46:00+00:00 | 1,550,367,960 | 1,567,548,303 | environment | nature |
760,246 | theindependent--2019-05-21--Arctic kelp forests Expanding thanks to climate change | 2019-05-21T00:00:00 | theindependent | Arctic kelp forests: Expanding thanks to climate change | Did you know that there are forests in the Arctic? Lush underwater forests of large brown seaweeds (kelps) are particularly striking in the Arctic, especially in contrast to the land where ice scour (scraping of sea ice against the sea floor) and harsh climates leave the ground barren with little vegetation. Kelp forests have been observed throughout the Arctic by Inuit, researchers and polar explorers. The Canadian Arctic alone represents 10 per cent of the world’s coastlines, but we know little of the hidden kelp forests there. Today, climate change is altering marine habitats such as kelp forests on a global scale. In western Australia, eastern Canada, southern Europe, northern California and eastern United States, kelps are disappearing due to warming temperatures. In other areas, kelps are being heavily over-grazed by sea urchins. Coastal conditions in the Arctic are changing dramatically and the region is warming faster than the rest of the world, but these changes could actually be good for kelp. Yet we know little about kelp forests in remote Arctic regions. Our latest research, published in Global Change Biology, uncovers the distribution of Arctic kelp forests and explores how these important ecosystems are changing with the climate. Proliferation of kelps in the Arctic Kelps currently occur on rocky coasts throughout the Arctic. The longest kelp recorded in the Arctic in Canada was 15 metres, and the deepest was found at 60-metre depth (Disko Bay, Greenland). Many find it surprising that marine plants can grow so well in harsh Arctic environments. Kelps have adapted to the severe conditions. These cool water species have special strategies to survive freezing temperatures and long periods of darkness, and even grow under sea ice. In regions with cold, nutrient-rich water, they can attain some of the highest rates of primary production of any natural ecosystem on Earth. Kelps function underwater in the same way trees do on land. They create habitat and modify the physical environment by shading light and softening waves. The underwater forests that kelps create are used by many animals for shelter and food. More than 350 different species — up to 100,000 small invertebrates — can live on a single kelp plant, and many fish, birds and mammals depend on the whole forest. Kelp forests also help protect coastlines by decreasing the power of waves during storms and reducing coastal erosion. A lot of kelp break off or are dislodged from the rock they attach to and end up in nearby habitats where they fuel deep food webs. As waters warm and sea ice retreats, more light will reach the sea floor, which will benefit marine plants. Researchers predict a northern shift of kelp forests as ice retreats. Genetic evidence reveals that most kelps reinvaded the Arctic from the Atlantic Ocean quite recently (approximately 8,000 years ago, following the last Ice Age). As a result, most kelps in the Arctic are living in waters colder than their optimal temperature. Ocean warming will also move conditions closer to temperatures of maximum growth, and could increase the productivity of these habitats. However, other changes are happening in the Arctic that complicate this picture. In Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Norway and Siberia, permafrost soils that have been frozen for thousands of years are receding by half a metre per year. Thawing permafrost and crumbling Arctic coasts are dumping sediments into coastal waters at alarming rates, which blocks light and could limit plant growth. The run-off from melting glaciers will also lower salinity and increase turbidity, which impacts young kelp. The Canadian Arctic is the longest Arctic coastline in the world. The earliest scientific records of kelp in the Arctic are from Canada during expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage. In Hudson Bay and eastern Canada, kelp forests have been scientifically documented between Ellesmere Island and Labrador, and along coasts in Lancaster Sound, Ungava Bay, Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay and Resolute Bay. In the northwestern Canadian Arctic, lack of rock substrate and a harsher climate support smaller, fragmented kelp forests. However, baseline measures of the extent of kelp communities are missing in many areas. Unfortunately, lack of information has already made it difficult to tell how kelp forests are changing. Today, a number of researchers in Canada have partnered with northern communities and organisations to study kelp in the Arctic. The five-year ArcticKelp Project, for example, explores future changes and opportunities these ecosystems could provide. At the same time new technology (underwater lasers) is being developed in collaboration with Inuit fishers to map kelp forests in the Arctic. This is important, because knowledge on Arctic kelp forests could help northern communities and societies anticipate and benefit from these valuable changing ecosystems. Kelp forests throughout the world play an important role in coastal economies, supporting a broad range of tourism, recreational and commercial activities. Kelp is making its way onto the plates of North Americans, and the kelp aquaculture industry is growing at a rate of seven per cent per year for the last 20 years globally (kelp is a coveted food source in many countries, full of potassium, iron, calcium, fibre and iodine). In the Arctic, Inuit traditionally use kelp as food and wild harvest numerous species. Arctic kelp forests provide a key example of the diverse responses to climate change. Predictive models and experiments suggest that Arctic coasts are in line to become one of the most impacted environments in the world under changing climate. Yet the possible expansion of kelp forests should provide new habitats for fish and other marine organisms, and enhance a suite of valuable ecosystem services along Arctic coastlines. This expanding resource may provide needed income to northern communities whose livelihoods are threatened by climate change and other impacts. Anticipating these changes and understanding these new ecosystems will be a key priority for Arctic nations. Just because you cannot see the forests growing in the Arctic does not mean we should not appreciate them and recognise the crucial role they play in the ocean. Karen Filbee-Dexter receives funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Australian Research Council, and the Norwegian Research Council. This article first appeared on The Conversation. | Karen Filbee-Dexter | https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/arctic-underwater-forests-global-warming-climate-change-a8914761.html | 2019-05-21 14:00:57+00:00 | 1,558,461,657 | 1,567,540,272 | environment | nature |
769,358 | theindependent--2019-08-23--Amazon rainforest fires and deforestation approaching disastrous irreversible tipping point scienti | 2019-08-23T00:00:00 | theindependent | Amazon rainforest fires and deforestation approaching disastrous irreversible tipping point, scientists warn | As fires ravage massive areas of the Amazon, the vital rainforest is nearing a “tipping point” in which a third of its ecosystem could be irreversibly decimated, experts have warned. The loss of such huge areas of the forest would result in the eradication of species, many of which are yet to be studied, but would also unleash vast amounts of stored carbon. Such devastation could spell catastrophe for the planet due to the implications for climate change. Thousands of fires are racing through the Amazon, with Brazil recording more than 75,000 individual forest fires in the first eight months of the year. In July, the rate of deforestation equated to roughly an area the size of Manhattan every day, or the size of Greater London every three weeks. Professor Thomas Lovejoy of George Mason University, who has studied the Amazon since 1965, told The Independent there are signs it is on course for further extensive deforestation which will soon stretch beyond human control. The previous research of his colleague Carlos Nobre indicates further razing could break the Amazon’s hydrological cycle, whereby it generates half its own rainfall. If a critical amount of trees are felled, the ecosystem will degrade to the point of being unable to support the rainforest. But speaking to The Independent on Friday, Professor Lovejoy said things have since become much worse. “When we were first worried about it, the amount of deforestation was small,” he said. “But then these other things started to interact – the impact of deforestation and the effects of climate change became apparent, and the extent of the use of fire [for clearing land] became apparent. “The reason we believe the tipping point is so close is because we’re seeing historic droughts in 2005, 2010, and 2016. And satellite images in the north central Amazon also show forests remote from everything are beginning to convert into grassland. That’s yet another symptom. “These are not little droughts – boats cannot get up some of the river’s tributaries, because they’re so dry.” Professor Lovejoy said such a conversion from rainforest to savannah and scrubland would be the wider effect if a tipping point is reached. “You’d have extensive parts of the southern and eastern Amazon and parts of the central converting to savannah, and maybe to even drier conditions.” As well as the catastrophic loss of the rainforest as a massive carbon sink, Professor Lovejoy said losing swathes of the Amazon would result in a huge loss in the planet’s biodiversity. “People don’t really grasp that the biodiversity in one part of the Amazon is very different to that in other parts,” he said. “So if you have regional loss, you’ve having actual total loss of that biodiversity. It’s the largest terrestrial repository of biodiversity on the planet, so all that will impact the future of Brazil, the economy, for the future of the world, vanishes. “We tend to live in the delusion we don’t depend on the biology of the planet, but we do. Agriculture, forestry, medicine, all of that has a major biological base. Scientists are revealing new potential all the time. But you can’t do that if the species isn’t there to study. It’s like book burning on a very grand scale.” He added: “The standing forest is absorbing carbon on an annual basis, but its even greater importance is in the total amount of carbon stored in the forest itself. Tropical rainforests store more carbon per unit area than basically any other kind of habitat. So it’s folly in the end.” Asked if he thought Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was a threat to the future of life on our planet, Professor Lovejoy said: “He certainly is, and he’s also a threat to Brazilian agriculture.” But he said judging by the amount of public concern in Brazil, he believes things can change, despite Mr Bolsonaro’s policies. “When there’s so much smoke in Sao Paolo, the street lamps come on at three in the afternoon, it’s clear there’s a problem. “The world doesn’t expect Brazil to manage this all completely on its own, the world would like to help. And we hope we will be welcomed into some kind of partnership.” | Harry Cockburn | https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/amazon-rainforest-fire-deforestation-global-warming-latest-a9076876.html | 2019-08-23 18:11:46+00:00 | 1,566,598,306 | 1,567,533,588 | environment | nature |
780,609 | theindependent--2019-12-23--Ability of re-grown Amazon forest to combat climate change 'vastly overestimated', study s | 2019-12-23T00:00:00 | theindependent | Ability of re-grown Amazon forest to combat climate change 'vastly overestimated', study suggests | The capacity of re-grown areas of the Amazon rainforest to draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combat climate change may have been “vastly overestimated”, scientists fear. The forest is a gigantic carbon sink, drawing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Cleared areas that are re-planted are known as secondary forest, and have been seen as key to fighting climate change, researchers at Lancaster University said. But a new study has found that those areas held just 40 per cent as much carbon dioxide as sequestered by parts of the Amazon untouched by humans, casting doubt on their ability to aid in mitigating the crisis. And at the same time, global warming appeared to be hampering the re-growth of secondary forest. Scientists monitored forest regrowth over a period of 20 years and revealed how the Amazon was affected by periods of drought. During times of “water deficit”, regrown forests absorb less carbon from the atmosphere. “If current trends continue, it will take well over a century for the forests to fully recover, meaning their ability to help fight climate change may have been vastly overestimated,” Lancaster University said. Increased temperatures from global warming are in turn causing more drought-years in the Amazon, therefore limiting the capabilities of the secondary forests to help beat carbon pollution. Led by a group of Brazilian and British researchers, the study also found that even after 60 years, regrown forests held only two-fifths as much carbon as virgin forests. It could take more than a century for the forests to fully recover and “reduce the effectiveness of climate mitigation strategies in regions that have a long history of human occupation”. Author Fernando Elias, of the Federal University of Para, said: “The region we studied in the Amazon has seen an increase in temperature of 0.1C per decade and tree growth was lower during periods of drought. “With predictions of more drought in the future, we must be cautious about the ability of secondary forests to mitigate climate change. Our results underline the need for international agreements that minimise the impacts of climate change.” Scientists also found there to be a “near-zero increase” in biodiversity within these secondary forests between 1999 and 2017. Forests are vital habitats for threatened species and ecosystems, but results from the study show poor biodiversity relationships in highly-deforested landscapes. “It is also likely that we are overestimating the relative recovery of biodiversity,” added the study. Joe Barlow, professor of conservation science at Lancaster University and also an author of the study, said secondary forests’ potential to mitigate climate change was of “global importance”. He also called for “more long-term studies like ours… to better understand secondary forest resilience and to target restoration to the areas that will do most to combat climate change and preserve biodiversity”. | Kate Ng | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amazon-rainforest-climate-change-deforestation-drought-study-a9257631.html | Mon, 23 Dec 2019 12:06:00 GMT | 1,577,120,760 | 1,577,104,108 | environment | nature |
1,028,178 | thetorontostar--2019-08-10--Climate of fir German forests struggle with heat | 2019-08-10T00:00:00 | thetorontostar | Climate of fir: German forests struggle with heat | BERLIN - Germany’s forests — long a source of pride and national identity — are feeling the heat. A second consecutive year of unusually dry and warm weather has left swaths of forest dead or dying, fueling fears that the woods that inspired many a Grimms’ fairytale could be heading for an unhappy end. Officials say droughts, wildfires and hungry beetles destroyed 110,000 hectares (270,000 acres) of forest in Germany in 2018 and the damage this year could be even worse. The sight of bare trees has stoked debate in Germany about the impact of climate change and what measures this heavily industrialized nation should be taking to adapt to and prevent global warming. A poll released Friday by public broadcaster ZDF found 62% of German voters say it’s the most pressing problem, higher than any other issue. And while tackling climate change has broad public support across the political spectrum, the environmentalist Green party appears to be benefiting most, with the ZDF survey showing it would take 25% of the vote if there were a general election, more than doubling its result from 2017. The representative telephone poll of 1,307 voters conducted Aug. 6-8 had a margin of error of up to 3 percentage points. The Green party, which was founded 40 years ago at a time when Germans were witnessing the effects of acid rain on their forests, has demanded drastic steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, putting pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Union bloc and the centre-left Social Democrats, which currently form a coalition government. The Cabinet has responded by pledging to agree a package of measures next month that could include some form of carbon charge and tax breaks for rail tickets to cut domestic air travel — though proposals to raise the price of bratwurst and other meat were swiftly dismissed. The conservative governor of Bavaria recently proposed bringing forward the deadline for shutting down Germany’s coal-fired power plants and suggested climate protection should be included in the country’s constitution. Last week, state forestry ministers from the Union bloc called for 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to be spent over the coming years to restore ailing forests and make them fit for a warmer future. Meanwhile, hard-line environmentalists have pointed to the ongoing dispute over an ancient forest in western Germany that’s at risk of being destroyed for a nearby mine. Hambach Forest sits next to a massive open-cast lignite pit operated by utility giant RWE. An expert proposal to end the use of coal in Germany by 2038, approved by the government, was meant to save the forest, but activists say RWE is endangering what’s left of the woods by pumping out precious groundwater. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Saturday visited the forest, where she met with environmentalist protesters and demanded that “our war against nature must end today,” the activist group End of Story said in a statement. The 16-year-old, whose protest movement has mobilized tens of thousands of students across Europe each week calling on leaders to do more against global warming, said seeing the mine disturbed her deeply and that the time had come to stop talking and take action. Thunberg, who is planning to set sail next week for a U.N. climate summit in New York, in March dedicated an award she received from German media to “those protecting the Hambach Forest and the climate activists who fight to keep the fossil fuels in the ground everywhere.” Merkel has acknowledged feeling the pressure coming from Thunberg and her mostly young supporters, but cautioned that “we are also taking new directions, and these new directions must of course be thought through.” Experts say whichever course the government takes, Germany’s forests are in for a change. Spruce trees, once popular for their timber, have been suffering from rising temperatures for several years now, said Andreas Bolte, head of Germany’s Thuenen Institute of Forest Ecosystems. “What’s new this year is that we had real problems with beech in some areas,” he said, noting that pines and oaks are also beginning to hurt. Scientists are hoping that trees more resistant to heat, such as Douglas firs, can replace native varieties, which will continue to thrive at higher altitudes. | Frank Jordans - The Associated Press | https://www.thestar.com/news/world/europe/2019/08/10/climate-activist-thunberg-visits-disputed-german-forest.html | 2019-08-10 12:11:12+00:00 | 1,565,453,472 | 1,567,534,473 | environment | nature |
1,092,802 | wakingtimes--2019-02-21--A Massive Restoration of the Worlds Forests Would Cancel Out 10 Years of CO2 Emissions | 2019-02-21T00:00:00 | wakingtimes | A Massive Restoration of the World’s Forests Would Cancel Out 10 Years of CO2 Emissions | As the Earth contends with degrading ecological conditions and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, a new study suggests that a massive global effort to replenish forests would be capable of absorbing a decade’s worth of carbon dioxide emissions. According to new data, the Earth has room for about 1.2 trillion additional trees that can be planted in abandoned lots, woodlands and parks across the globe. ETH Zurich ecologist Thomas Crowther estimates that such a huge reforestation push would be the most effective form of tackling our climate woes, rather than pinning our hopes on a meatless diet or renewable energy sources such as wind turbines alone. In Crowther’s research, his lab used recent data from the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative to gain an accurate understanding of the current global tree count. The initiative relies on the efforts of ground-level volunteers, 1.2 million monitoring locations across the globe, satellite imagery, as well as tens of thousands of soil samples. The information, paired with machine learning and artificial intelligence, allowed Crowther’s lab to identify a figure of three trillion trees on Earth – more than seven times the amount estimated by NASA. It also gave Crowther’s team the ability to predict how many trees could feasibly be planted across the globe. In a description of his presentation at a recent American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington, D.C., Crowther wrote: “Using this combination of above ground and below ground data we can identify regions of high priority for biodiversity conservation. Additionally, we can finally start to understand the feedbacks that determine atmospheric carbon concentrations over the rest of the century. We now understand that, as the soil warms, carbon emissions from the soil will increase, particularly in the high-latitude arctic and sub-arctic regions.” Crowther has criticized the scientific community’s undervaluing of trees and forests as an effective weapon in the fight against climate change and global emissions, but his newest data hints at the potential that a massive tree-planting campaign could hold. “There’s 400 gigatons now, in the 3 trillion trees, and if you were to scale that up by another trillion trees that’s in the order of hundreds of gigatons captured from the atmosphere – at least 10 years of anthropogenic emissions completely wiped out,” Crowther told the Independent. The United Nations is already taking heed of Crowther’s findings, and has renamed its Billion Trees Campaign the Trillion Trees Campaign. Crowther noted: “We are not targeting urban or agricultural area, just degraded or abandoned lands, and it has the potential to tackle the two greatest challenges of our time – climate change and biodiversity loss. It’s a beautiful thing because everyone can get involved. Trees literally just make people happier in urban environments, they improve air quality, water quality, food quality, ecosystem service, it’s such an easy, tangible thing.” **This article (A Massive Restoration of the World’s Forests Would Cancel Out 10 Years of CO2 Emissions) was originally featured at The Mind Unleashed and is re-posted here with permission. | WakingTimes | https://www.wakingtimes.com/2019/02/21/a-massive-restoration-of-the-worlds-forests-would-cancel-out-10-years-of-co2-emissions/ | 2019-02-21 21:57:30+00:00 | 1,550,804,250 | 1,567,547,785 | environment | nature |
1,093,134 | wakingtimes--2019-07-25--In Just One Decade Corporations Destroyed 50 Million Hectares of ForestAn Area the Size of Spain | 2019-07-25T00:00:00 | wakingtimes | In Just One Decade, Corporations Destroyed 50 Million Hectares of Forest—An Area the Size of Spain | Major corporations involved with commodities like beef, palm oil, and soya pledged in 2010 to end deforestation over the next decade—but instead of fulfilling that promise, a new Greenpeace International analysis found the companies are set to destroy at least 50 million hectares of forest worldwide by 2020. “Our message to companies is simple: evolve your business to prevent climate and ecological breakdown.” —Anna Jones, Greenpeace U.K.That estimate—the environmental advocacy group noted in a statement announcing its Countdown to Extinction report (pdf) Tuesday—is comparable to the size of Spain. It is also “a conservative estimate,” the group said, based on a combination of data on deforestation, tree cover loss, and forecasting through 2019. Given recent increases in tree loss cover, “the actual figure could be much higher.” Companies named in the report include General Mills, IKEA, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg, L’Oréal, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever. Greenpeace released its new report as over a thousand corporate executives were in Vancouver for the global summit of the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), a organization led by various CEOs that brings together retailers and manufacturers. In 2010, the CGF’s board approved a resolution to achieve zero net deforestation by 2020 “through the responsible sourcing of these key commodities—soy, palm oil, paper and pulp, and cattle—so that the sourcing of these key commodities will not deplete tropical rainforests.” The Greenpeace report, released just months away from the CGF’s deadline, details how consumer goods companies have failed to meet the deforestation goal, and the consequences of it. As Greenpeace U.K.’s Anna Jones put it, “these companies are destroying our children’s future by driving us towards climate and ecological collapse.” “They’ve wasted a decade on half-measures and in that time vast areas of the natural world have been destroyed,” said Jones, the group’s global project lead for forests. “They should be in crisis talks right now, but they’re still trying to grow demand for products that will drive forest destruction even further.” The CGF told The Guardian in a statement Tuesday that “members have moved substantially closer to our goal of 100 percent sustainable sourcing of the four commodity groups. But over the last nine years we have also learned that the forces driving deforestation are more complex than almost any stakeholder realized in 2010.” Member companies, the newspaper reported, no longer see the “sustainable commodities” approach as effective, so they have spent the past 18 months working with outside stakeholders on a new strategy that will be discussed at the summit this week and unveiled during U.N. climate week in September. As leaders of consumer goods companies have spent the past decade learning their approach was flawed from the start, the Greenpeace report explains, “the trade in high-risk commodities has boomed.” “In the Congo Basin, we are witnessing widespread environmental and human rights violations in the name of development and the global commodities trade,” said Victorine CheThoener of Greenpeace Africa. “It’s all a kleptocracy where governments and companies collude to loot our natural resources and ordinary people pay the price.” Meanwhile, in Brazil, “the soya and cattle industries have been trashing the Cerrado—destroying the local environment, aggravating the climate crisis, and displacing and committing violence against Indigenous and traditional populations that have occupied the territory for hundreds of years,” Romulo Batista of the group’s local chapter said. “Global brands must bring their suppliers under control.” Greenpeace analyzed the devastation caused not only by members of the CGF, but also signatories to the New York Declaration on Forests and those that “had a cross-commodity forest protection policy, or had expressed on their websites an ambition, goal, or commitment to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains.” Earlier this year, the advocacy group asked more than 50 traders, retailers, producers, and consumer goods companies to “demonstrate their progress towards ending deforestation,” the report says. “Not a single company was able to demonstrate meaningful effort to eradicate deforestation from its supply chain.” The report outlines how deforestation relates to recent warnings from global scientists about the rising likelihood of climate catastrophe and devastating biodiveristy loss unless the international community works together to rapidly reform energy, transportation, and agricultural systems. Halting deforestation and restoring the world’s forests is the cheapest and fastest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ensure rapid carbon uptake. In conjunction with phasing out fossil fuels, such action is essential if we are to limit global temperature rises to 1.5ºC. Some 80 percent of global deforestation is a result of agricultural production, concentrated in tropical countries whose forests store enormous amounts of carbon and are most urgent to protect. The destruction of forests and other natural ecosystems by industrial agriculture is also wiping out the Earth’s biodiversity: around 1 million species are now at risk of extinction. Preventing climate and ecological breakdown requires ‘transformative changes’ to the way forest and agricultural commodities are produced, traded, and consumed, producing and consuming less meat and dairy, and phasing out crop-based biofuels and bioplastics. Such changes would also deliver major gains for human health and the health of our planet. Companies face a stark choice: clean up the industrial food system or clear out of the global commodities trade. With the release Greenpeace’s analysis, Jones said, “Our message to companies is simple: evolve your business to prevent climate and ecological breakdown.” Jessica Corbett is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Follow her on Twitter: @corbett_jessica. | Phillip | https://www.wakingtimes.com/2019/07/25/in-just-one-decade-corporations-destroyed-50-million-hectares-of-forest-an-area-the-size-of-spain/ | 2019-07-25 17:24:32+00:00 | 1,564,089,872 | 1,567,535,844 | environment | nature |
1,093,163 | wakingtimes--2019-08-06--Bizarre Forest Superorganism is Keeping Dead Trees Alive Study Finds | 2019-08-06T00:00:00 | wakingtimes | Bizarre Forest ‘Superorganism’ is Keeping Dead Trees Alive, Study Finds | While hiking in the New Zealand wilderness, Sebastian Leuzinger of the Auckland University of Technology and a colleague made an astonishing discovery: a tree stump that should have died was being kept alive by neighboring trees. After conducting an experiment, the researchers concluded that nearby trees were funneling water and nutrients to the stump through an interconnected root system. The revelation supports the understanding that trees and other organisms work together for the benefit of a forest. For the study, Leuzinger and his teammate decided to put continuous water monitors in the kauri (Agathis australis) stump and in two nearby adult trees of the same species. Then, they waited. After several weeks, they discovered a relationship between the water flow in the trees and the stump. When nearby trees evaporated water through their leaves during the day, the water movement in the stump remained low. But, when the trees were dormant during the evening, the water would begin circulating through the stump. Furthermore, when it was overcast or rainy and the water flow dropped in the trees, the stump picked it up. As NewScientist reports, water flow is largely driven by evaporation in healthy trees. But, without leaves, the stump’s water flow was dependent on the movement of its neighbors. The finding, which was published in iScience, undermines the notion of trees as individual or separate entities. We’ve long known the symbiotic relationship between fungi and tree roots, but the new information “dramatically changes our view of forest ecosystems as ‘superorganisms’,” said Leuzinger. He added that the networking of water makes the trees more resistant to water scarcity. However, it also increases the risk of disease spreading. This could be problematic for Kauri trees which are affected by a deadly disease called kauri dieback. Living stumps have been reported as far back as the 1800s. But, this is one of the first studies ever on how they survive. There are several theories as to why trees help each other out. The most probable of which suggests that a leafless stump simply becomes part of the host tree’s broader root system. According to Greg Moore at the University of Melbourne, Australia, trees are “ruthlessly efficient” in maximizing their resources. “So the fact that this stump is being supported by nearby trees tells you they are getting a benefit,” he said. Mandy Froelich is an RHN, plant-based chef, journalist, Reiki master therapist, world traveler and enthusiast of everything to do with animal rights, sustainability, cannabis and conscious living. She share healthy recipes on my blog Life in Bloom. | WTStaff | https://www.wakingtimes.com/2019/08/06/bizarre-forest-superorganism-is-keeping-dead-trees-alive-study-finds/ | 2019-08-06 17:00:56+00:00 | 1,565,125,256 | 1,567,534,744 | environment | nature |
1,093,436 | wakingtimes--2019-11-23--New Satellite Data Says Amazon Deforestation At Worst Levels In Ten Years | 2019-11-23T00:00:00 | wakingtimes | New Satellite Data Says Amazon Deforestation At Worst Levels In Ten Years | data The data was collected by the Satellite Legal Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Project (PRODES), and documented the rates of deforestation in nine states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon. The figures were published by The National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The data showed that roughly 9,762 square kilometers, or 3,769 square miles of rainforest have been lost in the past year. The INPE indicated that this represents a 29.5% increase in deforestation from the previous year, which is the worst rate of deforestation that the region has seen since 2008. Many environmental activists have placed the blame on newly elected Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who campaigned on promises to allow corporations to pillage indigenous lands. Since coming into office, his administration has significantly scaled back environmental protections, essentially giving a green light to loggers, miners, and ranchers to violently expel native tribes from their lands and destroy the local ecosystem. Furthermore, documents leaked from the Brazilian government show that the current administration planned on building infrastructure projects through the Amazon as a way of pushing back against international pressure to put protections on the forest. A PowerPoint slide leaked from a government presentation about these infrastructure plans said that, “Development projects must be implemented on the Amazon basin to integrate it into the rest of the national territory in order to fight off international pressure for the implementation of the so-called ‘Triple A’ project. To do this, it is necessary to build the Trombetas River hydroelectric plant, the Óbidos bridge over the Amazon River, and the implementation of the BR-163 highway to the border with Suriname.” One of the tactics listed in the document was framing the Amazon crisis as a wedge issue to divide liberals and conservatives. If the destruction of the Amazon can be reduced to a simple “political opinion,” the legitimate concerns from activists and experts can be easily dismissed as nothing more than a dissenting political opinion. John Vibes is an author and journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture, and focuses solutions-oriented approaches to social problems. He is also a host of The Free Your Mind Conference and The Free Thought Project Podcast. | WTStaff | https://www.wakingtimes.com/2019/11/22/new-satellite-data-says-amazon-deforestation-at-worst-levels-in-ten-years/ | Sat, 23 Nov 2019 00:21:56 +0000 | 1,574,486,516 | 1,574,511,444 | environment | nature |
1,112,041 | yahoonews--2019-07-04--Study Climate change can be reversed by planting a forest nearly double the size of the US | 2019-07-04T00:00:00 | yahoonews | Study: Climate change can be reversed by planting a forest nearly double the size of the U.S. | A new study suggests that human beings could save themselves from the worst ravages of climate change by planting a forest nearly double the size of the United States. Compiled by the Crowther Lab at ETH University in Zurich, and published Thursday in the journal Science, the study is the first undertaken to map the areas where trees can flourish despite rising temperatures, and calculate how much carbon they could store through photosynthesis. It concludes that a global reforestation effort on up to 6.9 million square miles of land not currently utilized could produce forests capable of storing about 205 tonnes of carbon, which is roughly two-thirds of the excess carbon human beings have added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. “We’ve modeled, with very high accuracy, where trees can exist on the planet,” Thomas Crowther, the study’s senior author, told Yahoo News. “Essentially, by making that map, we can then get an understanding of where, under today’s climate, trees can exist.” Because global temperatures have risen by nearly 1.8°F since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, dense equatorial forests have become less optimal for growing trees, Crowther said, while areas once too cold for tree growth have become viable. The problem is that new forests don’t naturally spring up fast enough to compensate for the habitat lost to climate change. With an eye toward speeding the process along, Crowther’s study identifies the available land where trees can now flourish. In the United States, for instance, new forest could be planted over approximately 400,000 square miles. The catch, however, is that even if a massive effort were undertaken immediately, it would take between 40 and 100 years to realize peak carbon intake. “It’s certainly not an immediate-fix situation, but it is, by far, the biggest solution that we’ve got,” Crowther said. “There’s no other technology that would be faster.” The world’s leading climate scientists have warned that at the current pace of warming due to greenhouse gases, humanity has just 12 years to roll back carbon dioxide emissions if there is any hope of keeping global temperatures from rising above 2.7°F. That marker, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in its October report, would drastically raise the risk of drought, catastrophic flooding and death by heat exposure. The Crowther Lab study also warns that on our current trajectory, the global tree canopy cover could shrink by approximately 550 million acres by 2050, with most of those losses occurring in the tropics. Noting that carbon emissions reached an all-time high in 2018, Crowther stresses that the time it takes forests to grow makes it imperative that people not only immediately embark on a global reforestation project, but also cut back on carbon emissions. In May, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography measured atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at a record 415 parts per million, far above levels measured in ice core readings dating back 800,000 years. If mankind continues to pump carbon into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels at its current rate, that number is sure to grow, causing temperatures to rise along with it. While technologists often posit that humans will come up with carbon capture inventions that will ultimately save mankind, Crowther said the solution is already here. “There’s about 800 gigatons of carbon in the atmosphere. Before humans were around, it would have been about 500,” he said. “Restoration would take it down to about 600 gigatons, so that would be sort of taking the current 400 ppm of CO2 down to almost 300 ppm, which is right about where we were at the start of the Industrial Revolution, so it’s a pretty big chunk.” Crowther is hardly the first person to propose reforestation as the solution to climate change. Numerous countries have undertaken efforts to encourage citizens to either plant new forests or replant those that mankind has degraded in order to lower the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Yet programs like the one that launched in China in the late 1990s backfired when local residents seeking subsidies turned croplands into monoculture tree plantations that, when they failed or were cut down, ended up increasing carbon emissions. “There are examples from all across China and the Northern Hemisphere where trees have been restored in the wrong ecosystems, and it can be devastating,” Crowther said. “The blanket argument that ‘trees are good,’’ well, it can’t be that. It has to be ‘trees are good when they’re restored in the right ecosystem.’” To help people understand what they can plant and where, Crowther Labs has set up a web page in conjunction with its study that maps the entire globe and provides information on the native trees that thrive in a given location, as well as the soil pH and so on. “We’d like the public to get involved by either planting trees themselves or donating to restoration organizations,” Crowther said. If Crowther’s proposal sounds wildly optimistic, consider the example of Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado, who, along with his wife, took it upon himself to oversee the replanting of 2.7 million trees on deforested land in his home country. After founding the Instituto Terra in 1998, Salgado was able to restore the barren, degraded landscape to its natural state. There’s also Felix Finkbeiner, who at the age of 9 set off on a campaign to plant 1 million trees in Germany to combat climate change. Three years later, with help from other students, he achieved his goal and founded Plant-for-the-Planet, a group that now aims to plant 1 trillion trees globally. For Crowther, it’s those kinds of efforts that give him hope. While his study has estimated that it may ultimately require planting upward of 1.3 trillion new trees before the carbon in the atmosphere begins to significantly dissipate, it is one of the few scientific papers on climate change in recent years that can be cast as hopeful. “I hope it will inspire a lot more engagement by the general public to go, ‘Oh, my God, there’s something we can do to affect climate change,’” he said. A mapping tool at Crowther Lab's website lets users see where trees can flourish despite rising temperatures. (Photo: Crowther Lab at ETH University) Feedback loops will make climate change even worse, scientists say | null | https://news.yahoo.com/study-climate-change-can-be-reversed-by-planting-a-forest-nearly-double-the-size-of-the-us-180000751.html | 2019-07-04 18:00:07+00:00 | 1,562,277,607 | 1,567,536,893 | environment | nature |
539,005 | sputnik--2019-07-27--Scientists Sound Alarm as Half of Florida Coral Reefs Affected by Mysterious Disease | 2019-07-27T00:00:00 | sputnik | Scientists Sound Alarm as Half of Florida Coral Reefs Affected by Mysterious Disease | A team of scientists from NOAA, Florida Wildlife, and the University of Miami has launched an effort to rescue the coral on Florida's reefs from a devastating and unexplained disease that has already affected nearly half of all the coral in the region, CBS reported. The researchers have been collecting specimens of healthy coral to store in special vats so they can later be replanted after the reef system has healed. Large areas of Florida's reefs have been suffering from a mysterious condition that hit the region nearly five years ago. The infection has continued to spread and is still active, impacting more and more of the ecosystem. The disease has left the scientific community puzzled, as they have never witnessed any illness developing at such a pace and last for such a long period of time. Moreover, the reasons for the infection remain unknown. | null | https://sputniknews.com/us/201907271076379972-scientists-sound-alarm-as-half-of-florida-coral-reefs-affected-by-mysterious-disease/ | 2019-07-27 15:37:00+00:00 | 1,564,256,220 | 1,567,535,642 | environment | nature |
540,626 | sputnik--2019-08-09--Marine Heat Waves Decimate Coral Reefs Much Faster Than Previously Thought - Study | 2019-08-09T00:00:00 | sputnik | Marine Heat Waves Decimate Coral Reefs Much Faster Than Previously Thought - Study | The findings revealed that extreme heat waves go beyond just causing a process known as “bleaching,” a coral-related event that occurs when water temperatures get so warm that they expel algae from their tissues, forcing them to turn white. “When a coral bleaches, it is not dead. Corals can survive a bleaching event, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality,” the US’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) explains on its website. In the study, researchers simulated a severe heat wave that occurred in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in 2016. The findings revealed that the high temperatures cause the skeletal structures of corals to degrade, destroying them in just days or weeks. “Here, we show that marine heat wave events on coral reefs are biologically distinct to how coral bleaching has been understood to date, in that heat wave conditions result in an immediate heat-induced mortality of the coral colony, rapid coral skeletal dissolution, and the loss of the three-dimensional reef structure,” the study explains. “The severity of these heat wave events is beyond the bleaching process; it’s actually a point where the coral animal itself is dying,” said Tracy Ainsworth, a co-author of the study from the University of New South Wales, according to multiple media outlets. As a result, heat wave-induced mortality events should be viewed as a distinct biological phenomenon from bleaching events, she said. "Until now, we have described coral bleaching as an event where the symbiotic relationship between coral and its microbes breaks down, and corals lose their main source of nutrition, and the coral can die if the symbiosis is not restored," Ainsworth explained, according to multiple media sources. "But what we are now seeing is that severe marine heat wave events can have a far more severe impact than coral bleaching: the water temperatures are so warm that the coral animal doesn't bleach - in terms of a loss of its symbiosis - the animal dies, and its underlying skeleton is all that remains," Ainsworth said. | null | https://sputniknews.com/environment/201908101076516932-marine-heat-waves-decimate-coral-reefs-much-faster-than-previously-thought---study/ | 2019-08-09 21:08:23+00:00 | 1,565,399,303 | 1,567,534,538 | environment | nature |
713,324 | theguardianuk--2019-11-04--Restoring Jamaica's lost coral reefs – photo essay | 2019-11-04T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Restoring Jamaica's lost coral reefs – photo essay | Everton Simpson squints at the Caribbean from his motorboat, scanning the dazzling bands of colour for hints of what lies beneath. Emerald green indicates sandy bottoms. Sapphire blue lies above seagrass meadows. And deep indigo marks coral reefs. That is where he is heading. He steers the boat to an unmarked spot he knows as the “coral nursery”. Simpson started working as a “coral gardener” two years ago as part of grassroots efforts to bring Jamaica’s coral reefs back from the brink. On the ocean floor, small coral fragments dangle from suspended ropes. Simpson and other divers tend to this underwater nursery as gardeners look after a flower bed, painstakingly plucking off snails and fireworms that feast on immature coral. When each stub grows to about the size of a human hand, Simpson collects them in his crate to individually transplant on to a reef. Even fast-growing coral species add just a few inches a year. A few hours later, at a site called Dickie’s Reef, Simpson dives again and uses bits of fishing line to tie clusters of staghorn coral on to rocky outcroppings, a temporary binding until the coral’s limestone skeleton grows and fixes itself on to the rock. The goal is to jumpstart the natural growth of a coral reef. And, so far, it is working. • None Everton Simpson untangles lines of staghorn coral at a nursery inside the White River fish sanctuary. The coral fragments dangle from ropes, like socks hung on a laundry line. • None Simpson grabs a handful of staghorn harvested from a coral nursery for planting inside the the sanctuary. Coral reefs are often called “rainforests of the sea” for the astonishing diversity of life they shelter. Just 2% of the ocean floor is filled with coral but the branching structures sustain a quarter of all marine species. Clownfish, parrotfish, groupers and snappers lay eggs and hide from predators in the reef’s nooks and crannies, and their presence draws eels, sea snakes, octopuses and even sharks. In healthy reefs, jellyfish and sea turtles are regular visitors. With fish and coral, it is a co-dependent relationship. The fish rely on the reef structure to evade danger and lay eggs, and also eat up the coral’s rivals. When too many fish disappear, the coral suffers, and vice versa. The delicate labour of the coral gardener is only one part of restoring a reef and for all its intricacy it is actually the most straightforward part. Convincing lifelong fishermen to curtail when and where they fish and controlling the surging waste dumped into the ocean are trickier endeavours. • None Fisherman turned Oracabessa fish sanctuary warden and dive master Ian Dawson dives while spearfishing outside the sanctuary’s no-take zone. Slowly, the comeback effort is gaining momentum. “The coral are coming back, the fish are coming back,” says Stuart Sandin, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. “It’s probably some of the most vibrant coral reefs we’ve seen in Jamaica since the 1970s. When you give nature a chance, she can repair herself. It’s not too late.” Sandin is studying the health of coral reefs around the world as part of a research project called the 100 Island Challenge. His starting assumption was that the most populated islands would have the most degraded habitats, but what he found instead was that humans can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on how they manage resources. • None Wardens and fishermen push themselves through shallow water while heading out to sea. • None White River fish sanctuary wardens patrol through the reef of the sanctuary’s no-take zone. In Jamaica, more than a dozen grassroots-run coral nurseries and fish sanctuaries have sprung up in the past decade, supported by small grants from foundations, local businesses such as hotels and scuba clinics, and the Jamaican government. At White River, which is only about two years old and where Simpson works, the clearest proof of early success is the return of tropical fish that inhabit the reefs, as well as hungry pelicans, skimming the surface of the water to feed on them. Jamaica’s coral reefs were once among the world’s most celebrated, with their golden branching structures and resident brightly coloured fish drawing the attention of travellers from Christopher Columbus to Ian Fleming, who wrote most of his James Bond novels on the island’s northern coast in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1965, the country became the site of the first global research hub for coral reefs, the Discovery Bay Marine Lab, now associated with the University of the West Indies. The groundbreaking marine biologist couple Thomas and Nora Goreau completed fundamental research here, including describing the symbiotic relationship between coral and algae and pioneering the use of scuba equipment for marine studies. The same lab also provided a vantage point as the coral disappeared. Peter Gayle has been a marine biologist at Discovery Bay since 1985. From the yard outside his office, he points towards the reef crest about 300 metres (985ft) away, a thin brown line splashed with white waves. “Before 1980, Jamaica had healthy coral,” he says. Then several disasters struck. The first calamity was 1980’s Hurricane Allen, one of the most powerful cyclones in recorded history. “Its 40ft waves crashed against the shore and basically chewed up the reef,” Gayle says. Coral can grow back after natural disasters but only when given a chance to recover, which it never got. The same decade, a mysterious epidemic killed more than 95% of black sea urchins in the Caribbean, while overfishing ravaged fish populations. And surging waste from the island’s growing human population, which nearly doubled between 1960 and 2010, released chemicals and nutrients into the water that spur faster algae growth. The result: seaweed and algae took over. “There was a tipping point in the 1980s, when it switched from being a coral-dominated system to being an algae-dominated system,” Gayle says. “Scientists call it a ‘phase shift’.” That seemed like the end of the story until an unlikely alliance started to tip the ecosystem back in the other direction, with help from residents such as Simpson and his fellow fisherman Lipton Bailey. The fishing community of White River revolves around a small boat-docking area about a quarter of a mile from where the river flows into the Caribbean Sea. One early morning, as purple dawn light filters into the sky, Simpson and Bailey step on to a 28ft motorboat called the Interceptor. Both men have lived and fished their whole lives in the community. Recently, they have come to believe that they need to protect the coral reefs that attract tropical fish, while setting limits on fishing to ensure the sea is not emptied too quickly. • None Fisherman Oswald Coombs is encircled by tarpon as he cleans his catch on the beach in the fishing village of Oracabessa Bay, Jamaica. • None Belinda Morrow sits with the sanctuary diver and warden Raymond Taylor during a meeting with local fishermen. In the White River area, the solution was to create a protected area, a “fish sanctuary”, for immature fish to grow and reach reproductive age before they are caught. Two years ago, the fishermen joined with local businesses, including hotel owners, to form a marine association and negotiate the boundaries for a no-fishing zone stretching two miles along the coast. A simple line in the water is hardly a deterrent; however, to make the boundary meaningful, it must be enforced. Today, the local fishermen, including Simpson and Bailey, take turns patrolling the boundary in the Interceptor. On this morning, the men steer the boat just outside a row of orange buoys marked “no fishing”. ‘‘We are looking for violators,” Bailey says, his eyes trained on the rocky coast. “Sometimes you find spearmen. They think they’re smart. We try to beat them at their game.” • None Nicholas Bingham (l), grabs his speargun while leaving the home of Gary Gooden (r), as they prepare to go night spearfishing, which is banned, in Stewart Town, Jamaica. Bingham and Gooden say they have to resort to illegal night spearfishing to make up for lost wages from the sanctuary’s restrictions. • None The White River fish sanctuary warden Mark Lobban shines a spotlight on the protected reef while patrolling the no-take zone. Most of the older and more established fishermen, who own boats and set out lines and wire cages, have come to accept the no-fishing zone. Besides, the risk of having their equipment confiscated is too great. But not everyone is on board. Some younger men hunt with lightweight spearguns, swimming out to sea and firing at close-range. These men, some of them poor and with few options, are the most likely trespassers. The patrols carry no weapons, so they must master the art of persuasion. “Let them understand this. It’s not a ‘you’ thing or a ‘me’ thing. This isn’t personal,” Bailey says of past encounters with violators. These are sometimes risky efforts. Two years ago, Jerlene Layne, a manager at nearby Boscobel fish sanctuary, ended up in hospital with a bruised leg after being attacked by a man she had reprimanded for fishing illegally. “He used a stick to hit my leg because I was doing my job, telling him he cannot fish in the protected area,” she says. Layne believes her work would be safer with more formal support from the police, but she is not going to stop. “Public mindsets can change,” she says. “If I back down on this, what kind of message does that send? You have to stand for something.” She has pressed charges in court against repeat trespassers, typically resulting in a fine and the confiscation of equipment. One such violator is Damian Brown, 33, who lives in a coastal neighbourhood called Stewart Town. Sitting outside on a concrete staircase near his modest home, Brown says fishing is his only option for work and he believes the sanctuary boundaries extend too far. • None Jerlene Layne (l), manager of the Boscobel marine sanctuary, talks with fisherman Damian Brown, a repeat violator of the no-take zone, while patrolling through the community in Stewart Town. • None Spear fisherman Rick Walker, 35, sells his catch to a buyer at a fish market in White River. Back at the White River docking area, Rick Walker, a 35-year-old spear fisherman, is cleaning his motorboat. He remembers the early opposition to the fish sanctuary, when many people said they were trying to stop their livelihood. Two years later, Walker, who is not involved in running the sanctuary but supports its boundary, says he can see the benefits. “It’s easier to catch snapper and barracuda,” he says. “At least my great-grandkids will get to see some fish.” When Columbus landed in Jamaica he sailed into Oracabessa Bay, which is today a 20-minute drive from the mouth of the White River. Oracabessa Bay fish sanctuary was the first of the grassroots-led efforts to revive Jamaica’s coral reefs. Its sanctuary was legally incorporated in 2010 and its approach of enlisting local fishermen as patrols became a model for other regions. “The fishermen are mostly on board and happy, that’s the distinction. That’s why it’s working,” says the sanctuary manager, Inilek Wilmot. David Murray, the head of the Oracabessa Fishers’ Association, notes that Jamaica‘s 60,000 fishermen operate without a safety net. “Fishing is like gambling, it’s a game. Sometimes you catch something, sometimes you don’t,” he says. When fish populations began to collapse two decades ago, something had to change. • None Morris Gause, Nigel Simpson and Andre Ramator peer over the end of a dock to look at fish in the Oracabessa fish sanctuary. Murray now works as a warden in the Oracabessa sanctuary, while continuing to fish outside its boundary. He also spends time explaining the concept to neighbours. “It’s people work, it’s a process to get people to agree on a sanctuary boundary,” he says. “It’s a tough job to tell a man who’s been fishing all his life that he can’t fish here.” But once it became clear that a no-fishing zone actually helped nearby fish populations rebound, it became easier to build support. The number of fish in the sanctuary has doubled between 2011 and 2017, and the individual fish have grown larger, nearly tripling in length on average, according to annual surveys by Jamaica’s national environment and planning agency. And that boosts catches in surrounding areas. After word got out about Oracabessa, other regions wanted advice. • None Oracabessa fish sanctuary’s warden and dive master, Ian Dawson, looks for fish while spearfishing outside the sanctuary’s no-take zone. ‘I do fishing for a living. Right now I’m raising fish in the sanctuary. If you don’t put in, you can’t take out, simple.’ “We have the data to show success but even more important than data is word of mouth,” says Wilmot, who oversaw training to help start the fish sanctuary at White River. Morrow, a lifelong water sports enthusiast often seen paddle-boarding with her dog, Shadow, runs the White River Marine Association. She attends fishers’ meetings and raises small grants from the Jamaican government and other foundations to support equipment purchases and coral replanting campaigns. “We all depend on the ocean,” Morrow says, sitting in a small office decorated with nautical maps in the 70-year-old Jamaica Inn. “If we don’t have a good healthy reef and a good healthy marine environment, we will lose too much. Too much of the country relies on the sea.” This Associated Press feature was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s department of science education. It’s part of a weekly series by AP, What Can Be Saved?, which chronicles the ordinary people and scientists fighting for change against enormous odds. | Christina Larson. Photographs by David J Phillip and David Goldman/AP | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/04/restoring-jamaicas-lost-coral-reefs-photo-essay | Mon, 04 Nov 2019 07:00:21 GMT | 1,572,868,821 | 1,572,882,251 | environment | nature |
757,915 | theindependent--2019-04-24--Endangered green turtles now increasing in numbers study of Pacific coral reefs finds | 2019-04-24T00:00:00 | theindependent | Endangered green turtles now increasing in numbers, study of Pacific coral reefs finds | Endangered green turtle populations are increasing on some coral reefs, according to an in-depth study of populations around islands in the Pacific. Listed as “endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and therefore protected, they have been vulnerable to human exploitation in the past for food. Hunting and egg poaching have also affected their numbers. The destruction of coral reefs, through climate change and construction, building on nesting sites and vulnerability to pollution and entanglement in fishing nets have all impacted turtle populations. But according to a large-scale study by Monterey Bay Aquarium research scientist Sarah Becker and her colleagues, some populations were growing in number. Previous land-based surveys of breeding and nesting sites have provided important evidence of population sizes, but have been “limited in scope” and lack “confirmation from the ocean where the turtles spend the vast majority of their time”, the authors wrote in the journal Plos One. To study the density of the populations of green turtles and hawksbill turtles, which are both coral-dwelling species, they combined data from 13 years of in-water visual surveys of turtle abundance near 53 islands, atolls, and reefs throughout the US Pacific. They hoped this would also enable them to understand further environmental and anthropogenic factors that have driven population trends. During the surveys, a slow-moving boat towed pairs of divers at about 15 metres below the surface, where they recorded details of habitat and sea life as it came into view. In all, the surveys covered more than 7,300 linear kilometres and observed more than 3,400 turtles of the two species. Survey data showed that American Samoa had the highest density of hawksbills, while the Pacific Remote Islands Area, a mostly uninhabited region about a thousand miles southwest of Hawaii, had the most green turtles. Hawksbill numbers were far lower (less than 10 per cent) than green turtle counts, indicating that many conservation threats still exist for this species. The researchers said the data showed the density of green turtles was driven primarily by ocean temperatures and productivity, but also suggested effects from historical and present-day human impacts. Over the survey period, green turtle populations were either stable or increased. While this is welcome news, the authors noted that despite some protective measures beginning in the 1970s, “current populations are still at a fraction of historic levels”. The lowest density but the highest annual population growth was found in the Hawaiian Islands, which the researchers said suggested protective regulations could be paying off in allowing green turtle populations to rebound. Ms Becker said: “This study represents one of the largest sea turtle population surveys ever conducted, filling critical gaps on in-water abundance and drivers of population density. Across the tropical Pacific several locations held impressive densities of sea turtles, and in all regions densities were driven by bottom-up forces like ocean temperatures and productivity and top-down forces such as human impacts.” | Harry Cockburn | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/green-turtles-endangered-study-pacific-monterey-bay-aquarium-a8884481.html | 2019-04-24 17:01:43+00:00 | 1,556,139,703 | 1,567,541,895 | environment | nature |
1,024,572 | thetorontostar--2019-05-15--In fight to shield coral reefs from warming oceans US and Australian experts join forces | 2019-05-15T00:00:00 | thetorontostar | In fight to shield coral reefs from warming oceans, U.S. and Australian experts join forces | PORT DOUGLAS, AUSTRALIA—Marine biologists in Australia and the United States are joining forces to resuscitate two of the world’s major coral reef systems along their coastlines threatened by rising ocean temperatures and extreme weather. In their two sunshine states, Queensland and Florida, experts have turned their focus from conservation to restoration at the Great Barrier Reef and Florida Reef, where entire colonies of coral life have been bleached or killed. Biologists working to restore both systems are sharing data and experimenting with forms of coral that appear resilient to warming waters. They have convened three major workshops in Cairns, Townsville and Miami over six months in an effort to expedite their efforts. At least one prominent figure in the Australian biology community, the chief scientist for the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, is calling for a structured program between the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council that would formalize a joint effort of the two countries. “There’s no question that our methodology for coral restoration developed in America,” said Peter Mumby, the chief scientist. “There’s a long history of Australians and Americans working together on this, but right now we are collaborating closely with the Americans on techniques they’ve developed for propagating coral.” While the focus of Australian scientists had been on conservation over many years, two consecutive mass bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 shook the community into action. Bleaching occurs when coral expel algae in response to an increase in sea temperatures. The algae provide coral with their colour, and so without it the coral are left bone white. In the Florida and wider Caribbean reef systems, bleaching began years earlier than at the Great Barrier Reef, forcing American experts to lead the way on restoration technologies. Experts in both countries say that the sheer scale of the Great Barrier Reef� roughly the size of Italy, or the length of the U.S. eastern seaboard� makes coral engineering a far more challenging task there, and warn that techniques being pioneered in the United States might not be directly applicable in Australia. And while the Caribbean system only hosts a handful of coral species � making the ecosystem generally less resilient� the Great Barrier Reef has over 100 species. But Mumby said that coral experts in the Florida Keys contributed valuable insight to a $6 million Australian research project on the biology, ethics and feasibility of large-scale coral restoration efforts. The findings of that research were recently reported to Australia’s federal government, which —after elections are held this weekend —will decide how much of $100 million in principle funding to allocate to further coral restoration efforts. Florida-based scientists shared their findings at the Townsville workshop on the genetics of coral under stress, examining what makes for resiliency on a biological level —critical to understanding which corals might survive consistently warmer waters, according to Mumby, who was in Fort Lauderdale for another round of meetings as recently as February. A 2017 conference in Australia attended by prominent American scientists led to a much closer working relationship between the two countries, according to Tom Moore, the coral reef restoration program manager at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “There’s always been great collaboration between NOAA and Australia, but historically, folks in Australia weren’t working on restoration as much as traditional management,” Moore told McClatchy. “They’re a little bit late to the game, but they come to it very well prepared and resourced and fully engaged.” While roughly a third of all corals on the Great Barrier Reef, the largest reef system in the world, have bleached or died in the past decade, Moore says that 90-95% of corals on the Florida Reef are already dead. “Manual work in a gardening-like way won’t cut it on an ecosystem level —we’re working together to figure out an industrial-scale effort,” Moore added. “We’re working on assisted evolution methods to create coral that’s more resilient to more hostile oceans, to warmer oceans, and to diseases.” At the Agincourt ribbon reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef system off the coast of Port Douglas, healthy and vibrant coral were still visible to tourists. The largest share of Queensland’s economy comes from tourism —according to state data the reef draws 2 million visitors a year and brings in $6 billion in tourism dollars. Tourism operators, in both Australia and Florida, have been slow to acknowledge threats to the reef out of fear they will scare away visitors. “We’re not going to sugar-coat it —the reef is under threat, and something needs to be done,” said Greg Hoare, a chief marine biologist for Quicksilver, one of Queensland’s leading tourism operators. “If we suppress the idea that the reef is under threat or imperiled, people will walk away from the day thinking, ‘wow, that was beautiful,’ but they won’t have that sort of urge to help conserve what they saw for future generations.” Hoare said that Quicksilver is conducting experiments at its reef sites with the approval of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park focused on rehabilitation, and acknowledged that Australia had only recently shifted its focus to restorative efforts. In one experiment, the team is operating a control site with coral growing along a meshed device at its own rate. At another nearby, in similar temperatures, they are growing coral on mesh housing pulsing with electrical currents that are meant to increase the growth rate threefold. “We’ve fragmented colonies of corals that have already shown resilience,” Hoare continued. “We’ve isolated areas that have shown resilience and are working to aid the corals in their growth.” Across the marine biology community, focus has shifted toward perfecting resiliency efforts that can be scaled up to meet the size and scope of the challenge ahead. Moore says that these “assisted evolution methods” are the world’s best chance to save these ecosystems, home to one quarter of all marine life. Mumby says that a formalized relationship between the two countries’ national science foundations would appropriately elevate their strong working ties. “They’ve been able to come to the table with a lot more resources, and we will benefit from the work they’re doing,” Moore said of the Australians. “Reefs of the future are going to be different than today —we have to accept that. We won’t win the fight everywhere. But we’ll succeed in some places, with help.” | Michael Wilner - McClatchy Washington Bureau | https://www.thestar.com/news/world/australia/2019/05/15/in-fight-to-shield-coral-reefs-from-warming-oceans-us-and-australian-experts-join-forces.html | 2019-05-15 18:39:43+00:00 | 1,557,959,983 | 1,567,540,641 | environment | nature |
427,274 | prepareforchange--2019-08-15--The Cancer Epidemic is Caused by a Viruse That Was Put in the Polio Vaccine and Given to 98 Million | 2019-08-15T00:00:00 | prepareforchange | The Cancer Epidemic is Caused by a Viruse That Was Put in the Polio Vaccine and Given to 98 Million People (Also Transmitted Sexually) | In 1960, medical studies determined that the Salk injectable polio vaccine (IPV) contained the Simian Virus 40 (SV40). SV40 is a cancer-causing virus originating from minced rhesus monkey kidney cells that were used to manufacture the polio vaccine. From the mid-50s until 1960, the SV40-tainted vaccine had been administered to about 98 million adults and children. After 1960, millions of more of the tainted vaccines were being manufactured and administered. Federal regulators did not recall the affected polio vaccine until 1963. Dr. Sabin, who developed the first working polio vaccine, had this to say about the cover-up: “…Theres too much scaring the public unnecessarily. Oh your children were injected with a cancer virus and all that. That’s not very good!” Medical researchers attribute the elevated rise in soft-tissue cancers in the last 50 years, many of which were almost unknown before the introduction of the polio vaccine, to the SV40 virus contamination. Soon after the discovery of the cancer-causing virus, the U.S. Government commissioned covert projects with the purpose of weaponizing cancer. Dr. Alton Ochsner, who pioneered early studies linking smoking to cancer, was instrumental in overseeing the cancer-causing virus project in New Orleans. His hospital was one of the 159 covert research centers established by the CIA. Dr. Mary Sherman, an expert in cancer research, was selected to supervise the secret research related to the SV40 virus. The monkey viruses were radiated by a linear particular accelerator to alter the genetic components in the virus. The monkey viruses would then be injected into mice to study the developing tumors. In 1964, Dr. Sherman was found brutally murdered in her apartment (she had been stabbed multiple times and her right arm and rib cage had been burnt away). Her fascinating story is detailed in the book Dr. Mary’s Monkey. The following Coast to Coast AM interview with the author of Dr. Mary’s Monkey is absolutely crucial to the investigation: Judyth Vary Baker and Lee Harvey Oswald’s involvement in the program In the spring of 1963, 19-year-old Judyth Vary Baker was invited to join Dr. Ochsner in New Orleans. Baker was an exceptionally gifted student from Florida dedicated to cancer research. Soon after arriving in New Orleans, she began a romantic relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald, who informed her of his role as an intelligence agent. Oswald introduced Baker to David Ferrie, who according to Jim Garrison, was a key figure in the JFK assassination and “one of history’s most important individuals.” Ferrie revealed information to Baker about a secret government assassination plot directed against Fidel Castro. By injecting Castro with cancer, the U.S. Government would avoid the usual suspicion that a violent assassination would generate. Baker and Oswald were assigned cover jobs at the Reily Coffee Company (confirmed by Baker’s pay stubs and tax statements). Her real work was in Ferrie’s apartment, portions of which had been converted into a laboratory. Baker worked with 50-60 mice at a time, which had developed tumors due to cancer injections. Baker would kill the mice, and then cut off and weigh the tumors. The excised tumor material would then be blended together. Baker would then make tissue cell cultures from the most vigorous and deadly cancers. She would then compile reports on the tests and take them to Dr. Mary Sherman to review. Oswald acted as a go between for the covert program participants, among other assigned clandestine activities. Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm. | Edward Morgan | https://prepareforchange.net/2019/08/15/the-cancer-epidemic-is-caused-by-a-viruse-that-was-put-in-the-polio-vaccine-and-given-to-98-million-people-also-transmitted-sexually/ | 2019-08-15 18:19:20+00:00 | 1,565,907,560 | 1,567,534,128 | health | diseases and conditions |
630,110 | thedailymirror--2019-04-05--As UK prepares for large Zika epidemic how virus brought Brazil to its knees | 2019-04-05T00:00:00 | thedailymirror | As UK prepares for large Zika epidemic' how virus brought Brazil to its knees | It's the virus with a terrifying reputation after bursting onto the scene in Brazil - just before the country hosted the 2016 Olympic Games. In a matter of months Zika had infected at least 1.5million people, and in women there were alarming and tragic consequences. Images of babies with microcephaly - which causes deformed, unusually small heads and often brain damage - shocked the world. And more scary was the fact the disease was transmitted by an airborne mosquito, Aedes aegypti, which would bite during the day, not just at night, so it was almost impossible for a pregnant mother to protect herself. More ominously, there is no vaccine or treatment. The news put off many from visiting the country, with some athletes also pulling out of the Olympics, including 14 male golfers worried about reports the virus remains in men’s organisms and could risk future pregnancies. But now Zika could be heading to Britain after scientists warned global warming would soon allow the dreaded mosquitos that carry it to our shores. Colin Carlson, of Georgetown University in Washington, who tracked the expected movement of the Aedes aegypti, said mosquitos will find it “pretty easy” to spread to the UK with just two degrees of warming. The insects, which also carry dengue and chikungunya, may be lured from tropical regions by warmer, more humid air as the world heats up, and could cause havoc in Europe as populations that have never faced these diseases have not built up immunity. The Zika virus arrived suddenly in Brazil at the beginning of 2016 and soon brought the country to its knees. The virus is thought to have arrived in Brazil in 2014 either during the World Cup in July, or, more likely, the World Sprint Championship canoe race in August, where there were participants from French Polynesia, where there was already a Zika outbreak, experts believe. Cases started being reported as early as January 2015 in Rio de Janeiro, although the outbreak was not detected and reported until January 2016. Zika then spread explosively within the country, as well as other Latin American countries. Between August and October 2015, 54 cases of microcephaly, or ‘shrunken head syndrome’ among newborns in Brazil were reported to the World Health Organisation, although by then no connection between the worrying rise of the condition affecting babies and Zika was suspected. But by February 2016, that number had jumped to over 4,000, and Brazil declared the phenomenon a national health emergency. In one town at the epicentre of the Zika epidemic, in Goiana near the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife, 500 people a day were being stuck down by the virus, while the incidence of microcephaly was 6.3 per 1,000 live births, the highest rate of the condition anywhere in the world. By the end of 2016, 161,214 cases of Zika infection had been identified - believed to represent just a fraction of the true number. News of the outbreak caused panic in Brazil, where abortion is illegal, with many couples putting off plans to have children and women who found themselves pregnant terrified they would find out their unborn child would be damaged, with many undergoing dangerous back street terminations. Women whose babies were born with microcephaly told how their children would scream uncontrollably for hours because of the painful pressure on their brains, while the infants often had seizures, breathing problems, difficulty swallowing and vision and hearing problems. For those who weren’t pregnant but found themselves infected by the virus experienced a week of often unbearable symptoms, including a high temperature and headaches , itching all over the body, joint pain, conjunctivitis and pain behind the eyes. Fear grew as the virus took hold in the country and scientists began to suggest Zika could lie dormant in the bodily fluids of those who contracted and seemingly got over if, only to reactivate and attack their brains and nervous systems later in life. By May 2016 Brazil's health ministry had confirmed three adult deaths caused by Zika in the country, while scientists are reportedly investigating a marked increase in the number of neurological diseases appearing in adults since the Zika outbreak began. Doctors in Brazil also said some adult Zika patients were starting to show symptoms of a brain disease similar to multiple sclerosis, which in the worst cases caused them to fall into a coma, lose vision or become paralysed. And they also warned that children whose mother had been infected by Zika while pregnant could develop neurological problems later in life, even if they showed no signs of problems as infants. One doctor, Renato Sa, claimed that some children might show no obvious sign of neurological damage until later in life, when they might start having "convulsions or other tell-tale signs." And with the virus apparently mutating to an even more vicious strain, and scientists unable to correctly predict what might really happen in the coming months and years, Brazil braced itself for all the possible worst case scenarios. In the end, the disaster didn’t come, and the outbreak went away as quickly and as unexpectedly as it had be begun. By the following year the number of Zika cases plummeted in Latin America, with Brazil, where much of the population was now immune to new infections, registering only 13,253 cases. The virus has, however, left a tragic legacy of thousands of ‘Zika babies’ who will grow up deformed and brain-damaged. And, with the true potential of the virus still unknown, and with as many as 1.5million people possibly still carrying it in their bodies, many fear Zika could still reawaken and wreak incalculable havoc. | Matt Roper | https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-prepares-large-zika-epidemic-14236857 | 2019-04-05 15:29:11+00:00 | 1,554,492,551 | 1,567,543,909 | health | diseases and conditions |
646,930 | thedailyrecord--2019-04-03--Britain warned to prepare for large epidemic of incurable Zika virus | 2019-04-03T00:00:00 | thedailyrecord | Britain warned to prepare for 'large epidemic' of incurable Zika virus | Britain should prepare for a "a large epidemic" of the incurable Zika virus , an expert has warned. Mosquitoes carrying the disease will swarm to the UK due to global warming, according to the Department of Health . But he stressed things can be done to manage the Zika virus. Most of northern Europe is believed to be under threat of the epidemic as the Aedes mosquitoes move away from Africa. They also can spread yellow fever and other lethal diseases. "There are huge scientific answers to very many of the problems we face," stressed Mr Whitty in the House of Commons today. He added there would likely be a vaccine against Zika by the time the insects reach the UK. But currently pregnant women infected with the disease can give birth to babies with abnormally small heads and brains – an often fatal defect. The majority of cases in the UK are in those who have travelled to the Caribbean or South America. The 2015-16 epidemic plagued Brazil and other South America nations. In February 2016, the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Only a handful of cases have been reported in the UK since, all of which were associated with travel. The most common symptoms of the disease are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis. | Bradley Jolly | https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/britain-warned-prepare-large-epidemic-14232495 | 2019-04-03 19:00:59+00:00 | 1,554,332,459 | 1,567,544,198 | health | diseases and conditions |
116,490 | collectiveevolution--2019-10-12--7 Ways to Prevent and Even Reverse Heart Disease with Nutrition | 2019-10-12T00:00:00 | collectiveevolution | 7 Ways to Prevent and Even Reverse Heart Disease with Nutrition | We are living in a day and age where there is a tremendous divide occurring among the populace on multiple subjects, one of them being vaccination. We are heavily marketed with the idea that vaccines are completely safe for everybody, that they save lives, and that the science is settled. This type of narrative comes straight from pharmaceutical companies and federal health regulatory agencies like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). However, there is a lot of science that continues to emerge which summarily discount the claims being made by pharmaceutical companies and federal health regulatory agencies. Not only are there contradictions in their science, but also extreme corruption within these companies and agencies has been exposed on multiple occasions. One great example would be senior CDC scientist Dr. William Thompson, who blew the whistle in 2014 on data corruption by executives within the CDC with regards to falsified data pertaining to the MMR vaccine. One study which purports to show no link between the vaccine and autism had some of its data sets removed, which otherwise showed a strong correlation between the vaccine to autism. Two years after that more than a dozen senior CDC scientists anononymously put out a paper (the SPIDER papers) in which they expressed their concerns about the corruption within the agency, its complacency, and undue corporate influence on the published science. The revolving door that exists between these agencies contributes to the continued corruption. As an example, CDC Director from 2002-2009 Julie Gerberding became the head Merck’s vaccines division, which came with a $2.5 million annual salary and $5 million in stock options. A study published as far back as 1994 in the JAMA Internal Medicine details quite clearly that the Measles vaccine does not and has not worked: We found 18 reports of measles outbreaks in very highly immunized school populations where 71% to 99.8% of students were immunized against measles. Despite these high rates of immunization, 30% to 100% of all measles cases in these outbreaks occurred in previously immunized students. In our hypothetical school model, after more than 95% of schoolchildren are immunized against measles, the majority of measles cases occur in appropriately immunized children. The apparent paradox is that as measles immunization rates rise to high levels in a population, measles becomes a disease of immunized persons. Because of the failure rate of the vaccine and the unique transmissibility of the measles virus, the currently available measles vaccine, used in a single-dose strategy, is unlikely to completely eliminate measles. The long term success of a two-dose strategy to eliminate measles remains to be determined. (source) There are many examples up to the present day that clearly indicate the failure of the vaccine. For example, A study published in the highly authoritative Bulletin of the World Health Organization looked at recent measles occurrences throughout China and found that there were 707 measles outbreaks in the country recorded between 2009 and 2012, with a steep upward trend in 2013. “The number of measles cases reported in the first 10 months of 2013 – 26,443 – was three times the number reported in the whole of 2012.” This is odd considering that since 2009 “…the first dose of measles-virus-containing vaccine has reached more than 90% of the target population.” (source) A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases – whose authorship includes scientists working for the Bureau of Immunization, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA – looked at evidence from the 2011 New York measles outbreak, which showed that individuals with prior evidence of measles vaccination and vaccine immunity were both capable of being infected with measles and infecting others with it (secondary transmission). (source) During the measles outbreak in California in 2015, a large number of suspected cases occurred in recent vaccines. Of the 194 measles virus sequences obtained in the United States in 2015, 73 were identified as vaccine sequences. The Pharma-owned media generated high public anxiety, a form of fear mongering that led the public to demonize unvaccinated children, who were falsely perceived as the spreaders of this disease. Rebecca J. McNall, a co-author of the published report, is a CDC official in the Division of Viral Diseases who had the data proving that the measles outbreak was in part caused by the vaccine. It is evidence of the vaccine’s failure to provide immunity. (source) How Many People Is The Measles Vaccine Injuring? According to a MedAlerts search of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database, which is the subject of the pilot study mentioned above, as of 2/5/19, the cumulative raw count from measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines alone was: 93,929 adverse events, 1,810 disabilities, 6,902 hospitalizations, and 463 deaths. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act has paid out approximately $4 billion to compensate families of vaccine-injured children. As astronomical as the monetary awards are, they’re even more alarming considering HHS claims that only an estimated 1% of vaccine injuries are even reported to the VAERS. Again, these facts are also illustrated by the study that’s the main focus of this article. If the numbers from VAERS and HHS are correct, only 1/3 of the petitions are compensated – then the compensation could be up to 300 times greater, if all vaccine injuries were actually compensated for. I came across an interesting Instagram post by Robert F. Kennedy Jr recently: In our September 18 debate, Dr. Robert Reichert, parroting Pharma, faults “anti-vaxxers” for causing the pertussis (whooping cough) resurgence. But science blames the pertussis rebound on a faulty vaccine that actually spreads the contagion. Even Dr. Stanley Plotkin, one of the “fathers” of modern vaccinology concedes “the increase in pertussis appears to be the result of waning (vaccine) immunity”. (Burdin et al. 2017). Multiple vaccines boosters given to infants and children enrich Pharma but are ineffective against waning immunity. In fact, a 2016 study by Schwartz et al. shows that “boosting” with the current vaccine actually INCREASES the risk of contracting whooping cough. Moreover, Lavine et al. (2010) found that while the vaccine provides some protection from pertussis, it causes a rise in overall whooping cough infection by enhancing the growth of parapertussis—a closely related bacteria. That’s why whooping cough outbreaks are attacking fully vaccinated populations. A 2019 outbreak in a Los Angeles schools sickened 90 vaccinated children and none of the unvaccinated children. (Latimes.com, 2019). An animal study by Long et al confirmed that the vaccine actually weakens resistance to parapertussis and enhances the spread of the disease. The authors state, “Our data raise the possibility that widespread acellular pertussis vaccination can create hosts (i.e., people) more susceptible to B.parapertussis.” Worse, the pertussis vaccine does not actually prevent colonization of the pathogen but instead blocks symptoms masking the infection. Vaccinated people can therefore become asymptomatic carriers of pertussis and transmit whooping cough to others without knowing it (Gill et al. 2017). Thus, the vaccine is useless in preventing pertussis and increases the risk of spreading it. Furthermore,since 1992, doctors have reported 89,550 injuries and 1,529 deaths from the current vaccine. Since DTaP creates “herd susceptibility” instead of “herd immunity”, school mandates are not just cruel—they are criminal. In his post he uses multiple screen shots to make his point, you can find them below with links to the actual study above the screen shots. The tactic of Pharma-owned mainstream media is to use fear, ridicule and terms like “Anti-Vaxxers” to marginalize anyone who doesn’t believe the entire planet should be vaccinated. Vaccine advocates and mainstream media never really seem to address the points made, like the ones above, or the science provided by vaccine safety advocates. This alone should tell us something about the safety of vaccines, and why the push for mandatory vaccination is highly objectionable. Because mainstream media, mainstream education, and our pharma-driven health care system have a stranglehold on the proliferation of information, not many people are aware of the information that’s presented in this article. If we continue to give our brains away to these authority figures, we continue to be impacted by extreme amounts of propaganda. However, as we start thinking for ourselves and realize that there is a lot of information out there that is being kept from us, the picture becomes a little more clear. Due to the pressure of mass censorship, we now have our own censorship-free, and ad-free on demand streaming network! It is the world's first and only conscious media network streaming mind-expanding interviews, news broadcasts, and conscious shows. Click here to start a FREE 7-Day Trial and watch 100's of hours of conscious media videos, that you won't see anywhere else. | Arjun Walia | https://www.collective-evolution.com/2019/10/12/7-ways-to-prevent-and-even-reverse-heart-disease-with-nutrition/ | Sat, 12 Oct 2019 09:00:12 +0000 | 1,570,885,212 | 1,570,881,839 | health | diseases and conditions |
312,531 | mercurynews--2019-04-10--How measles spread and other frequently asked questions about the disease | 2019-04-10T00:00:00 | mercurynews | How measles spread and other frequently asked questions about the disease | The United States is experiencing its second-highest number of measles cases in nearly two decades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the diagnosed cases have climbed to 465. At least 19 states have reported cases of the highly contagious virus. The outbreaks are linked to people who traveled from countries such as Israel, Ukraine and the Philippines, where large measles outbreaks are occurring. The disease is spreading in U.S. communities that have relatively high numbers of people who have not been vaccinated against measles. Here are some answers to commonly asked questions about measles, which can cause serious complications among all age groups, especially young children. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases on Earth. It is a respiratory infection caused by a virus. The virus lives in the nose and throat of an infected person. It can spread by direct contact with infectious droplets or through the air when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes. The measles virus can remain infectious in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves an area. If other people breathe the contaminated air or touch the infected surface, then touch their eyes, noses, or mouths, they can become infected. Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, up to 90 percent of the people close to that person or who walk through the same area and are not immune also may become infected. Infected people can spread measles to others from four days before through four days after the appearance of a rash. That’s why many health officials in places experiencing outbreaks, such as New York’s Rockland County and New York City and Washington state, have declared public health emergencies. Rockland County executives tried to ban unvaccinated minors from public places, including churches, schools and shopping centers. New York City just announced mandatory vaccinations in affected Zip codes. No. Antibiotics are used for infections caused by bacteria. Measles is caused by a virus. There is no specific treatment for measles. Health-care professionals try to prevent the disease by administering the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine to children. Nonimmunized people, including infants, may be given the measles vaccination within 72 hours of exposure to the virus to provide protection against the disease. Pregnant women, infants and people with weakened immune systems who are exposed to the virus may receive a protein injection called immune serum globulin within six days of exposure to prevent measles or reduce the symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic. Measles can be deadly, especially for babies and young children. Some people may have severe complications, such as pneumonia (infection of the lungs) and encephalitis (swelling of the brain), which can lead to hospitalization and death. Measles may cause pregnant woman to give birth prematurely or have a low-birth-weight baby. According to the CDC: As many as one out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children. About one child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis, which can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or with intellectual disabilities. For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it. Recent findings from researchers in California indicate that a rare neurological complication that kills children years after they have been infected by the measles virus is more common than previously thought. The neurological disorder can lie dormant for years and then is 100 percent fatal. There is no cure. For babies who get measles before being vaccinated, the rate is 1 in 609. How effective is the measles vaccine? The MMR vaccine is very effective. One dose of the vaccine is about 93 percent effective at preventing measles. Two doses are about 97 percent effective, according to the CDC. CDC recommends that children get two MMR doses, starting with the first dose at 12 through 15 months of age and the second dose at 4 through 6 years of age. If you were born after 1957, when vaccination was universal, it’s unlikely that you need more MMR shots. If you have no written documentation anywhere that you’ve had an MMR shot, talk with your doctor. In addition, if you’re pregnant, clinicians say to wait to get the MMR shot until after the baby is born. It is safe for women who are breast-feeding to get a measles shot, according to Wendy Sue Swanson, a Seattle pediatrician. Why are infants at risk of measles? If a baby’s mother has had her MMR shots or had a measles infection in her life, she passed antibodies to her baby during fetal development and continued to pass them passively while breast-feeding. Those antibodies provide protection for young infants and typically are thought to protect infants for up to 6 months or more. However, the length of protection is not known. Immunity wanes for these babies as they age and the mom’s antibodies fail to persist. Does the measles vaccine cause autism? No, there is no link between autism and the MMR vaccine. This has been carefully examined by many doctors and scientists from around the world in large and thorough studies. Scientists are studying what does make a child more likely to have autism, such as genes or an older father. How did the idea that the MMR vaccine causes autism originate? The debunked claim that there is a relationship between vaccines and autism largely stems from the late 1990s. At the time, autism diagnoses had been increasing, and doctors didn’t know why. In 1998, British researcher Andrew Wakefield published a fraudulent paper, which was subsequently retracted, linking autism to the MMR vaccine. Evidence emerged that Wakefield had been paid by attorneys for parents who were suing MMR manufacturers and that Wakefield’s data were fraudulent. The Lancet retracted his study in February 2010. That year, Wakefield was found guilty of professional misconduct by Britain’s General Medical Council and his license was revoked. How are vaccines tested for safety? Vaccines are among the most thoroughly tested medical products available in the United States. Before a vaccine can be considered for approval by the Food and Drug Administration, the manufacturer must show it is safe and effective through clinical trials. This scientific process can take over a decade and cost millions of dollars. The FDA then examines these studies and determines whether a vaccine is safe, effective and ready to be licensed for use. The FDA licenses only those vaccines that have data showing that their benefits outweigh the potential risks. If there is any question about the data, or any holes in the data, the FDA will request further studies before approving the vaccine. Vaccinate Your Family, the nation’s largest nonprofit dedicated to advocating for vaccinations, provides a good explanation of the four systems in the United States that work together to help scientists monitor the safety of vaccines and identify any rare side effects that may not have been found in clinical trials. For example, some side effects may happen only in 1 in 100,000 or 1 in 500,000 people. Vaccine trials may not include certain populations like pregnant women or people with specific medical conditions who might have different types of side effects or who might have a higher risk of side effects than the volunteers who got the vaccine during clinical trials. One system, known as the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, relies on individuals to report vaccine reactions. Anyone can report a reaction or injury, including health-care providers, patients and patients’ representatives, such as caregivers or attorneys. The system is co-managed by the FDA and the CDC. The purpose of VAERS is to see whether unexpected or unusual patterns emerge, potentially indicating a vaccine safety issue that needs to be researched further. Another system, called the Vaccine Safety Datalink, is a collaboration between the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office and eight large health-care organizations across the country. It conducts studies based on questions or concerns raised from the medical literature and reports to VAERS. In addition, when new vaccines are recommended or if changes are made in how a vaccine is recommended, VSD will monitor the safety of these vaccines. The system has information on the kind of vaccine given to each patient, date of vaccination, and other vaccinations given on the same day. It also uses information on medical illnesses that have been diagnosed at doctors’ offices, urgent-care visits, emergency department visits and hospital stays. SF visitors possibly exposed to measles last week, officials say CDC finds 78 new measles cases as outbreak sprints to record A third system, called the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Project, or CISA, is a national network of vaccine safety experts from the Immunization Safety Office, seven medical research centers and other partners. It also addresses vaccine safety issues and conducts clinical research. A fourth system, called the Post-Licensure Rapid Immunization Safety Monitoring or (PRISM), is a partnership between the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research and leading health insurance companies. It actively monitors and analyzes data from a representative subset of the general population. No. Scholars believe no major religious group advocates against vaccinations on the basis of official doctrine, and experts say the majority support vaccinations. Large majorities of Americans from all major religious groups say healthy children should be required to receive vaccinations to attend school, according to the Pew Research Center. However, some individuals from various faith traditions believe vaccinating goes against their religious beliefs. | Washington Post | https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/10/how-measles-spread-and-other-frequently-asked-questions-about-the-disease-2/ | 2019-04-10 18:11:45+00:00 | 1,554,934,305 | 1,567,543,306 | health | diseases and conditions |
334,089 | naturalnews--2019-01-14--The CURE for Alzheimers Disease can be found in our synapses | 2019-01-14T00:00:00 | naturalnews | The CURE for Alzheimer's Disease can be found in our synapses | (Natural News) Americans walk, run, and march “for the cure” for all kinds of different diseases, helping to raise awareness and funds for research, but what if you found out right now there’s a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease, would you “take care of business” starting now or keep wishing someone else might come along to possibly save you later? Sure, right about now you’re hoping the cure will come in some magical pill or prolific injection, and do the job “overnight,” so you won’t have to do any work or garner long-term diligence – well, there’s good news and bad news – and they’re both the same. Scientists have figured out what causes Alzheimer’s Disease and what cures it, but it’s not some chemical pill or experimental vaccine, so let’s get to work. The point of connection of neurons is called a synapse, and that’s where neurotransmitters are released and communication happens in the brain. This is where we experiences all of our senses and engage in thought processes, including critical thinking and memory. This is also exactly where dementia happens. The synapse is where neurons release hormones, glutamates, and small peptides called amyloid beta. The amyloid beta are the brain’s “trash” and a prime factor involved in Alzheimer’s disease, functioning as the main component of plaques that cling to each other and clog up the neural pathway. These are the plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site. Normally, these amyloid plaques are swept out of the neural pathway (like trash) by the “custodians of the brain” called microglea. These amazing microglea are the brain’s own immune cells and are the answer to beating brain diseases. Scientists recently discovered through sophisticated experiments that these cells constantly search for brain damage, like a perpetually-running computer virus scan, running surveillance for different levels of damage. The microglea are literally capable of eating infected and damaged cells before infection spreads, while clearing out “debris” from dying cells. Diseases of dementia therefore begin when amyloid beta begins to accumulate, because too much is released, overwhelming the microglea, and leaving waste in the neural pathways, blocking communication. The synapse piles up with plaques (trash and waste) that become sticky and bind to themselves (think of animal fat clogging your sink drain). At a certain tipping point, when the body and brain have created too much “trash” for too long, creating massive inflammation and tangles, the microglea become overwhelmed and enter a hyper-mode, where they actually begin attacking healthy cells. Scientists believe the microglea may even, at the tipping point, begin clearing away the synapses themselves. Get it? The cure lives in keeping amyloid plaques from reaching the “tipping point.” Here’s how you do that. Amyloid plaque accumulation may never be “cured” with a chemical drug or vaccine, but that doesn’t matter, because you can cure the problem yourself. Are you ready to start taking your preventative medicine? It’s not very difficult you know. Let’s break it down to its simplest form, then you decide if you can “pull it off.” You wouldn’t pick up a poisonous snake just to see if it bites you, and then start searching the internet for the anecdote, would you? You wouldn’t pick some poison ivy and rub it on your skin on purpose, would you? If you were severely allergic to peanuts, you certainly wouldn’t eat a handful just to see what happens. That’s just common sense. So what if you knew what caused dementia, would you stop eating it? Guess what. Now is the time to stop marching for the cure and start living it, because knowledge is power. Now get this. White foods are known to cause excess plaque build-up in the brain, leading to dementia. These white foods include white bread, white flour, white rice (except basmati, which is naturally white), white pasta, and white sugar. Stop eating bleached food. Processed foods and meats cause excess plaque in the synapses, fueling dementia. Avoid processed cheeses (think American cheese especially here), and processed meats, like sausages, bacon, hot dogs, and cold cuts (especially smoked deli meats), and even beer. Nitrosamines in smoked meats cause the liver to produce fats that are toxic to the brain. Stop eating foods that contain diacetyl, a chemical commonly found in microwave popcorn. Diacetyl increases amyloid plaques in the brain. You’ll hear it time and time again, that a plant-based diet cures almost every preventable disease and disorder known to humans. It’s true. If you’re a heavy meat eater, your body is struggling to process all that animal fat, creating heart and brain “trash” that your body’s “janitors” just can’t sweep away fast enough. If you think organic or “expeller pressed” canola oil means that the oil doesn’t coagulate in your body, you’d be dead wrong. After about six weeks, any canola oil that your body hasn’t cleared out looks like a sticky glue you could use to bond cement. Think of all that “trash” blocking your synapses and causing dementia, because that’s exactly what happens. Did you know that in the U.S. alone, Alzheimer’s care already costs $2 billion a year (one out of every five Medicare dollars)? Dementia kills more people than cancer. Did you know that? Sure, Big Pharma will tell you Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are not preventable, but both are, and the cure lives in prevention. You may begin now. | S.D. Wells | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-01-14-cure-for-alzheimers-disease-found-in-our-synapses.html | 2019-01-14 21:26:16+00:00 | 1,547,519,176 | 1,567,552,547 | health | diseases and conditions |
334,426 | naturalnews--2019-01-31--VACCINE-INDUCED DISEASE now a top global health threat for 2019 and beyond | 2019-01-31T00:00:00 | naturalnews | VACCINE-INDUCED DISEASE now a top global health threat for 2019 and beyond | (Natural News) Contrary to what the propaganda-spreading World Health Organization (WHO) purports, modern day vaccines are responsible for more deaths than the diseases they are intended to create immunity against. This is a fact based on sound science. Let’s review some examples, and then we’ll discuss shedding – the common way infectious diseases are spread by children and teens during the first two weeks after they are injected with multiple strains of diseases, when their own immune systems are severely compromised, as are the other vaccinated children around them. First off, there have been 127 deaths caused by the measles vaccine in the past 15 years, but only 2 deaths caused by the measles disease itself. Secondly, just take a look at GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) 6-in-1 jab called “Infanrix Hexa” (meaning six diseases are injected into a baby’s muscle tissue all at once – a science phenomena no studies have ever shown to be safe). That toxic GSK hexa-jab has killed three dozen infants already, and over 2,000 reports have flooded in regarding adverse reactions (of which 500 were termed “serious”). This immunization combo is deadly, but the mass media has buried these reports, as usual, so hardly a soul knows to avoid this shot like the modern-day plague. Then there’s the most toxic and deadly vaccine of all – the influenza vaccine, a.k.a. the flu shot. Damage from the flu shot is responsible for the majority of the secretive vaccine court’s payouts in settlements that have breached a mind-blowing (pun intended) $4 billion (the number increased vastly since 2016). Yes, you read that right. 100% organic essential oil sets now available for your home and personal care, including Rosemary, Oregano, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Clary Sage and more, all 100% organic and laboratory tested for safety. A multitude of uses, from stress reduction to topical first aid. See the complete listing here, and help support this news site. Recently, a Las Vegas man became paralyzed and blind the day after he got the flu jab. Could it be because many flu shots still contain up to 50 parts per million (ppm) of mercury, listed as “thimerosal?” The guy was perfectly healthy before he got the vaccine. Now he can’t breathe, speak, or walk on his own anymore. Is the vaccine worth the risk? Most people with even a partially functional immune system can beat the flu in a few days. No doubt the flu vaccine itself is a global health threat, especially since the CDC recommends it for pregnant women. Is there a coupon in the vaccine insert for Planned Parenthood that comes with that jab? If so, New York State will be the first to offer that deal. Folks, “safety in numbers” is a myth. You think it’s safe for your babies to sit and wait with you in a doctor’s office waiting room, playing with germ-laden toys, while everyone around you is contaminated with the flu, hepatitis B, and other viruses they’re shedding from the vaccines they recently got jabbed into their muscle tissue? All vaccine proponents always blame unvaccinated children or teens when a disease starts spreading around a school, theme park, or college. Why? That’s what they hear on TV, read in the MSM lying newspapers, or heard from their doctor or nurse, who got the script straight from Big Pharma. It’s all fear-based propaganda to sell more toxic vaccines. Now the World Health Organization is spreading hyper-propaganda about the unvaccinated people of the world being one of the greatest health threats to society, when actually the opposite is the case. Watch this short video and learn why you should fear vaccines and the vaccinated children much more than you should ever worry about the people who avoid getting those toxic jabs: Stop putting your trust in a medical society that profits greatly from you and your family’s sicknesses, and makes zero money from your good health. It’s just common sense. Are you the sheeple in the herd that’s spreading the diseases you’re so afraid to get – the very ones that are swimming in your blood and shedding from your mucus and saliva right now? The most dangerous time for spreading infectious disease is the first 14 days after a person is injected with that immunization that contains genetically modified versions of the virus, often mixed in dangerous, experimental, untested combinations. The viruses are NOT dead, they are just hibernating inside a formaldehyde formula, waiting to be fed. The polio vaccine (injected or given as nasal spray) causes new polio cases, including spreading it to the siblings of those vaccinated. The same happens after the measles and flu shots – the disease is shed and spread. History has proven a huge spike in crippled children (47,000 cases reported in India alone in 2011) right after receiving the oral polio vaccine. This means polio vaccines are the leading cause of polio paralysis. Do you really want to wander around in that sickened flock? So much for safety in numbers, huh? Want to build your immunity (or your children’s) to infectious diseases, pathogens, parasites, viruses, and bacteria, instead of weakening your immunity while spreading all of those infections? Look into natural remedies like elderberry (great for the flu), Vitamin D, Vitamin C, oil of oregano, garlic, cinnamon, licorice root, blackberry seed oil, and of course, colloidal silver. Check out Vaccines.news for more updates on immune system killers that the WHO does NOT want you to know about. This has been a public service announcement from Natural News. | S.D. Wells | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-01-31-vaccine-induced-disease-now-a-top-global-health-threat-for-2019-and-beyond.html | 2019-01-31 12:03:04+00:00 | 1,548,954,184 | 1,567,550,114 | health | diseases and conditions |
335,371 | naturalnews--2019-04-04--7 Deadly diseases caused by vitamin D deficiency | 2019-04-04T00:00:00 | naturalnews | 7 Deadly diseases caused by vitamin D deficiency | (Natural News) A vitamin D deficiency can place you at higher risk for seven life-threatening diseases. Vitamin D is essential for strong bones and overall health. Our bodies naturally synthesize the vitamin when we are exposed to sunlight but we can complement the production by eating the right foods or supplements. Research has shown that a vitamin D deficiency can cause several conditions: High blood pressure – There is a 32 percent increased risk of developing a cardiac condition if you lack vitamin D. One study even claims that those with vitamin D deficiency are 20 percent more likely to have a more severe form of the condition, wherein multiple vessels are affected. Vitamin D is said to control inflammation in the body. Chronic inflammation is a recognized health risk. Asthma – A 2014 study found out that a remarkable number of children with asthma were also lacking in vitamin D. Studies show the vitamin D helps clear airways. Cavities – Vitamin D is needed to absorb calcium and phosphorus – essential nutrients for bone development. Your body goes through a number of chemical processes to “activate” the vitamin; but in short, vitamin D manages the calcium levels in the blood, gut, and bones. A deficiency of vitamin D, therefore, can lead to weaker enamel. Twenty-four clinical trials done on 2,827 participants concluded that vitamin D prevents tooth decay and cavities. Parents should ensure that their children spend a good portion of their day outdoors. Cancer – Vitamin D can reduce the risk of cancer. Reviews suggest that it helps cells from mutating and multiplying. Moreover, research proves that cancer patients with higher levels of vitamin D remain in remission longer. A 10-point increase in vitamin D is linked with a four percent improvement in survival. Vitamin D was seen to be particularly advantageous for patients suffering from colorectal and breast cancer. Breast cancer patients with a healthy vitamin D levels are twice more likely to survive the disease, research says. The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site. Flu – Studies suggest that vitamin D helps fight off colds and flu. Vitamin D kills off the bacteria and viruses associated with this condition. Rheumatoid arthritis – A new study showed that almost half of rheumatoid arthritis patients suffer from a vitamin D deficiency. Similarly, 62 percent of patients with psoriatic arthritis were seen to lack vitamin D as well. Doctors believe that the anti-inflammatory properties of vitamin D help alleviate the symptoms of arthritis. Irritable Bowel Disorders (IBS)– A study reveals that close to 30 percent of people suffering from irritable bowel disorders have a vitamin D deficiency. IBS is the most common gastrointestinal disorder worldwide. In the United States, around 2.4 to 3.5 million annual physician visits are prompted by an IBS complaint. The main source of vitamin D is exposure to sunlight. Your skin immediately produces vitamin D and sends it to your liver. It is here where the vitamin D changes to its “activated” form and sent all over the body. This form of vitamin D is used by different tissues to perform. Take care though not to spend too much time in the sun. Overexposure is associated with an increased risk of skin cancer. You may also choose to get a good supply of vitamin D through the food you eat. Dairy products, fish, and eggs are recommended. | Gregory Van Dyke | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-04-04-7-deadly-diseases-caused-by-vitamin-d-deficiency.html | 2019-04-04 17:34:57+00:00 | 1,554,413,697 | 1,567,544,033 | health | diseases and conditions |
335,642 | naturalnews--2019-04-19--CDC admits measles outbreak is caused by people from other countries who enter the United States and | 2019-04-19T00:00:00 | naturalnews | CDC admits measles outbreak is caused by people from other countries who enter the United States and spread the disease | (Natural News) In the first four months of 2019, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have confirmed 555 cases of measles across 20 states. In comparison, there were 382 cases in all of 2018 and just 120 back in 2017. Five years ago, there were 667 confirmed cases, spurring media frenzy. In their latest report, the CDC admits that measles cases are actually coming from international travelers. “These outbreaks are linked to travelers who brought measles back from other countries such as Israel, Ukraine, and the Philippines, where large measles outbreaks are occurring,” says the CDC. In early April, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency over a cluster of reported measles cases in the Orthodox Jewish community. The emergency order demanded that all un-vaccinated residents within four zip codes take a measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. Violators face imprisonment and fines up to $1,000. The order includes children as young as six months, even though the MMR package insert states that the vaccine is not recommended for anyone under twelve months of age. If Bill de Blasio insists on forcibly injecting six month old babies, (who do not have an adequate immune system to handle the MMR vaccine), then why doesn’t he stop all international travelers coming from outbreak-stricken areas such as Israel, Ukraine, and the Philippines? What about all the disease that pours over the Southern border? If the government insists on micromanaging viruses in the vast world, why do they target healthy, un-vaccinated children and ignore verifiable virus sources from other regions of the world? If stopping measles is so important, why not forbid international travel until the travelers have proven they have overcome infectious disease? 100% organic essential oil sets now available for your home and personal care, including Rosemary, Oregano, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Clary Sage and more, all 100% organic and laboratory tested for safety. A multitude of uses, from stress reduction to topical first aid. See the complete listing here, and help support this news site. The bigger questions are: Should the government micromanage benign illnesses in the first place? Should governments have the power to track down people, coerce them with fines and threats of imprisonment, to inject them against their will, all based on the presumption that Merck’s vaccine works for everyone? And the question that the CDC should ask themselves: Is vaccination really the answer in all this? Or at least, shouldn’t the parents decide for themselves if augmenting part of their child’s immune system and damaging their cell-mediated immunity is the right way to handle a benign illness like measles? Measles infection is typically a benign illness that begins with a fever and ends with a rash. After natural infection, an individual gains lifelong immunity because their humoral antibody response and intra-cellular cytotoxic T-cell response have learned to target measles viruses both outside and inside the cells. Today, measles is over-hyped in the media and used as a selling point for MMR vaccinations (which only spur an allergic-style B-cell response in healthy individuals). The MMR vaccine contains a live attenuated measles virus that is grown in WI-38 and MRC-5 cell strains, which are self-replicating culture mediums derived from 2-4 month old aborted fetal lung cells. After the virus is cultured and replicated in the aborted fetal cells, it is retrieved and processed for use in the combination vaccine. Upon injection, this antigen is intended to augment an immune response from the individual. An aluminum adjuvant is added to the vaccine to further incite an immune response, while adding to the vaccine’s toxicity. Upon injection, T-helper-2 cells respond to the artificial infection, increasing the body’s production of B-cell antibodies. The vaccine is intended to increase the humoral response, but the consequence of this science is rarely discussed. This augmentation causes an imbalance in how the human immune system deals with future viruses. There are two principle parts to the immune system. The first is the humoral response, mediated by T-helper-2 cells which encourage B-cell antibody response for killing viruses outside of cells. The second part takes place in the cell. This part is mediated by T-helper-1 cells which communicate with cytotoxic T cells to kill viruses that are replicating within cells. When vaccines are used, the first part is spurred into hyper-action, but the second part is hardly used, weakened. With repeated use of vaccines, cell-mediated immunity weakens, encouraging viral mutations, and future infections of the cells. The measles death rate dropped considerably before a vaccine was introduced, so it’s hard to say whether the vaccine was the savior even as measles fatality continued to fall after the vaccine was employed. If anything, people today should thank their ancestors for facing benign illnesses like measles, mumps, and rubella. According to studies on antibody levels in the vaccinated versus the un-vaccinated, naturally acquired immunity is more effective for preventing disease over the long haul, and this also helps build stronger herd immunity in a population. People today should also thank their mothers for passing on passive immunity through breast milk antibodies. Vitamin A has also been studied to shorten the duration and severity of measles infection. In a dose-dependent manner, vitamin A prevented measles complications, including croup, diarrhea, and death by pneumonia. If the government is going to micromanage disease, then they can mandate vitamin A and halt international travelers who are coming from outbreak-stricken areas. Targeting smart people who don’t want to weaken their cell-mediated immune response does nothing to protect the public. The CDC, the media, and government mouthpieces are blinded by their own agenda. | Lance D Johnson | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-04-19-cdc-admits-measles-outbreak-is-caused-by-people-who-enter-the-united-states.html | 2019-04-19 10:28:39+00:00 | 1,555,684,119 | 1,567,542,424 | health | diseases and conditions |
337,029 | naturalnews--2019-09-11--Remember when the media claimed that infectious disease outbreaks at migrant detention centers was | 2019-09-11T00:00:00 | naturalnews | Remember when the media claimed that infectious disease outbreaks at migrant detention centers was "fake news?" Nope, they're very real | (Natural News) It’s no secret that the mainstream media has been desperately trying to hide the fact that illegal aliens entering the United States often bring with them the very same infectious diseases for which health authorities are pushing to have Americans forcibly vaccinated. And new statistics once again show, despite their political incorrectness, that many of the so-called “migrants” being housed at detention centers all across the United States are, in fact, diseased. The most recent batch of data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that, between September 2018 and August 2019, health authorities identified nearly 1,000 cases of mumps at 57 different Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention facilities in 19 different states – and this is just one of many infectious diseases that these border-rushers are reportedly carrying. While the CDC insists that the best way to combat mumps is to administer the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella to everyone, this controversial vaccine is not being offered to detainees, according to reports. This means that even as schoolchildren in places like California are being forced to receive the MMR jab in order to attend classes, illegal invaders are entering our country unvaccinated and spreading disease via migrant holding facilities. “In general, due to the short-term nature of CBP holding and the complexities of operating vaccination programs, neither CBP nor its medical contractors administer vaccinations to those in our custody,” a spokeswoman from CBP is quoted as saying. For related news about illegal immigration and the rampant spread of infectious disease, be sure to check out InvasionUSA.news. Speaking to the media recently, Dr. Todd Ellerin, Director of Infectious Diseases and Vice Chair of Medicine at Southshore Health in Massachusetts, told it like it is. He warned that migrant detention centers are “a perfect storm for mumps to spread” – which makes them far more high-risk than public school classrooms where some unvaccinated children might be present. “Individuals have to be within 3-6 feet of each other to spread this virus,” Dr. Ellerin explained. “Sneezing, coughing on someone, or sharing a drink can spread the virus.” Based on the data released by the CDC, migrant detainees have a roughly 4,000-fold greater risk of contracting mumps than non-detainees – which makes illegal alien invaders, and not unvaccinated individuals, the highest risk group of people when it comes to contracting and spreading infectious disease. MMR vaccines aren’t the only jabs not administered to detainees, by the way. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), no vaccines are given to migrant invaders except those that are deemed “medically necessary.” “Flu and other common vaccinations are offered by request only and are not routinely mandated unless deemed medically necessary, in that doing so would prevent a wider outbreak,” an ICE spokesperson said in a statement. Dr. Ellerin, however, believes that vaccines should be forcibly administered to detainees which, while Natural News is opposed to any and all forms of mandatory vaccination, would at least be consistent with the unconstitutional requirements now being forced on American citizens in many areas of the country. “From a public health perspective, I feel strongly that the benefits of vaccinating detainees against the flu and mumps outweighs the risks,” Dr. Ellerin told the media. “It is important that the staff receive maximal vaccination to avoid spreading the virus to their families, children, and communities.” To learn more about the dangers associated with vaccines, be sure to check out Vaccines.news. More immigration-related stories are also available for your reading pleasure OpenBorders.news. | Ethan Huff | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-09-11-remember-when-the-media-claimed-that-infectious-disease-outbreaks-at-migrant-detention-centers-was-fake-news.html | 2019-09-11 07:44:04+00:00 | 1,568,202,244 | 1,569,330,420 | health | diseases and conditions |
359,122 | newsweek--2019-01-03--Virginia Woman 22 Woke Up Paralyzed by Rare Disease While Teaching in Thailand | 2019-01-03T00:00:00 | newsweek | Virginia Woman, 22, Woke Up Paralyzed by Rare Disease While Teaching in Thailand | The Virginia family of a 22-year-old teacher are awaiting her return from Thailand, after she was suddenly paralyzed by a rare autoimmune disease. On December 21, Caroline Bradner began feeling weak and started to find it difficult to walk, her family wrote on a GoFundMe page initially set up to raise money to fly her home. The next day, she awoke up in her apartment and was paralyzed. Doctors diagnosed her with a rare disease called Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). The autoimmune disorder causes the immune system to attack the body's nerves, causing muscle weakness and paralysis. The disease, which is not contagious, has a number of causes including an infection by the common foodborne bacteria Campylobacter jejuni, the flu, and the Zika virus. One in 100,000 people are thought to be affected, and in the U.S., 3,000 to 6,000 people develop the condition each year, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sufferers can be treated with a plasma exchange, and immunoglobulin therapy in which the body is dosed with antibodies. Bradner’s family wrote on GoFundMe that Caroline's condition is improving but she is “still paralyzed and it looks like this will be a long recovery, lasting from months to years.” On Christmas eve, Bradner’s mother flew out to Thailand where she has remained since. Pierce Bradner, her sister, told WTVR: “She’s scared because she can’t move. But, she is really strong and really brave. She’s a great person, the best sister.” Caroline's father, Jim Bradner, told WTVR his daughter has regained some feeling in her fingers, and is able to move her shoulders. After Caroline’s insurance firm rejected her request to transport her home to the U.S., the family raised over $76,000 through GoFundMe to pay for her flights. However, the insurer later agreed to cover Caroline’s travel costs. The money will now be used to pay for her medical bills and rehabilitation, her family said. Leftover money will be given to the charity GBS/CIDP Foundation International. Caroline had recently graduated from University of Mississippi and saved money for her trip by waiting tables, Jim Bradner told WTVR. She flew out to Thailand to teach English, travel and “make a difference in this world,” her family wrote on GoFundMe. She had been in the South East Asian country since October before falling ill. | null | https://www.newsweek.com/virginia-woman-22-woke-paralyzed-rare-disease-teaching-thailand-1278081?utm_source=Public&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Distribution | 2019-01-03 14:44:14+00:00 | 1,546,544,654 | 1,567,554,047 | health | diseases and conditions |
362,708 | newsweek--2019-02-15--What Is Kawasaki Disease 16 California Children Diagnosed with Condition That Can Cause Heart Fail | 2019-02-15T00:00:00 | newsweek | What Is Kawasaki Disease?: 16 California Children Diagnosed with Condition That Can Cause Heart Failure | Health officials have warned twice as many children in San Diego have been diagnosed with a disease which can cause heart failure so far in 2019 compared with past years. The San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency said on Thursday that 16 cases of Kawasaki disease have been identified in the state since the start of the year. Experts at the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego and UC San Diego School of Medicine warned the agency they had diagnosed twice as many children with the condition compared with prior years. Also known as mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome, Kawasaki disease usually affects children under the age of five-years-old, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. It is the most common cause of heart disease in children. The disease can make the hands and feet swell, and cause a fever, bloodshot eyes, and swollen lymph glands in the neck. Individuals can also develop a red mouth, lips and throat, while a fever can give way to peeling fingers and toes. A rash can also occur. On average, patients are around two-years-old and younger than five, and boys are more prone than girls, according to the American Heart Association. Children of Asian or Pacific Islander descent are also at higher risk on average. The health agency urged parents of children with these symptoms to visit a healthcare provider to be assessed. If untreated, around one quarter of children will experience artery aneurysms. This is where bulges form in the heart vessels. This can cause heart attacks, heart failure, and in some cases, sudden death, the agency said. Around one in four children with the disease go on to develop heart problems, the American Heart Association states. Scientists don’t yet know what causes Kawasaki disease, but research indicates the climate and environment a child is exposed to may play a role. It is not thought to be contagious. And as some children in one family get it, there may be a genetic element to the condition although it isn't hereditary. “Because the illness frequently occurs in outbreaks within a population, an infectious agent (such as a virus) is the likely cause,” the American Heart Association explained. Doctors can treat children with the disease by hooking them up to a drip of antibodies and aspirin which stops the abnormalities from forming. A rise in cases generally occurs in winter or early spring. Tom Christensen, County of San Diego Communications Office, explained in a health advisory that the cool, wet weather that southern California has been recently hit might be behind the recent climb in rates. Dr. Jane C. Burns, pediatrician at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego and director of the Kawasaki Disease Research Center, said in a statement: “We want community health care providers to have increased vigilance for Kawasaki disease cases during these periods of wet, cool weather. “The climate patterns that are associated with increased numbers of children diagnosed have occurred more frequently here so far this year.” County public health officer Dr. Wilma Wooten said: “Kawasaki disease is not an illness many physicians have diagnosed, and it can initially be confused with other more common illnesses. “We are alerting health professionals and parents today to raise awareness of the increased Kawasaki disease activity currently in our community.” | null | https://www.newsweek.com/kawasaki-disease-san-diego-children-heart-disease-1332767?utm_source=Public&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Distribution | 2019-02-15 12:01:12+00:00 | 1,550,250,072 | 1,567,548,372 | health | diseases and conditions |
386,894 | npr--2019-09-05--Why The Measles Surge Could Open The Door To A Host Of Other Diseases | 2019-09-05T00:00:00 | npr | Why The Measles Surge Could Open The Door To A Host Of Other Diseases | Why The Measles Surge Could Open The Door To A Host Of Other Diseases With measles making a comeback in many upper-income countries including the United States and still rampant in some poorer nations such as Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar, a leading measles expert is warning of a danger beyond the spread of the disease itself: There's mounting evidence that when a person is infected with measles, the virus also wipes out the immune system's memory of how to fight off all sorts of other life-threatening infections – ranging from gastro-intestinal bugs that cause diarrhea to respiratory viruses that trigger pneumonia. "All of the sudden you end up having not just more outbreaks of measles, but you might have more outbreaks of rubella or flu or any number of other diseases," says Dr. Michael Mina, a Harvard professor who has authored some of the most ground-breaking research into this so-called "immune-amnesia" effect from measles. Mina says he plans to sound the alarm this weekend at a conference of vaccine researchers in Bilbao, Spain. In the poorest countries, he says, children could be at substantially greater risk of death. For instance, say a two-year-old girl comes down with a particularly nasty case of flu – complete with a bout of pneumonia — but survives. In the process, her immune system learns how to produce antibodies against that particular virus. The next time the girl comes in contact with it, those antibodies would recognize the pathogen and quash it immediately. But then imagine that, at age four, that same girl comes down with a case of measles that erases her immune system's record of how to produce antibodies against the flu strain she previously contracted. So if she encounters that particular flu virus again, she's back to square one – likely to come down with pneumonia all over again. And just because she managed to survive the first time doesn't mean she'll survive again, adds Mina: "Every time we don't die from an infection we can basically think of it as, we got lucky." So by subjecting a child to the same infection a second time, "measles is basically making you play the lottery again." Of course, in wealthier countries, children are far less likely to die of infections because they have access to better health care. But, says Mina, they're still subjected to other downsides, such as taking antibiotics that can trigger an adverse reaction or mess with the balance of bacteria in their gut. Also, as more and more children lose immunity to diseases they fought off at a young age, those diseases could start raging through the wider population — not just children but the elderly and adults would be at risk. "We could see an increase in the transmission of all these pathogens that shouldn't be spreading past a certain age because normally kids are immune," says Mina. Mina is careful to note that the notion that measles produces immune amnesia is still a hypothesis. "But it's a hypothesis with really good data," he says. For instance, back in the early 1960s, when the measles vaccine was first introduced on a mass scale in many countries, scientists observed that shortly afterward there was a massive drop in childhood deaths from not just measles but many other infections. But it wasn't until 2015 that Mina and his collaborators were able to do a comprehensive statistical analysis of data reaching back to the 1940s. They found spikes in deaths from other childhood infections were directly predicted by measles outbreaks. And the effect lasted two to three years beyond the measles outbreak. Since the publication of that finding — in the journal Science — researchers have found additional evidence for the immune amnesia hypothesis. In 2018 a team led by Rik L. de Swart of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, found that children infected with measles in the United Kingdom were significantly more likely to suffer other infections requiring prescription of antibiotics in the two to five years following the measles infection. Meanwhile, after decades of decline, measles cases have risen precipitously in recent years — due to a combination of hesitancy by parents in wealthier countries to vaccinate their children and a breakdown in the health infrastructure in less well-off nations. There have been massive outbreaks often involving tens of thousands of children in Brazil, India, the Philippines and Ukraine. Last month the World Health Organization announced that four European countries – Albania, the Czech Republic, Greece and the U.K. – had all lost their previous measles-free status due to local outbreaks. This spring the number of cases in the United States topped 1,000 for the first time in more than two-and-half decades. And globally the total number of cases rose by 300 percent in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. Mina says if the immune amnesia hypothesis is correct, it's only a matter of time before the recent surge in measles infections produces a concurrent surge in other diseases. But he's urging public health officials not to wait to find out: If someone has been infected with measles, he says, "I think we should consider giving them all their childhood vaccines all over again." | Nurith Aizenman | https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/09/05/757986872/why-the-measles-surge-could-open-the-door-to-a-host-of-other-diseases?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-09-05 21:32:11+00:00 | 1,567,733,531 | 1,569,331,302 | health | diseases and conditions |
387,503 | npr--2019-10-31--Measles Virus May Wipe Out Immune Protection For Other Diseases | 2019-10-31T00:00:00 | npr | Measles Virus May Wipe Out Immune Protection For Other Diseases | Measles Virus May Wipe Out Immune Protection For Other Diseases This year saw the largest outbreak of measles in the U.S. since 1994, with 1,250 cases reported as of Oct. 3, largely driven by families choosing not to vaccinate their kids. Worldwide, the disease has resurfaced in areas that had been declared measles-free. Some families choosing not to vaccinate argue that measles is just a pesky childhood illness to be endured. But two new studies illustrate how skipping the measles vaccine carries a double risk. Not only does it leave a child vulnerable to a highly contagious disease, but also, for individuals who survive an initial measles attack, the virus increases their vulnerability to all kinds of other infections for months — possibly even years — after they recover. The research begins to explain something surprising that happened when the measles vaccine was introduced in the U.S. in the 1960s. Rates of childhood deaths from other diseases fell precipitously. The same thing happened as the vaccine was introduced around the world. But what is it about the measles vaccine that seems to provide protection from more than just measles? The new studies published this week in the journals Science and Science Immunology provide substance to what has been the leading theory: Measles can damage the immune system by erasing the body's memory of previously encountered antigens. One of the key features of our immune system is that it keeps track of the infectious agents we've encountered and uses that memory to prevent reinfection. But after someone gets the measles, their immune system appears to forget some of what it has encountered, studies suggest. It's an effect researchers refer to as "immune amnesia." Previous evidence for immune amnesia has been based on mathematical models and population-level studies according to Dr. Michael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the primary author of the study released this week in Science. The new studies are the first to show "any of the real biology that helps explain the population-level effects," he says. "Understanding how this happens has really been a burning question," says Dr. Duane Wesemann of Harvard Medical School. Wesemann authored an article in Science Immunology explaining the significance of both studies; he was not involved in either. "These two papers complement each other in an interesting way, and they both provide clues to help answer how measles causes immune damage." The two studies used blood samples collected from 77 unvaccinated children in an Orthodox Protestant community in the Netherlands, before and after the children contracted the measles virus during a local outbreak. Parents in that community do not vaccinate on religious grounds but were willing to participate in a research study about the virus. The studies each investigated different branches of the immune system, and both found evidence to support the immune amnesia hypothesis. "Even coming into this with a pre-existing hypothesis, the findings that we've made here are much more striking than we could have expected," says Mina. The Science Immunology study released Thursday investigated whether the character of the immune system changed after measles exposure. The researchers sequenced the genes of immune memory cells and found that after recovering from measles, the children's immune system had a different landscape of certain types of cells. "The immune cells that normally would recognize new pathogens — they become restricted in their ability to respond" after recovering from measles, says Velislava Petrova of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the lead author of the Science Immunology paper. "What was interesting is that we can recover our normal cell counts, but we're still immunosuppressed," she says. To confirm that the decrease in cell diversity would translate into a weaker immune response, Petrova's team conducted an experiment in ferrets. They vaccinated a group of ferrets for the flu, exposed some of them to a measleslike virus, then tested to see whether the flu vaccine still worked. As expected, they found that the ferrets that had had measles were more susceptible to the flu than the control group. The Science paper looked at the diversity of antibodies in the bloodstream using a new technique called VirScan. "This method allows you to — just from a drop of blood — detect your whole history of viral infection, looking at thousands of antibodies and their targets at one time," says Stephen Elledge of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, who was the study's principal investigator. What they found was that after measles, previously healthy kids lost on average about half — and as much as 73% — of their overall antibody diversity. Or, as Mina puts it, "measles seems to be punching holes in the immune memory." "The real takeaway is that underneath the surface, measles is much more than a rash, and it's much more than just an acute viral infection. It's got these very long-term, stealthlike detrimental effects that are extraordinarily difficult to measure," says Mina. "We've been able to show that the effects are vast and impact almost all pathogens that somebody has seen." Wesemann highlights the Science paper's finding that people who had gotten the measles vaccine showed increased immune strength. "You get the best of both worlds with the vaccine," Wesemann says. "You get the robust immunity against measles virus without having to be infected with it, but it doesn't cause the immune damage that the real measles virus causes." "The measles vaccine is really a superhero," he says. Elledge says that for parents who may be wavering on the edge of a vaccine decision, they can think of the measles vaccine "like a seat belt for your immune system." "We know that seat belts protect against head injuries that can cause amnesia. The measles virus is like an accident too — it can give you immune amnesia. Think of the measles like an accident you can prevent in a parallel way," he says. | Emily Vaughn | https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/31/775081827/measles-virus-may-wipe-out-immune-protection-for-other-diseases?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | Thu, 31 Oct 2019 14:27:17 -0400 | 1,572,546,437 | 1,572,560,091 | health | diseases and conditions |
507,262 | sottnet--2019-10-14--The disease that kills by stealing sleep - fatal familial insomnia | 2019-10-14T00:00:00 | sottnet | The disease that kills by stealing sleep - fatal familial insomnia | A brief bout of insomnia can be maddening. You know what it feels like. We all do. Lying awake chasing feverish thoughts from our minds while the slow tick of passing minutes compounds sleep-stealing anxiety.For most of us, these episodes are a brief interruption to our sleep schedules. Others experience more persistent insomnia, but at a level that's often manageable.Medical reports of the disease first surfaced in the 1980s , after an Italian man named Silvano presented himself to neurologists with a dire prediction: He was going to die soon, and he knew how it would happen.It was no hyperbole — Silvano's two sisters had recently died from a strange disease that robbed them of their ability to sleep. He had just experienced the same symptoms that kicked off his siblings' spirals into fatal insomnia.The hallmark of FFI is contained in the name. What starts as difficulty sleeping gradually progresses to a complete inability to fall asleep. Sleeping medications don't seem to help much — even with a pharmaceutical push, the brain cannot cross the threshold into sleep.Silvano's pronouncement turned out to be true; he was soon dead. As writer D.T. Max chronicles in his book The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery, subsequent studies of Silvano and his family members revealed crucial similarities to a seemingly unrelated disorder: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.CJD is characterized by memory problems, personality changes and involuntary movements, among other things, and it is eventually fatal. The disease shows up later in life, typically in a person's 50s or later. It's caused by a quirk of biology known as a prion, a misfolded protein, and that's what eventually tipped Silvano's doctors off to the nature of his family's curse.Prions occur when a normal protein in our bodies gets folded into an unintended shape. All proteins get folded in our bodies, in complex, origami-like ways that we still don't fully understand. The folds are crucial to a protein's ability to function normally inside our cells, but a misfolded protein can be deadly. This is because prions can cause the proteins around them to become misfolded as well, spreading destruction in a wave of misshapen molecules. In this way, a prion can infect a person's body like a virus, despite having no DNA, no life, to speak of.Fatal familial insomnia is caused by a prion version of the PrP protein — a protein found throughout our bodies, though its functions aren't well understood. The disease most often arises due to two genetic mutations to the PRNP gene, though cases of FFI can occur in those without the mutations as well. Though the disease's mechanisms are still little-understood, it seems that prions build up in a region of the brain called the thalamus, which helps regulate our sleep-wake cycle, among other things.FFI usually begins with mild insomnia, mild dementia and muscle spasms. Sufferers may also notice themselves sweating profusely, and their pupils may shrink to pinpricks. As the disease progresses, the afflicted lose all ability to sleep and may experience rapid weight loss. They begin to live in a trance-like state, seemingly caught between sleep and waking, though it offers no respite. Dementia and panic attacks steadily worsen, and the patient eventually slips away. The average survival time is 18 months.There is no known cure for FFI, and few palliative treatments exist.While some researchers are forging ahead in a search for a cure, at the moment, the little hope that exists for those diagnosed with the disease comes from a man known only in the medical literature as "DH."The subject was 52 years old when he contracted FFI, which had already killed his father and three other family members. A naturopath with a doctorate and an evidently fierce will to live, he set out on a voyage of self-preservation . DH at first downed an impressive daily regimen of vitamins, including niacin, antioxidants, brewer's yeast, tryptophan and melatonin, a cocktail that reportedly allowed him to sleep five or six hours most nights.But after five months, the vitamins stopped working their magic, and he moved to more potent solutions. He tried ketamine, nitrous oxide, choloroform and combinations of various prescription sleep medications. They worked, but not for long. He then turned to stimulants, aiming to improve the quality of his waking hours. Taken several times a day, the drugs left him feeling refreshed, and even allowed him to sleep for several hours as they wore off, he reported. Later experiments with a sensory-deprivation chamber also appeared to allow him to sleep briefly.But, by this time, more than a year into his diagnosis, DH's body was beginning to wear down, likely a consequence of his disease and his pharmaceutical attempts to thwart it. Though he continued to struggle on, touring the country in a motor home driven during bouts of stimulant-induced clarity and writing a book, he eventually succumbed to cardiac arrest 26 months after contracting FFI.It's not entirely clear what eventually kills those with FFI. While it's likely that insomnia plays a large role in the disease's effects, the prions that accumulate in the brain also lead to other symptoms: sweating, dementia, rapid weight loss and more. It might be that the disease itself is otherwise fatal and the lack of sleep simply hastens its progress.Attempts to find a cure have so far been unsuccessful, as with all prion diseases. Immunotherapy, in which the body's immune system is tuned to attack a particular target, may be an option, though tests are ongoing.Another potential method comes from a pair of researchers with a unique motivation. Sonia Vallabh lost her mother to FFI — subsequent genetic testing revealed she too carried the mutations. Though she hasn't yet begun to show symptoms, it's likely she will someday.So Vallabh gave up her career as a lawyer and, with her husband, Eric Minikel, went back to school. Today, they jointly run a lab at MIT's and Harvard's Broad Institute. They are pursuing research into a type of molecule known as an ASO that can prevent RNA molecules — which help translate DNA into proteins — from working, according to Wired . Targeting an ASO to the specific gene that causes FFI might prevent any prions from being created. Following successful experiments in mice, they are now hoping to begin human trials.Though the path for any new treatment is long and fraught with difficulty, their approach could one day offer a means of protecting against prions. Vallabh and many like her whose fate hangs on the folds of a protein might finally have a fighting chance. | null | https://www.sott.net/article/421980-The-disease-that-kills-by-stealing-sleep-fatal-familial-insomnia | Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:36:25 +0000 | 1,571,096,185 | 1,571,095,106 | health | diseases and conditions |
531,709 | sputnik--2019-04-18--Doctors Cure Bubble Boy Disease Using Edited HIV Genes | 2019-04-18T00:00:00 | sputnik | Doctors Cure ‘Bubble Boy’ Disease Using Edited HIV Genes | The revolutionary new gene therapy was developed in tandem between St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Benioff Children's Hospital, and the results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday. Second Ever Patient May Have Been Cured of HIV - Reports Based on a study of eight children that began when they were infants, the doctors found that by editing a portion of the patients' blood stem cells and adding a genetically modified HIV virus, seven of them were able to develop normal immune systems that could fight infections and even receive vaccines, something they hadn't been able to do previously. The procedure took between six and 24 months to be fully effective. The children were all born with severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCID), a genetic defect in which the bone marrow, which is the body's blood cell factory, fails to produce functional immune system cells able to combat infections. It affects 1 in 200,000 newborns, almost exclusively males. Most infants born with SCID will die within a year or two of their birth. "This therapy has cured the patients," Ewelina Mamcarz, of the St. Jude Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, said in a Wednesday press release. She noted that more observation is necessary, though. "These patients are toddlers now, who are responding to vaccinations and have immune systems to make all immune cells they need for protection from infections as they explore the world and live normal lives." Mamcarz noted. "This is a first for patients with SCID-X1." Changed Man With 'Space Genes': Alterations in US Astronaut's Body Startled NASA "While longer follow-up is needed to assess any late effects of treatment, these results suggest most patients treated with this gene therapy will develop a complete durable immune response without side effects," co-author Mort Cowan, a UCSF professor of pediatrics and principal investigator of the trial at the university, noted in the statement. The nickname "bubble boy" comes from one 1970s Texas family's solution to the disease: keep their son in a protective plastic bubble to protect him from coming into contact with things that might infect him. The boy died at the age of 12 during a bone marrow transplant — then a risky procedure, AP reported. Doctors had long believed that gene editing held the solution for the problem, but early attempts had a dangerous side-effect: because destroying part of the defective bone marrow is necessary, patients tended to develop leukemia, a cancer of the bone marrow. New Antibody Therapy an ‘Important, Early Step’ Toward Twice-Yearly HIV Treatment It's deeply ironic, then, that salvation from this illness should come in the form of HIV, the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a disease that kills by weakening the body's immune system so that once-minor infections become deadly. When news of the medical triumph hit Wall Street, stocks in the tiny biotechnology company that's licensed the treatment, Mustang Bio Inc., spiked by 360 percent. Having closed the previous day at $2.66 per share, by 9:40 a.m. shares were selling at $9.74 each. However, when this article went to publication, that enthusiasm had somewhat worn off, declining to about $5.64 per share. "The data are extraordinary for every single patient," Chief Executive Officer Manny Litchman told the Washington Post Thursday. "It's that compelling nature of the data, in particular for those who don't have a matched sibling donor, that we believe will convince the FDA to do this [approve the treatment]. There is precedent in other rare diseases. We don't think it's crazy at all… We need to be bold, we think it's important to be bold for these kids who need this therapy." | null | https://sputniknews.com/science/201904181074269171-Doctors-Cure-Bubble-Boy-Disease-Edited-HIV-Genes/ | 2019-04-18 20:18:00+00:00 | 1,555,633,080 | 1,567,542,607 | health | diseases and conditions |
607,367 | thedailycaller--2019-11-12--California’s Potentially Apocalyptic Disease Problem Is Growing | 2019-11-12T00:00:00 | thedailycaller | California’s Potentially Apocalyptic Disease Problem Is Growing | The poor sanitary conditions of the City of Los Angeles have already caused the return of typhus, a disease now rarely seen in the first world, but which impacted police and a city attorney this year. Some have even warned that that most iconic of medieval-sounding afflictions, the plague, which like typhus is transmitted through fleas, could return to Los Angeles for the first time since 1924. It’s not as crazy as it sounds: the bacteria of Yersinia pestis are spotted every couple of years both outside Los Angeles and in LA County itself. It may only be a matter of time before the infection jumps from squirrels to the city’s prodigious rat population, and from there to the many people living on the street. “Our homeless crisis is increasingly becoming a public-health crisis,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in his State of the State speech in February. California’s growing problem of the massive number of homeless within their cities is well known. Some estimates put the number of homeless as high as almost 130,000, with over 50,000 of them in Los Angeles. That would make California the state with the most homeless. People disagree which of the many causes of this societal epidemic is most important, however, it is undeniable that with that many people living on the street, sanitation issues get worse. The lack of proper waste disposal is such an issue in some parts of California that apps have been developed where you can record where human waste has been spotted in a city, in order to avoid it. Piles of garbage and waste encourage the growth of flea-bearing rodents, specifically rats and mice, and when those are present in large numbers, disease tends to follow. Many diseases have seen a Renaissance of sorts within California’s cities. These diseases include, Hepatitis A, Syphilis, Typhus, and tuberculosis. California Governor Gavin Newsom said in his State of the State speech, “Typhus … A medieval disease. In California. In 2019.” In 2018, according to the California Department of Public Health, there was a record number of Typhus cases in LA county, 124 to be exact, up from 13 in 2008. The disease did not just stay confined to the homeless population. City workers and police officers have contracted the disease, including City attorney Elizabeth Greenwood who told local station KCAL9 that she thought she “was going to die.” Los Angeles police officers are particularly at risk for infection due to the large amount of time they spend interacting with LA’s transient population. As an LA cop noted, “About 60% of our calls every day are about transients and problems that they cause.” In response to this outbreak Mayor Garcetti announced a massive cleanup of Skid Row, but this proved ineffective as it did nothing to reduce the number of homeless. Soon the streets were as dirty as they were before the cleanup. Some said that this actually exacerbated the problem, as it pushed rats and rodents from their shelters in the streets, into local businesses and houses. Additionally, Los Angeles is one of the few major cities that does not have a rodent control program. Hepatitis A is another disease that has been running rampant through the streets of LA. Hepatitis A is a highly contagious liver disease and spreads through people ingesting the virus. LA county declared an outbreak in 2017. The Atlantic states, “There were 948 cases of hepatitis A in 2017 and 178 in 2018 and 2019, the state public-health department said. Twenty-one people have died as a result of the 2017–18 outbreak.” There is also concern that the plague is making a comeback within American borders. Dr. Drew Pinsky told Laura Ingraham on Fox News’ “Ingraham Angle” earlier this year that “We have complete breakdown of the basic needs of civilization in Los Angeles right now,” and “I’m hearing from experts that bubonic plague is likely, it’s already here, it will get onto the rat fleas.” (RELATED: CDC Reports Another Big Jump In Measles Cases) The plague is another disease that is spread by the fleas that are frequently carried by rats and other rodents, making Los Angeles a prime location for an outbreak. In addition, while not common, cases of bubonic plague are not unheard of in the American west, which gets, on average, seven cases per year as of 2015. An infectious disease expert told the NY Post that Bubonic plague was a possibility within LA due to the presence of rats. According to the Department of Public Health in LA, “The most important wild rodents that can carry the disease are squirrels (especially ground squirrels), chipmunks, woodrats, mice and marmots.” If the plague makes the jump from these wild rodents, to rats and other flea bearing animals within the city, it could potentially spread like wildfire and overwhelm the county health service, due to it being highly contagious, and because it is airborne, it can be spread through coughing. Los Angeles has experienced an outbreak of the plague before. Back in 1924 the plague laid siege to the city for two weeks and managed to kill 30 people in that time. Patient zero was infected when he disposed of a decaying rat that he found underneath his house, and within a week, his entire family had died. The city responded by quarantining multiple blocks and launching a city wide rat extermination program. During the extermination program, infected squirrels were found in multiple neighborhoods around the city. There is evidence that the plague is present in the areas surrounding LA, in 2013 the county closed multiple hiking trails due to plague being found in a ground squirrel, and warned hikers to use insect repellent and to avoid contact with rodents, either personally or by their pets. Governor Gavin Newsom has vowed to help fix California’s homeless epidemic. Specifically, he promised to, “Expand social services, healthcare (including mental health), bridge housing, and permanent supportive housing.” He has devoted millions of dollars towards fighting homeless, in fact, the state’s budget has allocated 650 million towards various low cost housing and shelter projects. According to Politifact, his anti-homeless measures “represent a large step forward on his promise to expand homeless services. They are evidence that he’s not only proposed solutions but is following through on them.” It remains to be seen if these measures will help prevent not only the current spread of disease, but also help avoid a much worse epidemic. | Noah Adamitis | https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/11/california-disease-problem/ | Tue, 12 Nov 2019 01:40:39 +0000 | 1,573,540,839 | 1,573,560,602 | health | diseases and conditions |
655,777 | thedcclothesline--2019-01-22--The Measles Vaccine Has Killed 63 Times as Many People as the Measles Disease in the Last 15 Years | 2019-01-22T00:00:00 | thedcclothesline | The Measles Vaccine Has Killed 63 Times as Many People as the Measles Disease in the Last 15 Years | (Natural News) It was the year 1900, and out of every 100,000 humans, only 13 died from the Measles. Forty years later, that number of deaths went down significantly to less than one person in every 100,000, and on down to barely anyone (0.2 in 100,000) dying from Measles twenty years later in 1960. Just three years after that, in 1963, the so-called Measles vaccine was invented, and “miraculously” it was declared that the immunization wiped out this huge threat to mankind. Amazing. Besides the lies and propaganda that were spread about this “holy grail” of preventative medicine, nobody knew the real horror story that was about to unfold – more people would soon start dying from the Measles vaccine than would ever pass from contracting the disease naturally. To this day, the mass media, the CDC, and the vaccine industry science shills all hide these facts from the public, in order to sell millions of dangerous vaccines and keep people in the dark about the hazards of Western medicine. It’s time for everyone to learn the risk – the real risk. Not sure how many Americans still know how to do arithmetic, but 127 deaths seems exorbitantly more severe than 2 deaths, so which risk is greater, getting Measles or getting the Measles virus injected with a needle, along with known neurotoxins, into your muscle tissue? In the following short video, a university-affiliated M.D. named Dr. Moss explains how the vaccine for Measles is much more deadly and much more of a risk than simply contracting the disease – a disease that a normal-functioning human immune system beats down rather easily. Just take a look at the numbers and make an informed decision yourself, instead of doing everything the CDC tells you to do, especially since the CDC is a for-profit company that’s in the vaccine business. To add insult to injury, the two people that died from Measles had other illnesses that contributed to their deaths, so nobody really knows if it was the Measles that killed them. Another reason to question getting the toxic jab: Are we considering death from a toxic vaccine a “side effect” or is it just a “complication?” Dr. Moss has an even more important query for all to consider: “So if the real goal of vaccines is to protect children, and not pharmaceutical profits, why is this vaccine still on the market?” “Learn the Risk” organization advises Americans to protect your children; don’t inject them. Our nation is sicker than ever before in history, yet spends more on healthcare than any other country. How’s that? The combination of chemicals found in today’s vaccines and prescription medications will blow your mind. First off, U.S. babies get jacked up with a cocktail of known carcinogens right from birth, so their immune systems are severely compromised from the get go. It’s a set-up so pediatricians can begin “managing symptoms” of deep-rooted gut problems and central nervous system malfunctions caused by those so-called precious vaccines. The brainwash began with the Polio vaccine. Statistics were skewed to convince the world that the Polio jab would save millions of people from becoming crippled by the disease. The fact is that infantile paralysis from Polio is rare, but the highly corrupt CDC and a rogue doctor named Jonas Salk convinced the world otherwise when they declared the faulty Polio vaccine to be the “greatest medical discovery of the century.” Then, shortly after millions of children were shot up with the haphazard concoction, those same inoculated children began contracting polio. Every day, more and more cases were reported, including satellite cases where siblings and parents of the inoculated children were contracting the disease, even as the child given the vaccine wasn’t suffering. Today that common phenomenon is termed “shedding.” The Polio vaccine, including the oral kind, was an epic failure, but hardly a soul knew the truth. The vaccinated children became the epidemic of carriers, but Western Medicine propaganda and the lying mass media claimed otherwise. Then, in 1955, according to TruthWiki, “The American Public Health Service announced that there had been 149 confirmed cases of poliomyelitis among the vaccinated, including six deaths. In most of the cases, paralysis began in the limb which was injected. The number of cases was far greater than if no injections were given at all. Polio had struck in areas where there had been no cases reported for over nine months. The vaccine was suspended pending a full inquiry by the National Institute of Health (NIH).” By the way, the Measles vaccine isn’t the only deadly immunization that’s killing off humans, just take a look at GSK’s 6-in-1 combo Infanrix Hexa vaccine that’s already exterminated 36 babies, as documented at Vaccines.news. | SD Wells | https://www.dcclothesline.com/2019/01/22/the-measles-vaccine-has-killed-63-times-as-many-people-as-the-measles-disease-in-the-last-15-years/ | 2019-01-22 17:12:37+00:00 | 1,548,195,157 | 1,567,551,447 | health | diseases and conditions |
656,457 | thedcclothesline--2019-04-07--Muslims infected with Kuru a disease of cannibals | 2019-04-07T00:00:00 | thedcclothesline | Muslims infected with Kuru, a disease of cannibals | From the archives: November 13, 2013. Due to the age of this article, some links may be broken. A video that was hosted on YouTube has been removed. You’ve heard of Mad Cow Disease, the scientific name of which is bovine spongiform encephalopathy — a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). TSE is an incurable fatal disease that affects the brain and nervous system of many animals, including humans. Autopsies of infected brain tissue show a myriad of tiny holes in the cortex, giving it a sponge-like appearance — hence spongiform. (See below) The disorder causes impairment of brain and bodily functions, including memory changes, personality changes, and problems with movement (shaking, trembling) that worsen over time. Like all TSEs, the bovine variant is transmitted via prions (a type of protein) instead of via bacteria or viruses. The prions come from the tissue of a TSE-infected cow which was ingested by another cow. The corporate meat industry actually mix cow tissue in the food that’s fed to cows. Yuck! When humans eat TSE-infected beef, they develop a type of TSE called Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease. But there is another form of human TSE called Kuru that is caused by humans ingesting TSE-infected human tissue. In other words, Kuru is the result of cannibalism. Kuru was first identified in 1961 among the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea. Research suggested that the epidemic may have originated around 1900 from a single individual who lived on the edge of Fore territory and who is thought to have spontaneously developed some form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. From that infected individual, Kuru spread easily and rapidly in the Fore people due to their endocannibalistic funeral practices, in which relatives consumed the bodies of their dead, especially the brain tissue where prions are concentrated, to return the “life force” of the deceased to the hamlet. By the mid-1960s, Kuru was in decline among the Fore due to Australian colonial law forbidding cannibalism, as well as the efforts of local Christian missionaries. But cases continued to appear for several more decades because the mean incubation (asymptomatic) phase of the disease is 14 years after initial exposure, although cases were reported with latencies of 40 years or more. The clinical (symptomatic) phase of the disease lasts an average of 12 months, before the infected person dies. The last sufferer in Papua New Guinea died in 2005. Little did the world know that Kuru would make its reappearance thousands of miles from Papua New Guinea — among Muslim “rebels” in civil war-torn Syria. In April of this year, Time magazine obtained a video that had been smuggled out of Syria by a “rebel fighter.” Aryn Baker writes for Time magazine, May 12, 2013: In the video a man who is believed to be a rebel commander named Khalid al-Hamad, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Sakkar, bends over the government soldier, knife in hand. With his right hand he moves what appears to be the dead man’s heart onto a flat piece of wood or metal lying across the body. With his left hand he pulls what appears to be a lung across the open cavity in the man’s chest. According to two of Abu Sakkar’s fellow rebels, who said they were present at the scene, Abu Sakkar had cut the organs out of the man’s body. The man believed to be Abu Sakkar then works his knife through the flesh of the dead man’s torso before he stands to face the camera, holding an organ in each hand. “I swear we will eat from your hearts and livers, you dogs of Bashar,” he says, referring to supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Off camera, a small crowd can be heard calling out “Allahu akbar” — God is great. Then the man raises one of the bloodied organs to his lips and starts to tear off a chunk with his teeth. Two TIME reporters first saw the video in April in the presence of several of Abu Sakkar’s fighters and supporters, including his brother. They all said the video was authentic. We later obtained a copy. […] These 27 seconds of footage provide a glimpse at how brutal the Syrian war has become…. Walid Theodore Shoebat, a former member of the radical Muslim Brotherhood but now a truth-telling peace activist, writes in his blog that Kuru has been found in 8 to 20 people in war-torn Syria, and the only way it could have come about, doctors confirmed, is through cannibalism and the consumption of human brain,as first reported by Arabian news source Zaman al-Wasal and substantiated by Orient News Television. Two of the infected were sent from Syria to a hospital in Ghazi Antab in Turkey for further examination, then transferred to another hospital in Germany. One of the two was confirmed to have eaten human flesh, and he eventually died. Shoebat has written extensively on Islamic cannibalism, which can be found here, here, here, and here. The asymptomatic incubation phase of Kuru is between 5 to 20 years following initial exposure, with the average being 12 years. But the Syrian civil war began in 2011. This suggests that the Kuru of the infected Syrian men would have been transmitted BEFORE the civil war. Such is the Religion of Peace! StMA is the Editor of Consortium of Defense Analysts. COMMUNITY LINKS: Visit Our Sister Site for Articles Not Seen Here | Browse our Store for Conservative Gifts & Apparel | Join Our Free Speech Social Media Network Subcsribe for new articles direct to your inbox | StMA | https://www.dcclothesline.com/2019/04/07/muslims-infected-with-kuru-a-disease-of-cannibals/ | 2019-04-07 15:58:02+00:00 | 1,554,667,082 | 1,567,543,729 | health | diseases and conditions |
656,575 | thedcclothesline--2019-04-20--CDC admits measles outbreak is caused by people from other countries who enter the United States and | 2019-04-20T00:00:00 | thedcclothesline | CDC admits measles outbreak is caused by people from other countries who enter the United States and spread the disease | (Natural News) In the first four months of 2019, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have confirmed 555 cases of measles across 20 states. In comparison, there were 382 cases in all of 2018 and just 120 back in 2017. Five years ago, there were 667 confirmed cases, spurring media frenzy. In their latest report, the CDC admits that measles cases are actually coming from international travelers. “These outbreaks are linked to travelers who brought measles back from other countries such as Israel, Ukraine, and the Philippines, where large measles outbreaks are occurring,” says the CDC. In early April, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency over a cluster of reported measles cases in the Orthodox Jewish community. The emergency order demanded that all un-vaccinated residents within four zip codes take a measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. Violators face imprisonment and fines up to $1,000. The order includes children as young as six months, even though the MMR package insert states that the vaccine is not recommended for anyone under twelve months of age. If Bill de Blasio insists on forcibly injecting six month old babies, (who do not have an adequate immune system to handle the MMR vaccine), then why doesn’t he stop all international travelers coming from outbreak-stricken areas such as Israel, Ukraine, and the Philippines? What about all the disease that pours over the Southern border? If the government insists on micromanaging viruses in the vast world, why do they target healthy, un-vaccinated children and ignore verifiable virus sources from other regions of the world? If stopping measles is so important, why not forbid international travel until the travelers have proven they have overcome infectious disease? The bigger questions are: Should the government micromanage benign illnesses in the first place? Should governments have the power to track down people, coerce them with fines and threats of imprisonment, to inject them against their will, all based on the presumption that Merck’s vaccine works for everyone? And the question that the CDC should ask themselves: Is vaccination really the answer in all this? Or at least, shouldn’t the parents decide for themselves if augmenting part of their child’s immune system and damaging their cell-mediated immunity is the right way to handle a benign illness like measles? Measles infection is typically a benign illness that begins with a fever and ends with a rash. After natural infection, an individual gains lifelong immunity because their humoral antibody response and intra-cellular cytotoxic T-cell response have learned to target measles viruses both outside and inside the cells. Today, measles is over-hyped in the media and used as a selling point for MMR vaccinations (which only spur an allergic-style B-cell response in healthy individuals). The MMR vaccine contains a live attenuated measles virus that is grown in WI-38 and MRC-5 cell strains, which are self-replicating culture mediums derived from 2-4 month old aborted fetal lung cells. After the virus is cultured and replicated in the aborted fetal cells, it is retrieved and processed for use in the combination vaccine. Upon injection, this antigen is intended to augment an immune response from the individual. An aluminum adjuvant is added to the vaccine to further incite an immune response, while adding to the vaccine’s toxicity. Upon injection, T-helper-2 cells respond to the artificial infection, increasing the body’s production of B-cell antibodies. The vaccine is intended to increase the humoral response, but the consequence of this science is rarely discussed. This augmentation causes an imbalance in how the human immune system deals with future viruses. There are two principle parts to the immune system. The first is the humoral response, mediated by T-helper-2 cells which encourage B-cell antibody response for killing viruses outside of cells. The second part takes place in the cell. This part is mediated by T-helper-1 cells which communicate with cytotoxic T cells to kill viruses that are replicating within cells. When vaccines are used, the first part is spurred into hyper-action, but the second part is hardly used, weakened. With repeated use of vaccines, cell-mediated immunity weakens, encouraging viral mutations, and future infections of the cells. The measles death rate dropped considerably before a vaccine was introduced, so it’s hard to say whether the vaccine was the savior even as measles fatality continued to fall after the vaccine was employed. If anything, people today should thank their ancestors for facing benign illnesses like measles, mumps, and rubella. According to studies on antibody levels in the vaccinated versus the un-vaccinated, naturally acquired immunity is more effective for preventing disease over the long haul, and this also helps build stronger herd immunity in a population. People today should also thank their mothers for passing on passive immunity through breast milk antibodies. Vitamin A has also been studied to shorten the duration and severity of measles infection. In a dose-dependent manner, vitamin A prevented measles complications, including croup, diarrhea, and death by pneumonia. If the government is going to micromanage disease, then they can mandate vitamin A and halt international travelers who are coming from outbreak-stricken areas. Targeting smart people who don’t want to weaken their cell-mediated immune response does nothing to protect the public. The CDC, the media, and government mouthpieces are blinded by their own agenda. COMMUNITY LINKS: Visit Our Sister Site for Articles Not Seen Here | Browse our Store for Conservative Gifts & Apparel | Join Our Free Speech Social Media Network Subcsribe for new articles direct to your inbox | Lance D Johnson | https://www.dcclothesline.com/2019/04/20/cdc-admits-measles-outbreak-is-caused-by-people-from-other-countries-who-enter-the-united-states-and-spread-the-disease/ | 2019-04-20 15:19:44+00:00 | 1,555,787,984 | 1,567,542,367 | health | diseases and conditions |
926,735 | thesun--2019-01-14--I feared pain of smear test but its nothing compared to cancer ops says mum of twins who survived | 2019-01-14T00:00:00 | thesun | I feared pain of smear test but it’s nothing compared to cancer ops, says mum of twins who survived the disease | A DECADE ago, half a million more women attended their smear tests than was usual. The death in March 2009 of reality-TV star Jade Goody, aged just 27, gave women a stark wake-up call. Yet we seem to have forgotten the vital importance of attending screening appointments. The number of women going for smears has dropped alarmingly. Sarah Egby knows better than anyone how costly it can be to ignore the crucial test. The mum of twins was diagnosed with cervical cancer having put off her smear test for seven years. Sarah, 36, said a traumatic birth made her reluctant to book the potentially life-saving screening test. Now she wishes she had. She says: “It was early in 2017 when I started having period pains, bloating and irregular bleeding. “I hadn’t been for a smear for seven years. I’d given birth to the twins naturally. One was breech and it was very traumatic. “I had third-degree tears and it put me off any more medical procedures down there, so I just didn’t go. “It feels so silly now. A simple five-minute test could have saved months of agony and given me more time with the twins, Autumn and Vinny, who are now seven. “My mum had to move in to help look after them. “About two weeks’ before I finished treatment, my little girl got into bed with me and said, ‘Mummy, I want you to stop treatment now, as you’re just too poorly all the time’. “Even now, when I think about that moment, I want to break down.” Sarah is speaking out to support Fabulous Daily’s #CheersForSmears campaign. We have teamed up with Jo’s Trust to make sure all women go for their smear tests, no matter what. “I did go to the doctor a few times but they never mentioned a smear, so I didn’t either,” she says. Sarah, who is from Farnborough, Hants, was referred for an internal ultrasound, which came back clear. But three months later, she went back to her GP again. Everything you need to know about cervical cancer ONE in three women is overdue a smear test, and the same number admit to being “too embarrassed” to have the check-up. But it could save your life. Imogen Pinnell, heath information officer at cervical cancer charity Jo’s Trust, says: “Many people are nervous about cervical screening and don’t find the test easy. “However it saves lives, and together with the HPV vaccine, will one day make cervical cancer a disease of the past.” To dispel anxieties, below Imogen answers some of the most commonly asked questions about the test. DO I need to go for a smear test? All women aged 25 to 64 with a cervix are invited for cervical screening. You are invited every three years until age 49, and every five years aged 50 to 64. Cervical cancer in women under 25 is extremely rare, but it’s important to be symptom-aware and see your GP if you are worried. The most common symptom is bleeding that is unusual for you, often between regular periods or after sex. It is important to get checked out by your doctor. I HAVEN’T had sex for a long time, do I still need to go? If you haven’t had sex for a long time, or if you’ve been with the same partner long-term, you still need to attend your appointment. Cervical cancer is usually caused by HPV, a really common virus. It can lie dormant or non-detectable in the body for many years, even decades, but if it develops at any stage it could go on to cause cancer. I KNOW the symptoms of cervical cancer, so why do I need to be screened? The smear test is for people who don’t have symptoms. It aims to prevent cervical cancer by finding changes to cells in the cervix before they develop. Many women who have an abnormal result do not have any symptoms at all. If you have symptoms, speak to your GP, as you may need a gynaecological (pelvic) examination instead. Most women do not find the test painful, but some find it uncomfortable. If you are feeling tense or anxious, or have a condition like vaginal dryness, it may be more uncomfortable. If you have any concerns, speak to your nurse before the test. You may have light bleeding (spotting) after the test, but this is common and should stop after a day. HOW do I prepare for an appointment? You don’t need to do anything at all. You don’t need to shave your legs, have a shower or go to the toilet before the test. But some people find it helpful to prepare in their own way, whether that’s by speaking with friends, or doing something relaxing beforehand. If you are on your period, the test sometimes gives an inconclusive result, so you may want to reschedule for the next earliest appointment. HOW exactly is the test done? A smear test takes a sample of cells from the cervix – this is part of the body that joins the top part of the vagina to the bottom of the womb. It is usually done by a female nurse at your GP surgery. The nurse will give you a private space to undress from the waist down, ask you to lie on an examination bed, and gently insert a small plastic tube (a speculum) into the vagina. A small, soft brush is then swept across the cervix to collect cells. These cells are sent to a lab to be tested. The results should arrive within two weeks. DO I still need a test if I’ve been through menopause? Yes. If you’ve ever been sexually active, it is important to continue screening until you are 65. Cervical screening may be more uncomfortable after menopause, so speak to your nurse before the test about any medicines they can prescribe to help. If you have had a hysterectomy where your uterus, including the cervix, was entirely removed, you don’t need cervical screening. It is recommended you do not have screening if you are or could be pregnant. If you are invited while you are expecting, wait until three months after your baby is born to have the test. If you have previously had an abnormal result, speak to your nurse or GP. I’M over 65, why am I not invited for cervical screening? Cervical cancer is extremely rare in older women who have a clear cervical screening history. If you have had abnormal results, you will still be invited until the cells go back to normal. MY result shows cell abnormalities. Do I have cancer? An abnormal result does not mean you have cancer. These abnormalities usually show changes to the cells of the cervix, not cancer. These changes can be monitored or treated, reducing your risk of developing cervical cancer later on. “I was getting a lot of bleeding after intercourse,” she recalls. “It started off as spotting but it got quite heavy. I knew I had to go back. I had twins to look after and I run my own hair salon, so I always felt like I was too busy. “The doctor said I’d not had a smear in seven years and perhaps it was a good idea to have one. “I waited two weeks for an appointment before having the test in November 2017. It was a few weeks before I got a call to say that my results were abnormal.” Sarah was referred to Frimley Park Hospital, Hants, for LLETZ treatment to get rid of precancerous cells. Doctors took a biopsy too — and two weeks later, they called Sarah with the worst possible news. “They told me I had to go to hospital that day and to take someone with me,” she says. “I took my fiance Lenny, 37, with me and they called us into a room. I noticed the Macmillan nurse. They sat us down and said they’d found cancerous cells. “They couldn’t say what stage it was and they needed to do further tests. I found that time really hard. “At the beginning of January, further tests showed I had stage-2B cervical cancer. It had spread from my cervix into surrounding tissue.” Sarah had an operation to relocate her ovaries, which risks early menopause. Then she was put on a course of treatment including radiotherapy, chemotherapy and brachytherapy, an internal form of radiotherapy. She also had a blood transfusion. She says: “When I was going through it, I was really positive. “I had six-year-old twins so there was no time for complaining. I always said when the treatment finished I wouldn’t worry about the little things. “I was lucky, as I didn’t lose my hair. But the chemotherapy I had affects your heart, so for the last two or three weeks of treatment I was in a wheelchair. I had no energy. “It was hard for the kids, as they couldn’t understand why Mummy couldn’t play. But we were very honest about what was going on. “I ordered a book about what happens when Mummy has cancer. “My mum Gill, 64, moved in to help me look after the kids and Lenny was by my side all the way. I couldn’t have got through all this without the support of my family.” Sarah finished her treatment last April and scans showed her tumour had gone. While she felt better physically, Sarah was then diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and was put on anti-depressants. She says: “Once you get the all-clear, it’s hard. From December until the April, I was surrounded by doctors and nurses. I had friends and family constantly messaging to see how I was. “Afterwards, I felt very anxious and lonely. When I went to bed at night, I’d overthink everything and replay what I’d been through. “You feel guilty for feeling low because really I’m one of the lucky ones — I survived. But when I last saw my oncologist, he said, ‘You’ve been through all of this and haven’t cried, you haven’t moaned. It all has to come out sometime’. “I’m having counselling now and hoping I’ll be able to put all this behind me. “I had a CT scan after my treatment ended and my tumour had totally disappeared, though there was a tiny 12mm shadow still left in my uterus. “The doctors are confident it’s just scar tissue from the radiotherapy but I have to go back for another scan in April this year to make sure it hasn’t grown.” Sarah is back at work and plans to marry Lenny next year. She says: “I’ve always gone to the gym, I’ve never smoked, I eat healthily and I take care of myself. People often say, ‘I can’t believe it happened to you’. But cancer can happen to anyone. “A couple of weeks after I was diagnosed, I announced it on Facebook. I didn’t want sympathy — I just wanted advice from others who had been through it. “The response I got was amazing. I still get women messaging me now to say they hadn’t been for a smear but booked one. One lady hadn’t been for 19 years. “That’s why I’m keen to share my story. If you haven’t been, please don’t put it off. A smear is a five-minute test that could save your life.” | Laura Garcia del Valle | https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/8186824/smear-test-fear-cervical-cancer/ | 2019-01-14 22:00:05+00:00 | 1,547,521,205 | 1,567,552,560 | health | diseases and conditions |
940,851 | thesun--2019-02-25--Devastating plague dubbed Disease X could wipe out millions of HEALTHY people just like Spanish Flu | 2019-02-25T00:00:00 | thesun | Devastating plague dubbed Disease X could wipe out millions of HEALTHY people… just like Spanish Flu that killed five per cent of world’s population | A DEADLY plague that scientists have dubbed Disease X could kill millions of HEALTHY people if it mimics past pandemics, experts warn. The fatal illness will be the next widespread killer to wipe out populations across the globe - although it doesn't exist yet. Scientists are working desperately to predict when and how a super-strength strain will come about in order to prepare against it. And there are fears that if the disease evolves from a mutated form of influenza then healthy people could be MOST at risk. This was the case in the devastating Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918 - when younger, fitter people made up most of the staggering death toll. The virus wiped out as much as five per cent of the world's population - making it one of the worst disasters in human history. As many as 100million people died from the Spanish Flu - more than two-and-a-half times the total number of military and civilian deaths from the First World War. Studies have show most of the fatalities were among those under the age of 65. The virus is thought to have used the body's own immune system to work against it. This caused fatal "cytokine storms" in victims - an overproduction of immune cells that can overwhelm the body. The stronger the immune system, the more devastating the effects of the Spanish Flu on an infected person. If Disease X spawns from an influenza strain it could have a similarly devastating effect on younger populations. Worryingly, influenza is easily spread through the air, can mutate quickly and some strains can pass between species - like bird flu. Dr Jonathan Quick, chair of the Global Health Council, told Raconteur that people-to-people contact makes an outbreak more dangerous. He said: “Our greatest fear is being blindsided by a new virus, most likely due to animal-human spillover, which then readily spreads from human to human, has at least a 5 to 10 per cent fatality rate, does not respond to existing medicines, and for which an effective vaccine and accurate diagnostic test cannot rapidly be developed.” The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned last year that conditions are perfect for the emergence of Disease X. In a statement, the Geneva-based organisation said: "Disease X represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease." WHO science adviser John-Arne Rottingen said: "History tells us that it is likely the next big outbreak will be something we have not seen before. "The point is to make sure we prepare and plan flexibly in terms of vaccines and diagnostic tests." | Neal Baker | https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8501751/disease-x-plague-kill-millions-healthy-people-spanish-flu/ | 2019-02-25 01:34:59+00:00 | 1,551,076,499 | 1,567,547,401 | health | diseases and conditions |
947,321 | thesun--2019-03-22--HIV-positive man 37 plied 16-year-old girl with drugs until she agreed to unprotected sex leaving | 2019-03-22T00:00:00 | thesun | HIV-positive man, 37, plied 16-year-old girl with drugs until she agreed to unprotected sex leaving her infected with the disease | A MAN with HIV infected a 16-year-old girl with the disease after plying her with drugs and having sex with her. Noor Panjshiri, 37, picked the girl up in Dandenong, Melbourne, Australia, in June 2017 before driving her to his home along with another 14-year-old girl where he gave them both methamphetamine, the County Court heard. Knowing he was infected with HIV, Panjshiri had sex with the older girl without telling her he had the virus, the Herald Sun reports. She was diagnosed with HIV almost a month later after vomiting and feeling unwell. A doctor said it is "highly plausible" the girl was infected around the end of June, when the pair had sex. Panjshiri was found guilty on Friday of negligently causing serious injury and two counts of supplying a drug of dependence to a child at the County Court in Melbourne. He denied having sex with the girl and claimed she had contracted HIV from someone else. Also known as 'Chris', Panjshiri did not take his antiviral medication regularly and had a viral load at a "risky level", the court heard. He was remanded and will be sentenced at a later date. We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours. | Annabel Murphy | https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8695783/hiv-positive-man-37-plied-16-year-old-girl-with-drugs-until-she-agreed-to-unprotected-sex-leaving-her-infected-with-the-disease/ | 2019-03-22 10:51:34+00:00 | 1,553,266,294 | 1,567,545,235 | health | diseases and conditions |
971,599 | thesun--2019-07-04--Cancer patients had their disease wiped out by the common cold | 2019-07-04T00:00:00 | thesun | Cancer patients had their disease wiped out by the common cold | CANCER patients have had their disease wiped out by the common cold. Scientists found a strain of the virus successfully targets and destroys tumour cells. One bladder cancer patient had no trace of their disease a week after being treated with the bug. Medics said they were “surprised” by the response, which could revolutionise how they tackle the illness. Current bladder cancer treatments are not very effective and can be toxic. The Surrey University trial involved 15 people in early stages of the illness. They had a concentrated solution containing the coxsackievirus strain of cold flushed around their bladder for an hour. A week later, medics found the bug had successfully infected the cancerous cells and caused them to die. It also acted like a “burglar alarm”, alerting the body’s own immune system to attack the disease. Crucially, no one suffered any side-effects and healthy tissue was unaffected by the virus. Larger trials on a range of cancers are planned. Lead researcher Professor Hardev Pandha said: “It works by warming up the tumour and getting all the immune soldier cells recruited to the right place.” | FIONA NIMONI | https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9440356/cancer-wiped-with-common-cold/ | 2019-07-04 23:05:24+00:00 | 1,562,295,924 | 1,567,536,916 | health | diseases and conditions |
976,153 | thesun--2019-08-07--The 5 early warning signs of cervical cancer as Jade Goody documentary charts her battle with dise | 2019-08-07T00:00:00 | thesun | The 5 early warning signs of cervical cancer – as Jade Goody documentary charts her battle with disease | JADE Goody was just 27 when she died of cervical cancer - just seven months after being diagnosed. The mum-of-two feared something wasn't right for four years but by the time doctors realised it was too late. It had spread to the outside of her uterus and reduced her chances of survival from 50 per cent to zero. The first of a three-part series commemorating the Big Brother star and retelling her very public battle with cancer a decade on airs on Channel 4 tonight. Jade Goody's story is unique because of how rare it is for women of her age to die from cervical cancer. Docs had first found abnormal cells when she was given a smear test at 15 after contracting the human papilloma virus (HPV) before she was even sexually active. The cells were removed, but two years later they had returned and she needed an operation to burn them off. Following the birth of her second son in 2004, yet more abnormal cells were found but docs were against removed any more of her cervix in case it became too short to carry future pregnancies. When Jade Goody received a letter telling her to come in to have abnormal cells removed for a fourth time, she ignored it through fear. Speaking to Heat magazine at the time, she said: "When I heard I had more abnormal cells I thought, 'this is the fourth time I've been told I need to have the same operation now'. "Once you have them burnt off they shouldn't come back, I was too scared." But it was in 2008, while appearing on the Indian version of Big Brother that she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Despite Jade's very public battle, the number of women attending screenings has dropped to the lowest level since records began in 1995 - with nearly a third of women in the UK risking their lives by skipping their smear test. Early diagnosis is key when it comes to any form of cancer as it can increase the chance of survival - and cervical cancer is one of them. Catch it at the earliest stage - stage 1 - and you have the highest chance of surviving it. But get diagnosed at stage 4, and you've only got a 5 per cent chance of surviving five years or longer. That's why it's absolutely crucial that you know what changes to look out for and get them tested ASAP. “Not all women diagnosed with cervical cancer have symptoms, which is why it’s really important to attend cervical screening (smear tests) when invited. But, whatever your age, it’s equally important to be aware of cervical cancer symptoms," Imogen Pinnell, health information manager at Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust told The Sun. 1. Abnormal bleeding (during or after sex, between periods and also post-menopause)period The most common and earliest sign of cervical cancer tends to be irregular bleeding. It happens when the cancer cells grow on the tissue below the cervix. It's an especially alarming sign in postmenopausal women who no longer have periods. There's no age limit to developing cervical cancer. Everyone's discharge is different, so it's a case of knowing what is normal for you. If you find that the colour, smell and consistency has changed, then that's something you really need to have checked out. When cancer lacks oxygen, it can cause an infection which leads to strange smelling discharge. Pain during sex can be a sign of a number of different issues, but one is cervical cancer. Because the disease often comes with no symptoms, pain during intercourse is one of the key indicators. It can be a sign that the cancer is spreading to surrounding tissues. It could be down to you straining something in the gym, or it could be a warning sign that something's wrong with your reproductive organs. Persistent pain - just one off twinges - in the lower back, pelvis or appendix can be a symptom of cervical cancer. While effortless weight loss might sound like the answer to many of our prayers, it's never a good sign if it happens seemingly without cause. A loss of appetite and unexplained weight loss tend to be signs that the body isn't working properly - it's trying to conserve energy. If you notice that you're not eating as you normally do, go to your GP. If you experience any of these (do not wait for all of them to appear, just one is enough!), then make an appointment to talk to your GP immediately. It doesn't matter if you've had a recent smear test or not - or if you're under 25 and haven't been offered one yet. Although it's rare, cervical cancer can strike earlier. "Remember, cervical cancer is rare and all of these symptoms are often caused by something other than cancer," Imogen says. "But, if you have any symptoms, it is important to get checked by your GP straight away." Often, women don't have any symptoms early on and that's why it's so absolutely crucial that you go for a regular smear. We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours. | Gemma Mullin | https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/9675324/cervical-cancer-warning-signs-jade-goody-documentary/ | 2019-08-07 18:23:33+00:00 | 1,565,216,613 | 1,567,534,669 | health | diseases and conditions |
990,978 | thesun--2019-12-13--Teen girl dies from deadly ‘kissing disease’ that triggered a stroke | 2019-12-13T00:00:00 | thesun | Teen girl dies from deadly ‘kissing disease’ that triggered a stroke | PLAGUED by a sore throat and a near-constant headache, Ariana Rae Delfs' parents assumed she just had a bad case of the flu. And given their daughter had always been a fit and healthy 17-year-old, the last thing to cross their minds was that her life could be on the line. However, just days later - Ariana died in their arms after suffering a deadly stroke - triggered by mononucleosis, which is often called the "kissing disease". Heartbroken, Ariana's father Mark is now sharing her story to raise awareness for the devastating condition. Mark said: "Ariana was tragically taken away from us after a short illness and will now live on forever in our hearts and minds. "Her spirit, generosity and inner light will shine on others in the years to come." Ariana's family's nightmare begun three weeks ago when she began experiencing a sore throat and a near-constant headache. At first, her parents brushed off the symptoms - assuming she had a cold or the flu. "She had cold symptoms. The persistent thing all the way through was a headache, she seemed to always have a headache," Mark said. Ariana, a star student-athlete and artist, had been tested for several viruses, including the kissing disease, at her local GP but nothing was detected. However, things escalated one evening last week - when the teen began throwing up constantly. Her parents weren't "very nervous" so decided to wait until the next morning to take her to their local hospital. It was there that Ariana's condition dramatically deteriorated - much to the horror of her parents. At one point, Ariana tried to stand up to go the bathroom at the hospital, but told her parents she had no feeling in her legs. Mark told WJAX: "She felt like her legs were just giving out." Doctors believed she was suffering a stroke and had her airlifted to another hospital 35 miles away in Jacksonville. Mark added: "Her words were very slurred at times. "She was just talking gibberish, and the damage was already beginning at that point, which we just didn't know." It was at the Jacksonville hospital where medics diagnosed Ariana with the Epstein-Barr virus - which causes the kissing disease. However, by then, it was too late. Medics gave Ariana's parents the life-shattering news that the stroke - triggered by mono - had left Ariana with irreparable brain damage. And just three days later, Ariana passed away. Mark said: "Here brain swelled to the point where it couldn't function and brain damage did occur. "And we just made the decision that it was time to let her go." Despite this, Ariana's family were given some comfort after learning her daughter had become an organ donor. Mark added: "The doctor actually told us she was an organ donor and we were just, I can’t even describe it. "We were just like, ‘Wow, that’s her. That sums her up right there'." Mark is now urging parents to be vigilant when it comes to their child's health - especially when they first start showing symptoms. He said: "In our case, it wasn't enough, but in somebody else's case it may save their life." Ariana's parents have started a GoFundMe page in her memory to raise money for their daughter's favourite passions, including music and arts programmes for kids. As of this morning, the total currently stands at £12,100. You can donate on their fundraising page here. | Lucy Jones | https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/10544490/teen-girl-dies-deadly-kissing-disease-stroke/ | Fri, 13 Dec 2019 09:39:08 +0000 | 1,576,247,948 | 1,576,239,995 | health | diseases and conditions |
1,010,224 | thetelegraph--2019-07-04--More than 700 children confirmed HIV positive in Pakistan disease outbreak | 2019-07-04T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | More than 700 children confirmed HIV positive in Pakistan disease outbreak | More than 700 have children have now been found to be infected with HIV in a huge outbreak in southern Pakistan, making up more than 80 per cent of those who tested positive for the virus. An outbreak of the virus in Sindh province prompted the World Health Organization to carry out a screening programme, which found 876 people to be infected with the virus - 82 per cent of whom were under the age of 15. The outbreak, which was first discovered in April, has been described as unprecedented in Asia because of the large numbers of children affected. The virus, which attacks the immune system and, if untreated, leads to AIDS, is thought to have been spread by unqualified “quack” doctors and sloppy hygiene at clinics. Reusing needles and poor sterilisation of medical and dental instruments is common in the backstreet clinics which are often the only source of medical care for many Pakistanis. | Ben Farmer | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/700-children-confirmed-hiv-positive-pakistan-disease-outbreak/ | 2019-07-04 16:53:50+00:00 | 1,562,273,630 | 1,567,536,896 | health | diseases and conditions |
1,013,498 | thetelegraph--2019-08-21--Two British holidaymakers die of Legionnaires disease after staying at Bulgarian resort | 2019-08-21T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Two British holidaymakers die of Legionnaires' disease after staying at Bulgarian resort | Two British holidaymakers have died from Legionnaires' disease shortly after staying at a Bulgarian hotel promoted by tour operator Jet2. Brian Taylor, 75, and John Cowan, 43, were diagnosed with the severe form of pneumonia after visiting the Hotel Kalofer earlier this year. Investigations were launched by Jet2 and lawyers acting for the victims' families after they were killed by the virus within weeks of returning to the UK. Jet2 says that specialist tests on water samples from Hotel Kalofer have since come back negative for Legionella, the bacteria that causes the disease. It has transferred all customers away from the hotel as a "precautionary measure" and says it will not sell any holidays there for the rest of this year and 2020. | Greg Wilford | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/21/two-british-holidaymakers-die-legionnaires-disease-staying-bulgarian/ | 2019-08-21 23:01:00+00:00 | 1,566,442,860 | 1,567,533,846 | health | diseases and conditions |
1,015,884 | thetelegraph--2019-09-20--Philippines confirms second polio case as outbreak declared two decades after disease was eradicated | 2019-09-20T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Philippines confirms second polio case as outbreak declared two decades after disease was eradicated | An outbreak of polio has been declared in the Philippines, with cases confirmed in two children almost 20 years after the country eradicated the incurable childhood disease. On Thursday, health officials reported that a three-year-old girl had contracted polio in the southern province of Lanao del Sur, announcing a massive vaccination drive in response. Just one day later it emerged that a five-year-old boy had tested positive for the disease some 870 miles away in Laguna, south of the capital Manila. The authorities said that traces of polio have also been detected in the sewage system in Manila and in waterways in the southern Davao region. Polio is a devastating and highly infectious childhood virus which invades the nervous system and can lead to paralysis. The disease can only be prevented by an oral vaccine – there is still no known cure. Until this week, the last known case of polio in the Philippines was in 1993 and in 2000 the World Health Organization declared the southeast Asian nation polio free. | Sarah Newey | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/philippines-confirms-second-polio-case-sparking-fears-resurgence/ | 2019-09-20 15:41:58+00:00 | 1,569,008,518 | 1,569,590,585 | health | diseases and conditions |
1,018,454 | thetelegraph--2019-10-31--Tick attack: everything you need to know about the steady march of tick-borne diseases | 2019-10-31T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Tick attack: everything you need to know about the steady march of tick-borne diseases | Blood sucking parasites that hide amid the undergrowth are on the rise worldwide – and so too are the illnesses that ticks carry. Just this week a potentially deadly brain disease, tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBE), was found for the first time in Britain. Experts believe the pathogen, which is common in central and eastern Europe, was brought to the UK by migrating birds. The discovery follows reports that cases of Lyme disease – perhaps the most well known infection transmitted by ticks – could be three times higher in Britain than previously thought, with some 8,000 cases annually. Concern about the march of disease-ridden arthropods is not confined to the UK. Across the pond, former US Senator, Kay Hagan, died this week from a rare form of encephalitis caused by the Powassan virus. It is thought she picked up the infection, which causes brain inflammation, from a tick while hiking in 2016. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, reports of tick-borne illnesses have more than doubled in the US in the last 13 years, from 22,000 to 48,000. | Sarah Newey | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/tick-attack-everything-need-know-steady-march-tick-borne-diseases/ | Thu, 31 Oct 2019 14:14:31 GMT | 1,572,545,671 | 1,572,545,219 | health | diseases and conditions |
1,087,424 | veteranstoday--2019-02-04--From A to Zika Understanding Emerging Diseases | 2019-02-04T00:00:00 | veteranstoday | From A to Zika: Understanding Emerging Diseases | By National Institutes of Health/News in Health West Nile virus. Lyme disease. Zika. Dengue fever. Eye-catching headlines warn us about new diseases seemingly every year. But how much of a danger do these diseases really pose? What can you do to reduce the risk from new diseases in your community? Emerging diseases are caused by microbes, usually bacteria or viruses, that haven’t infected people before or that already infect people but have moved to new places. “New diseases emerge all the time from the animal world,” explains Dr. David Morens, an infectious disease expert at NIH. Part of the reason is that the genes in bacteria and viruses are always changing. These gene changes, called mutations, help microbes survive and spread. Some make it possible for bacteria or viruses that once only infected animals to infect people. Bacteria and viruses often get from animals to people by way of insects and parasites. The most common of these are mosquitoes and ticks. NIH is funding research into where and how new diseases might arise, as well as ways to prevent and treat them. The modern world has changed how animals, insects, and people encounter each other, says Dr. Desiree LaBeaud, an NIH-funded emerging disease researcher at Stanford University. “Deforestation increases the chances that humans come in contact with forest-dwelling creatures and insects,” she explains. As people move further into undeveloped areas, they become more likely to encounter animals and insects that carry microbes they haven’t been exposed to before. More people moving to large cities also plays a role in the spread of disease, adds Dr. Scott Weaver, who studies emerging diseases at the University of Texas Medical Branch. When millions of people live close to each other—and close to mosquitoes that like to live in cities—diseases can move quickly. Changes in the environment can also contribute. Most microbes—and the insects that carry them—can only live within a narrow range of conditions. “What happens when you have a warming planet is that these infections are going to shift geographically into new areas,” LaBeaud says. Compounding all this, Weaver says, is trade and the ease of global travel. “Airplanes don’t have to carry mosquitoes with them; they just need one person who’s been infected to introduce a disease to a new location.” Weaver and his colleagues are studying all of these factors to better understand what areas might be at risk for new disease outbreaks. They also want to understand which new diseases may become local threats. “There’s a lot of chance involved in when and where these diseases spread around the globe,” he says. “The focus of our work is understanding why outbreaks happen when they do.” On the surface, the numbers look alarming. Between 2004 and 2016, nine new diseases that are spread by mosquitoes and ticks were found in the U.S. The number of people exposed to these diseases is also rising. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a record number of tickborne-disease cases nationwide in 2017: almost 60,000. But new insect-borne diseases are still less frequent than some other better-known diseases. In comparison, experts estimate that over a million people get the flu every year in the U.S. Most people who catch a disease carried by mosquitoes or ticks fight off the invaders quickly. “A large proportion of people who are infected with mosquito-borne viruses don’t actually reach the clinic, because they don’t have any symptoms or their symptoms are mild,” LaBeaud says. It’s still important to know what new diseases are in your area. Many of these diseases have vague symptoms, such as fever, a rash, body aches, or feeling very tired. People and their doctors may not always suspect exposure to an insect-borne disease. Different new diseases tend to cluster in certain areas. Most cases of Lyme disease occur in the Northeast and upper Midwest. Dengue fever has been seen in warm areas such as Florida and Texas. “If people educate themselves about what’s a risk in their particular region, there’s a lot that they can do to protect themselves,” Weaver says. See the Wise Choices box for tips on how to avoid mosquito and tick bites. Your local public health office can give you information about what new diseases are found in your area. Depending on where you travel, you may come into contact with diseases that are rare in the U.S. Before you travel, talk to your doctor about getting vaccinated. It will help keep you safe and healthy. It will also help make sure that you don’t bring any serious diseases home to your family, friends, and community. NIH is funding research into vaccines for several emerging diseases. One study has already begun testing a vaccine for West Nile virus. NIH is also funding vaccine research for Zika and Ebola. For people worried about emerging diseases, Morens notes, one vaccine already exists. It’s the flu shot. “The flu is a continually emerging virus, because it’s always mutating,” he explains. And because the flu is always changing, people need a flu shot every year. The flu shot you get one year will not help protect you the next year. Although things like Zika grab the headlines, flu kills thousands of people in the U.S. each year—from 3,000 to 79,000 yearly over the past few decades. “In terms of emerging infectious diseases, it’s one of the major killers worldwide,” Morens says. “It’s not something to sneeze at, no pun intended.” | Carol Duff, MSN, BA, RN | https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/02/04/from-a-to-zika-understanding-emerging-diseases/ | 2019-02-04 23:56:45+00:00 | 1,549,342,605 | 1,567,549,634 | health | diseases and conditions |
142,181 | drudgereport--2019-01-20--Ebola in Congo moving toward major city | 2019-01-20T00:00:00 | drudgereport | Ebola in Congo moving toward major city... | At least 680 people have been infected with the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history, with 414 deaths so far, and the first Ebola outbreak in an active war zone, DRC’s eastern North Kivu and Ituri provinces. But it could get worse: Health officials this week are concerned that Ebola appears to be spreading in the direction of Goma, a major population center in DRC. Just this week, DRC’s health ministry confirmed four cases of the deadly virus in Kayina, a town in North Kivu, where fighting among rebel and militia groups has repeatedly interrupted the painstaking work of health workers who are responding to the outbreak. Kayina happens to be halfway between Butembo, currently one of the outbreak’s most worrisome hotspots, and Goma, where a million people live. So far, the outbreak has not affected DRC’s biggest cities. But Ebola in Kayina “raises the alarm” for Ebola reaching Goma, Peter Salama, the head of the new Health Emergencies Program at the World Health Organization, told Vox on Friday. Goma is a major transportation hub, with roads and highways that lead to Rwanda. “These are crossroad cities and market towns,” Salama added. People there are constantly on the move doing business, and also because of the insecurity in North Kivu. Ebola in Goma is a nightmare scenario WHO and DRC’s health ministry are scrambling to prevent. Together, they’ve deployed a rapid response team, including a vaccination team, to Kayina. And if the virus moves on to Goma, Salama says Ebola responders are ready. They’ve already mobilized teams there, set up a lab, and prepared health centers where sick people can be cared for in isolation. But as Ebola expert Laurie Garrett wrote in Foreign Policy this week, Ebola in Goma could also trigger a rare global public health emergency declaration by WHO, escalating the severity of an already dangerous outbreak. When Ebola strikes, it’s like the worst and most humiliating flu you could imagine. People get the sweats, along with body aches and pains. Then they start vomiting and having uncontrollable diarrhea. They experience dehydration. These symptoms can appear anywhere between two and 21 days after exposure to the virus. Sometimes patients go into shock. In rare cases, they bleed. The virus is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids, like vomit, urine, or blood, of someone who is already sick and has symptoms. The sicker people get, and the closer to the death, the more contagious they become. (That’s why caring for the very ill and attending funerals are especially dangerous.) Because we have no cure for Ebola, health workers use traditional public health measures: finding, treating, and isolating the sick, and breaking the chains of transmission so the virus stops spreading. They mount vigorous public health awareness campaigns to remind people to wash their hands; that touching and kissing friends and neighbors is a potential health risk; and that burial practices need to be modified to minimize the risk of Ebola spreading at funerals. They also employ a strategy called “contact tracing”: finding all the contacts of people who are sick, and following up with them for 21 days — the period during which Ebola incubates. In this outbreak, there’s also an additional tool: an effective experimental vaccine. Since the outbreak was declared in August, more than 61,000 people have been vaccinated. But while the vaccine has tempered Ebola’s spread, it hasn’t overcome the social and political chaos in DRC, which has been called the world’s most neglected crisis. “The brutality of the conflict is shocking,” Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, “the national and international neglect outrageous.” On December 30, after years of delays, voters went to the polls to elect a new president. In the days leading up to the election, tensions in North Kivu “ratcheted up,” Salama said. Protesters stormed Doctors Without Borders treatment centers in Beni, a recent outbreak hotspot, shutting them down for several days. In January, the country’s electoral commission announced interim election results suggesting opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi had likely won the election. But leaked data and external analyses show there are irregularities with the voter count that point toward election fraud. “All the outside observers — the African Union, the European Union, the Catholic Church — say the results of the election have been rigged,” and the people actually voted in Martin Fayalu for president, said Severine Autesserre, a political science professor at Barnard College, and author of the book The Trouble with the Congo. When the final results are announced in the coming days, more protests and riots are likely to follow. But though the political instability isn’t making the Ebola response any easier, the war in Congo’s eastern provinces is a far bigger challenge. The 25-year-long conflict has displaced more than a million people, and made the already dangerous work of an Ebola response even more deadly, Autesserre said. Between August and November, Beni had experienced more than 20 violent attacks, which put the outbreak response there on pause for days at a time. That meant cases had gone uncounted, and Ebola continued to spread. But there’s also some more encouraging news, according to Salama: The outbreak of more than 200 people in Beni, a North Kivu town marred by decades of violence, has been brought under control. “Many people would have been extremely skeptical that the outbreak in Beni could be controlled as quickly given force of infection we were seeing in November and December, and the fact that we’ve had nothing but volatility and insecurity since then,” Salama said. “But the fact that Beni has had only one confirmed case in two weeks is giving us a lot of hope and optimism.” As of Friday, the two biggest hotspots in the outbreak were Butembo, with 51 cases, and a neighboring city, Katwa, with 119 cases. But the outbreak is geographically dispersed. There are active Ebola cases in 12 of the country’s “health zones,” the districts around which the DRC’s health system is organized. Because of the insecurity and difficulty reaching people, only 30 to 40 percent are coming from known contact lists, Salama said. That means the virus might already be in places no one’s discovered yet. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/uYw2mmhqa9g/drc-ebola-outbreak | 2019-01-20 22:55:37+00:00 | 1,548,042,937 | 1,567,551,677 | health | diseases and conditions |
143,272 | drudgereport--2019-02-05--Fears deadliest ever Ebola will infect MILLIONS | 2019-02-05T00:00:00 | drudgereport | Fears 'deadliest ever' Ebola will infect MILLIONS... | The group of medics put their names to a letter in the Lancet yesterday calling for “high-level political, financial, and technical support to address the Ebola outbreak that started last May” in the Congo. The current outbreak – first declared just six months ago – is already the world’s second-biggest having killed nearly 1,000 since it began. And now there are fresh fears the epidemic is set to intensify amid warnings the spread is taking the disease closer to Goma city and has already arrived in the city of Butemba, which is home to millions of people. The United Nations has scrambled emergency medical teams in Goma to deal with a possibly devastating outbreak in the city, with 2,000 emergency workers stationed there ready to deal with patients. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/zbi8tahavUE/ebola-disease-congo-doctors-without-borders-outbreak-goma-kivu-butemba | 2019-02-05 15:40:37+00:00 | 1,549,399,237 | 1,567,549,603 | health | diseases and conditions |
146,002 | drudgereport--2019-04-03--Ebola outbreak spreading fast | 2019-04-03T00:00:00 | drudgereport | Ebola outbreak spreading fast... | GENEVA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak is spreading at its fastest rate yet, eight months after it was first detected, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. Each of the past two weeks has registered a record number of new cases, marking a sharp setback for efforts to respond to the second biggest outbreak ever, as militia violence and community resistance have impeded access to affected areas. Less than three weeks ago, the WHO said the outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever was largely contained and could be stopped by September, noting that weekly case numbers had halved from earlier in the year to about 25. But the number of cases hit a record 57 the following week, and then jumped to 72 last week, said WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier. Previous spikes of around 50 cases per week were documented in late January and mid-November. More alarmingly, more than half of the Ebola deaths last week occurred outside of treatment centers, according to Congo health ministry data, meaning there is a much greater chance they transmitted the virus to those around them. “People are becoming infected without access to response measures,” Lindmeier told Reuters. The current outbreak is believed to have killed 676 people and infected 406 others. Another 331 patients have recovered. In the past two months, five Ebola centers have been attacked, some by armed militiamen. That led French medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to suspend its activities in two of the most affected areas. Another challenge has been a mistrust of first responders. A survey conducted last September by medical journal The Lancet found that a quarter of people sampled in two Ebola hotspots did not believe the disease was real. Lindmeier said new approaches to community outreach were showing signs of progress and that some previously hostile local residents had recently agreed to grant health workers access. One treatment center that closed in February after being torched by unknown assailants reopened last week. More than 11,000 people died in West Africa’s 2013-16 Ebola outbreak. Since then, health authorities have worked to speed up their responses and deployed an experimental vaccine and treatments, both of which have been considered effective. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/_Fazh_lPDhA/us-health-ebola-congo-idUSKCN1RD2TV | 2019-04-03 00:34:37+00:00 | 1,554,266,077 | 1,567,544,246 | health | diseases and conditions |
147,535 | drudgereport--2019-04-30--HELL Record 26 Ebola deaths in DRCongo in single day | 2019-04-30T00:00:00 | drudgereport | HELL: Record 26 Ebola deaths in DRCongo in single day... | The DR Congo declared a tenth outbreak of Ebola in 40 years last August Twenty-six people died of Ebola in a single day in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, the highest daily toll since its outbreak nearly nine months ago, the health ministry said Tuesday. The current outbreak is the second deadliest on record, after the epidemic that struck West Africa in 2014-2016 and killed more than 11,300 people. The health ministry it had counted 957 deaths in the country, of which 891 were confirmed cases and 66 suspected ones. "There were 26 deaths from confirmed cases" on Sunday, April 28, in the northeastern North Kivu province, the ministry said in a statement. It said of the total deaths of 957, 33 were health workers who had succumbed to the disease. The DR Congo declared a tenth outbreak of Ebola in 40 years last August in North Kivu before the virus spread into the neighbouring Ituri region. The epicentre was first located in the rural area of Mangina, but then switched to the town of Beni. Local organisations say the number of Ebola deaths is rising. Adding to the logistical hitches are a string of assaults on teams fighting the disease. A Cameroonian doctor working for the World Health Organization (WHO), Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, was shot dead on April 19. "We will not be intimidated... we will finish our work," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a visit to Nord-Kivu on Monday. "Your security is our priority. We will do everything to protect you," he added. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/34blc1-Hd6U/20190430-record-26-ebola-deaths-drcongo-single-day | 2019-04-30 14:28:38+00:00 | 1,556,648,918 | 1,567,541,684 | health | diseases and conditions |
150,246 | drudgereport--2019-07-22--World at risk of Ebola plane plague spreading on flights | 2019-07-22T00:00:00 | drudgereport | World at risk of Ebola 'plane plague' spreading on flights... | EBOLA could be spread to anywhere in the world on a plane, after WHO declared the disease a global emergency. Ebola was declared a global emergency after the first fatal case was reported in a city of one million inhabitants. Citizens of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are living in fear after the deadly disease arrived on their doorstep. Government officials have urged world leaders to send aid as they combat the crisis. Olivia Ajira Kwinja, World Vision’s Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs Manager in the DRC, told Daily Star Online the disease needed to be tackled at a local level to stop it. But she also gave a terrifying warning about how far the disease could spread. She told us: "We are looking to stop this disease because we know what it can produce. "But there is always the chance of someone getting on a plane." Mortality rates for people contracting Ebola are 50%, making it one of the deadliest diseases in the world. The current outbreak has spread countries in Africa, but if an infected person were to get on a plane, it could even spread continents. Harvard health scholar Dr Ashish Jha previously told us the chance of Ebola moving continents increases as the disease gets worse in the DRC. He said: "While there’s an outbreak happening there’s always the chance the somebody could get on a plane and transmit the disease. "As the disease gets worse in the DRC, the greater the chance is of that happening. "It’s the same for the US, and that goes for China and India too. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/0GmGnLuJQxE/ebola-outbreak-plane-plague-spread-flights-WHO-global-emergency | 2019-07-22 11:01:39+00:00 | 1,563,807,699 | 1,567,536,187 | health | diseases and conditions |
150,481 | drudgereport--2019-07-28--Ebola outbreak unstoppable as victims refuse treatment fearing govt behind disease | 2019-07-28T00:00:00 | drudgereport | Ebola outbreak unstoppable as victims refuse treatment fearing govt 'behind disease'... | Ebola is sweeping through central Africa with the current outbreak becoming the second worst in history. Experts even believe it could equal or surpass the worst on record, where 11,323 people died from December 2013 to January 2016. WHO has called for the world’s superpowers to do more to help combat the disease, with 1,743 people killed. But an aid worker on the frontline told Daily Star Online more needs to be done to fight the disease at a local level in the Democratic Republic of Congo. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/u7bSa3zTqkk/ebola-outbreak-unstoppable-victims-refuse-treatment-government-conspiracy | 2019-07-28 19:22:37+00:00 | 1,564,356,157 | 1,567,535,569 | health | diseases and conditions |
153,057 | drudgereport--2019-10-31--Ebola outbreak feared in Bahamas as nation put on 'high alert'... | 2019-10-31T00:00:00 | drudgereport | Ebola outbreak feared in Bahamas as nation put on 'high alert'... | There are fears the deadly Ebola virus could make its way to the Bahamas after officials put the country on high alert. It comes after the island nation’s health department issued a “high alert” for the virus’s potential arrival in the form of international visitors. After the Bahamas endured Hurricane Dorian in September, doctors and support workers from abroad have flooded in to assist local teams. But, this has led the Bahamas Ministry of Health to keep a close watch on the visitors’ travel history, making sure to know whether they have been to places where Ebola is present. Minister of Health Dr Duane Sands told Eyewitness News: “We’ve been in a process of doing a number of sensitisation training sessions with customs, airport, immigration and health personnel. “If you have been in an area where there is an Ebola outbreak, such as central Africa, red flags go off. “When you combine (screening) with travel history, that’s when a person may be infectious.” He added: “But if they have a combination of symptoms and fever and travel history, then yes, we will act.” The fears stem from the current situation in central Africa where Ebola has devastated widespread areas. There have been a total of 3,268 Ebola cases recorded in Central African countries with the death rate being at 67%, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). It has led the organisation to classify the outbreak as a global emergency. Fears of a potential Ebola outbreak have even spread to nations such as Japan where a strain was imported in a bid to prevent cases from happening during next year’s Tokyo Olympics. The government is now looking at possible countermeasures in the event of an outbreak sparked by the massive tourist influx. They have imported Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, South American haemorrhagic fever, Marburg disease, and Lassa fever. It is the first time these deadly viral agents have been introduced into Japan. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/5bv0r9EdEcQ/ebola-outbreak-feared-bahamas-nation-20762175 | Thu, 31 Oct 2019 17:04:37 GMT | 1,572,555,877 | 1,572,542,253 | health | diseases and conditions |
157,658 | eveningstandard--2019-01-04--Ebola suspected in Sweden with man isolated over fears he has deadly virus | 2019-01-04T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | Ebola suspected in Sweden with man isolated over fears he has deadly virus | A man has been isolated in Sweden amid fears he has contracted the deadly Ebola virus. Officials stated the unnamed patient had been tested with results set to be available later on Friday. The news first came from Region Uppsala, which oversees several hospitals and medical clinics north of Stockholm. Its statement said it was so far "only a matter of suspicion," adding "other diseases are quite possible." The authorities said the hospital in Enkoping, where the patient was first admitted, had its emergency clinic shut down. This was before he was transferred to Sweden's Uppsala University Hospital. The hospital in Enkoping added the staff who treated the patient were "cared for". "The patient came in Friday morning and reportedly was vomiting blood which may be a symptom of Ebola infection," hospital spokesman Mikael Kohler told local newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning. He was not immediately available for further comment. The chief medical officer of the Uppsala University Hospital said the man and was exhibiting classic symptoms of haemorrhagic fever, including vomiting blood. The medical officer added that the man had recently been in Burundi, East Africa, for around three weeks. Symptoms of the highly contagious and often fatal virus can take up to three weeks to appear. There is no known Ebola outbreak in Burundi, however it borders the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been fighting an outbreak for almost six months. Ebola has killed 356 of the 585 people known to have been infected. The epidemic in a volatile part of Congo is the second worst ever, according to the World Health Organisation, while the largest outbreak was one in 2013-2016 in West Africa, where more than 28,000 cases were confirmed. The haemorrhagic fever's virus is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of those infected. | Jacob Jarvis | https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/ebola-suspected-at-swedish-hospital-with-patient-isolated-over-fears-they-have-deadly-virus-a4030691.html | 2019-01-04 13:20:00+00:00 | 1,546,626,000 | 1,567,553,919 | health | diseases and conditions |
180,891 | eveningstandard--2019-07-30--Ebola crisis Officials confirm second case in DR Congo border city of Goma | 2019-07-30T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | Ebola crisis: Officials confirm second case in DR Congo border city of Goma | Officials in DR Congo say a second Ebola case has been confirmed in the border city of Goma, raising fears that it could spread. The city of more than 2 million people, which sits on Congo's border with Rwanda, had its first confirmed case of the disease in this year-long outbreak reported earlier this month. Local Ebola response co-ordinator Jean-Jacques Muyembe told reporters that there appeared to be no link between the man's case and the previous one in Goma. The patient arrived on July 13 from a mining area in northeastern Congo's Ituri province and started showing symptoms on July 22. He is now isolated at an Ebola treatment centre. Ebola is affecting two provinces of Congo - North Kivu and Ituri. Goma is the capital of North Kivu and lies just across the border from the Rwandan city of Gisenyi. It also has an international airport. For months health officials had feared that an Ebola case would be confirmed there. Days after the first Goma case was announced, the World Health Organisation declared the Ebola outbreak a rare global emergency. This has become the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, with more than 1,700 people killed since August 2018, despite the widespread use of an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine. Containing the outbreak faces unprecedented challenges amid attacks by rebel groups and resistance by wary community residents in a region of Congo that had never experienced an Ebola outbreak before. Mr Muyembe and other officials have sought to reassure both Goma residents and neighbouring countries that measures were being taken to strengthen surveillance for Ebola at border posts and elsewhere. The declaration of a global health emergency - the fifth in history - brought a surge of millions of dollars in new pledges by international donors but some health workers say a new approach is needed to combat misunderstandings in the community. Far too many people in this outbreak are still dying at home, they say. | Stephanie Cockroft | https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/ebola-crisis-second-case-confirmed-in-dr-congo-border-city-of-goma-officials-say-a4201856.html | 2019-07-30 19:41:00+00:00 | 1,564,530,060 | 1,567,535,320 | health | diseases and conditions |
201,695 | fortune--2019-02-04--DR Congos Ebola Virus Outbreak Is Six Months Old and Spreading Heres Why | 2019-02-04T00:00:00 | fortune | DR Congo’s Ebola Virus Outbreak Is Six Months Old and Spreading. Here’s Why | The ongoing outbreak of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo was declared six months ago, and it remains one of the most challenging public health crises in the world right now. Ebola, which is named for the river in the DR Congo where it was first observed in 1976, is an infectious virus spread through contact with bodily fluid. The current Ebola epidemic is the 10th ever in the Congo and the worst the country has ever experienced. This Ebola outbreak is also the second worst in world history, following the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa that killed more than 11,000 people. More than 460 deaths have been reported in the current outbreak, and there are more than 700 reported cases confirmed so far, which puts the mortality rate well over 50%. In December, the outbreak reached Butembo, a city of over a million near the Ugandan border, and it is currently headed toward Goma, another major million-resident city that shares a busy border with Rwanda. While use of an experimental vaccine has made some health workers optimistic about treating this outbreak, one reason the epidemic continues is misinformation that spreads among Congolese citizens wary of outsiders, according to the Associated Press. Another reason? Armed militias that target Congolese civilians and foreign aid workers make it difficult, if not impossible, for response teams to reach and work in the nation’s most rural areas, a serious issue since the beginning of this current outbreak. Working to combat misinformation and make patients comfortable is a topic about which health officials continue to work to inform the public. In an impassioned op-ed in the New York Times in January, Doctors Without Borders field director Karin Huster wrote that treatments only work if people are unafraid to seek them out and trust public health professionals. “While promising vaccines and experimental treatments are rapidly being added to our arsenal, this technology is not a panacea,” Huster wrote, explaining that one strategy in combatting the ongoing epidemic is decidedly low-tech: relying on Ebola survivors to spend time with Ebola patients. Doctors and nurses suited up in protective gear simply seem less reassuring, and encouraging personalized contact with fellow community members is one way triage teams can build trust with patients. | Brittany Shoot | http://fortune.com/2019/02/04/ebola-outbreak-dr-congo-africa-virus-vaccine/ | 2019-02-04 23:28:45+00:00 | 1,549,340,925 | 1,567,549,674 | health | diseases and conditions |
216,343 | france24--2019-07-30--Second Ebola case detected in DR Congos Goma | 2019-07-30T00:00:00 | france24 | Second Ebola case detected in DR Congo's Goma | Olivia Acland, REUTERS | A Congolese health worker administers an Ebola vaccine to a man at the Himbi Health Centre in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on July 17, 2019. A second case of Ebola was detected on Tuesday in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, a local health official said, increasing concern the virus could establish a foothold in the densely populated area close to the Rwandan border. Goma's first Ebola case was detected in mid-July, prompting the World Health Organisation (WHO) to warn that the spread of the disease could accelerate. The epidemic has killed more than 1,700 people since it was declared almost a year ago, becoming the second-worst outbreak on record. The latest person with the disease started developing symptoms on July 22, after arriving from a mining area outside the city, the health official quoted the head of Congo's Ebola response team, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, as saying in an official statement. Health officials believe the patient, a man, is not connected to the first case in Goma. "The response teams continue to work to decontaminate the home of the case and the high-risk contacts of the case have been identified and will be vaccinated from tomorrow," Muyembe said. He said, unlike the first case, the latest patient will be able to receive appropriate treatment in Goma as a facility has been opened in the city, which is more than 350 kilometres (220 miles) south of where the outbreak was first detected. Goma has been preparing for Ebola to arrive in the city for a year, setting up hand-washing stations and making sure moto-taxi drivers do not share helmets. | NEWS WIRES | https://www.france24.com/en/20190730-second-ebola-case-detected-congo-goma | 2019-07-30 20:21:58+00:00 | 1,564,532,518 | 1,567,535,386 | health | diseases and conditions |
216,528 | france24--2019-08-13--Two new drugs offer hope against Ebola in DR Congo | 2019-08-13T00:00:00 | france24 | Two new drugs offer hope against Ebola in DR Congo | Two experimental Ebola drugs being tested in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a yearlong outbreak has killed more than 1,800 people, have succeeded in raising the survival rate to around 90%, health authorities said Monday. Scientists are a step closer to finding the first effective treatments for the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever after two potential drugs showed survival rate of as much as 90% in a clinical trial in Congo. Two experimental drugs - Regeneron’s REGN-EB3 and a monoclonal antibody called mAb114 - were both developed using antibodies harvested from survivors of Ebola infection. The treatments are now going to be offered to all patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. They showed “clearly better” results in patients in a trial of four potential treatments being conducted during the world’s second largest Ebola outbreak in history, now entering its second year in DRC. The drugs improved survival rates from the disease more than two other treatments being tested - ZMapp, made by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, and Remdesivir, made by Gilead Sciences - and those products will be now dropped, said Anthony Fauci, one of the researchers co-leading the trial. The agency said 49% of the patients on ZMapp and 53% on remdesivir died in the study. In comparison, 29% of the patients on REGN-EB3 and 34% on mAb-114 died. Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters in a telebriefing the results were “very good news” for the fight against Ebola. “What this means is that we do now have what look like (two) treatments for a disease for which not long ago we really had no approach at all,” he said. The agency said of the patients who were brought into treatment centres with low levels of virus detected in their blood, 94% who got REGN-EB3 and 89% on mAb114 survived. In comparison, two-third of the patients who got remdesivir and nearly three-fourth on ZMapp survived. Ebola has been spreading in eastern Congo since August 2018 in an outbreak that has now become the second largest, killing at least 1,800 people. Efforts to control it have been hampered by militia violence and some local resistance to outside help. A vast Ebola outbreak in West Africa become the world’s largest ever when it spread through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from 2013 to 2016 and killed more than 11,300 people. The Congo treatment trial, which began in November last year, is being carried out by an international research group coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s emergencies program, said the trial’s positive findings were encouraging but would not be enough on their own to bring the epidemic to an end. “The news today is fantastic. It gives us a new tool in our toolbox against Ebola, but it will not in itself stop Ebola,” he told reporters. Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity, also hailed the success of the trial’s findings, saying they would “undoubtedly save lives”. “The more we learn about these two treatments, ...the closer we can get to turning Ebola from a terrifying disease to one that is preventable and treatable,” he said in a statement. “We won’t ever get rid of Ebola but we should be able to stop these outbreaks from turning into major national and regional epidemics.” Some 681 patients at four separate treatment centres in Congo have already been enrolled in the Congo treatment clinical trial, Fauci said. The study aims to enrol a total of 725. The decision to drop two of the trial drugs was based on data from almost 500 patients, he said, which showed that those who got REGN-EB3 or mAb114 “had a greater chance of survival compared to those participants in the other two arms”. | NEWS WIRES | https://www.france24.com/en/20190813-two-ebola-drugs-treatment-vaccine-dr-congo-90-percent-survival | 2019-08-13 05:50:03+00:00 | 1,565,689,803 | 1,567,534,305 | health | diseases and conditions |
229,296 | globalresearch--2019-05-07--The Current Ebola Epidemic in Eastern Congo Humanitarian Crisis | 2019-05-07T00:00:00 | globalresearch | The Current Ebola Epidemic in Eastern Congo. Humanitarian Crisis | With over a billion dollars pledged so far to rebuild Notre Dame de Paris, another monument to what Western civilization has accomplished enacts a daily tragedy before the forests and villagers trying to stay alive in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Still ignored in the Euro-American press is a current Ebola epidemic in particularly Kivu province 1 : the second largest outbreak of Ebola on record and the first where medical care givers are being attacked. Previously Ebola was difficult to contain without quarantine and research into the ill person’s contacts. Currently the disease is being attacked by large scale vaccination programs relying on U.S. pharmaceuticals. But the vaccination and treatment programs are disrupted in Eastern Congo due to multiple conflicts forcing a hundred thousand people this April alone, into flight, some taking refuge across borders with other countries. While not declared a global emergency by the UN World Health Organization, the potential is there. A report by the High Commissioner for Refugees notes its work in the RDC is hampered by lack of funding with 47 million USD allocated but only 6.2 million USD received in contributions. 2 Rececently Dr. Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, head of the Ebola team in Butembo, a Camerounais working for WHO, was attacked and killed at a medical conference; two of his staff were wounded. The killers’ motivation is unknown. Some local groups say that Ebola doesn’t exist and its threat is used as a means of control, or money raising. 3 Others say Ebola was brought to the region by white people. Marburg disease which is a kind of hemorrhagic fever much like Ebola and 88% fatal first appeared in 1967 in a laboratory in Marburg Germany, and like Ebola is considered a biological warfare agent (a note). The Ebola virus (Zaire ebolavirus) first identified in Zaire in 2010 may be a strain of the Marburg virus. The area where Ebola is proliferating has been contested with arms for several decades due to its natural resources sought by Rwandan, Euro-American and Asian markets. Buyers of desired metals are often forced to buy from the militias which control various mines or access to mines even when these are registered with the government. The DRC government army does not control the region. Regional militias represent breakaway units of the government’s army, Rwandan forces, Hutu refugee forces, Tutsi Congolese among other distinct Congolese tribes. The United Nations has peacekeeping troops committed to the region which regularly take casualties. The recent murder of Dr. Mouzoko is one of 119 attacks so far this year on medical personnel attempting to counter the epidemic, most often under the auspices of the World Health Organization. In researching the causes of the murders press accounts are not helpful. Eleven men were recently arrested in response to the killing of Dr. Mouzoko, but no mention of their motives or allegiances is given. Logic suggests the killers of medical personnel serve the interests of the Ebola epidemic itself, causing panic flight and spread of the disease which could cause widespread death. 33 medical workers have died from contracting the disease. There is some chance that medical personnel are being killed tactically in a biological war effort to depopulate the region of its inhabitants. But that would be an extreme tactic to accomplish more quickly what continues under corrupt policies the government and corporation boards have furthered for years. While depopulation would deprive mining enterprises of local workers it would favor technologically advanced companies using modern mining equipment. International corporations in the area (whether they are mining with license from the government or without), are involved in acts of plunder, taking what belongs to the region’s people without bettering their lives. It is a monstrous ongoing crime dating in the Congo back to the days of King Leopold. Over a thousand verified Ebola deaths have been counted so far. Massive vaccination by a Merck produced drug are apparently effective. WHO is expecting new pharmaceuticals from Johnson & Johnson which await federal approval. 4 There is no suggestion in the press that U.S. corporate vaccine products are supplied at cost. The UN’s emergency management plan for the epidemic is operational but requires 71.5 million USD. 5 Questioning a Euro-American media which has proven so faithful to the state in its propaganda against Venezuela, is not likely to provide answers. Media silence on Eastern Congo supports fears of illegal operations waged to the interests of major western corporations. Aside from pharmaceutical companies, according to Global Witness in 2009, the principle corporate buyers of minerals in the region were: “Bangkok-based THAISARCO (a subsidiary of British metals group AMC), UK-based Afrimex, and Belgium-based Trademet” (“Global Witness uncovers foreign companies’ links to Congo violence,” July 21, 2009). 6 Since informative reports in 2008 and 2009 by Keith Harmon Snow 7, Global Witness 8 and Roger Miller 9, updated reports of corporate involvement are not easily available. The current political situation in the Congo doesn’t offer much hope of the government addressing the emergency. While Kabila promised to step down and hold elections which he did after some delay, the power of the country may have remained his. An article by Kambale Musavuli of Friends of the Congo reports that former President Kabila’s party won 342 of the Parliament’s 500 seats in the election, and controls 22 of the 26 provinces, 91 of 108 senate seats with a similar percentage of governors; the Congo’s “elected” president Félix Tshisekedi, is considered installed as a Kabila compliant president while the Catholic Church Observer Mission found that Martin Fayulu won the election. 10 In sum the change in Presidency isn’t likely to change the policies of the state as allied with corporate needs, which have allowed the conflicts and mining practices in the East Congo for many years.11. An ongoing genocide warning for the peoples of the Eastern Congo continues. Background. 12 13. Night’s Lantern first noted a genocide warning for peoples of the Eastern Congo, among others affected by resource theft in 2004, followed by others. Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. This article was originally published on nightslantern.ca. 1 “Ebola virus disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo: Disease outbreak news. Update,” WHO, May 2, 2019, World Health Organization. 3 “The Doctor Killed In Friday’s Ebola Attack Was Dedicated — But Also Afraid,” Nurith Aizenman, April 23, 2019, npr: Goats and Soda. 4 “Congo Ebola deaths surpass 1,000 as attacks on treatment centers go on,” May 3, 2019, Health News. 5 “RD Congo – Sud-Kivu et Maniema : Plan Opérationnel d’Urgence (Janvier – Juin 2019),” UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, April 10, 2019, reliefweb. 6 “Faced with a Gun What Can You Do? War and the Militarisation of Mining in Eastern Congo,” Global Witness 2009; “Global Witness uncovers foreign companies’ links to Congo violence,” Press release, July 21, 2009, Global Witness. 9 “How British Corporations are Fuelling War in the Congo,” Robert Miller, Nov. 10, 2009, www.zcommunications.org/. 11 “Crisis in the Congo: uncovering the truth,” Friends of the Congo. Jan 19, 2011, [access:< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLV9szEu9Ag >. 12 “Civil War in The Congo: Template for Neo-Colonialism,” J.B.Gerald, Dec. 4, 2012, Global Research. 13 “North Kivu: the background to conflict in North Kivu Province of Eastern congo,” Jacob Stearns, U.K.: Rift Valley Institute, 2012. | J. B. Gerald | https://www.globalresearch.ca/ebola-resources-eastern-congo/5676768 | 2019-05-07 11:20:41+00:00 | 1,557,242,441 | 1,567,540,952 | health | diseases and conditions |
277,538 | jerusalempost--2019-11-22--WHO sounds alarm on Ebola due to Congo insecurity | 2019-11-22T00:00:00 | jerusalempost | WHO sounds alarm on Ebola due to Congo insecurity | By subscribing I accept the terms of use | By REUTERS | https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/WHO-sounds-alarm-on-Ebola-due-to-Congo-insecurity-608713 | Fri, 22 Nov 2019 16:22:19 GMT | 1,574,457,739 | 1,574,471,561 | health | diseases and conditions |
278,271 | jerusalempost--2019-12-20--US FDA approves Ebola vaccine for the first time | 2019-12-20T00:00:00 | jerusalempost | US FDA approves Ebola vaccine for the first time | The vaccine was used by the World Health Organization and Democratic Republic of the Congo as an investigational vaccine to help reduce Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreaks in few West African countries from 2014 to 2016. The Ebola virus, which causes haemorrhagic fever and spreads from person to person through direct contact with body fluids, has killed more than 2,100 people in Congo since the middle of the year, making it the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history. The vaccine, which is administered as a single-dose injection, will help to prevent EVD caused by Zaire ebolavirus in patients aged 18 years and older, the regulator said in a statement. Merck welcomed the FDA's decision, describing it as an important milestone in the fight against the deadly virus. | By REUTERS | https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/US-FDA-approves-Ebola-vaccine-for-the-first-time-611551 | Fri, 20 Dec 2019 03:35:41 GMT | 1,576,830,941 | 1,576,816,948 | health | diseases and conditions |
286,852 | lewrockwell--2019-07-23--Ebola Declared an International Emergency | 2019-07-23T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | Ebola Declared an International Emergency | If you haven’t heard by now, the World Health Organization has declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo an international emergency. Despite this, experts STILL recommend keeping the borders open to the DRC. After 3 previous meetings in which WHO was reluctant to provide this designation to the crisis, the tipping point was a case of Ebola in Goma, a city of over one million people that is right on the border of Rwanda. Goma is a major transport hub, and as such, should Ebola take a foothold there, it’s entirely likely we could see it spread to the furthest corners of the earth. Here’s how some of the far-flung cases have spread. The patient in the case in Goma was a pastor, and he has passed away from the disease. Having died (and been contagious) in such a densely populated urban area, there are fears that others may have contracted the disease from him. Alton’s Antibiot... Joseph Alton MD, Amy A... Best Price: $51.20 Buy New $25.21 (as of 04:41 EDT - Details) The people who traveled on the bus with the ailing pastor were all identified and given an experimental vaccine (which thus far has been very effective.) Then, according to the Health Ministry, workers followed up with the pastor’s contacts off the bus, as well as the contacts of his fellow passengers. In another case, the disease appeared in Uganda. A Congolese woman traveled to Uganda to purchase fish on July 11. She went back to DRC, where she perished of Ebola on July 15. Despite this, the WHO is still not clamping down on border security. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, still wants surrounding countries to keep their borders open to DRC. So why did they even call an international emergency? Experts hope that declaring an international health emergency will bring more attention to the outbreak which, up to now, has largely been ignored by the global community. The UK and United States governments have been generous – the UK has given £37.7m and has pledged a further £50m – but international development secretary Rory Stewart earlier this week urged “dear friends” in the G7 group of richest nations to step up and do more. The WHO has less than half the $98.4m it required for the period February to July, receiving just $43.6m. Dr. Tedros said that the organisation was finalising its budget for tackling the outbreak beyond this month which would probably run into hundreds of millions of dollars. (source) They’re going to need more than money to contain this outbreak. It’s occurring in the midst of a violent war and healthcare workers are dealing with people who are afraid of them. Locals don’t trust the influx of foreign doctors and nurses and are suspicious of their treatments. Here’s why we don’t need to worry…YET. When I say we don’t need to worry yet, please keep in mind that this could change in the course of one day. I’m sure you remember the frenzy back in 2014 when Thomas Duncan of Liberia was diagnosed with Ebola in Texas. That whole situation was a horrifying comedy of errors – if you like your comedy dark and threatening anyway. If you recall, the fact that it didn’t become widespread in the US during the 2014 scare was NOT because it was handled properly. It was sheer luck. source When American Patient Zero, Thomas Duncan, first showed up in a Texas emergency room, he wasn’t tested, despite the fact that he told them he was from Ebola-stricken Liberia. Proper practices were not followed, and one of the nurses who cared for him became the second victim. All sorts of near misses occurred, like the fact that the plane that carried an Ebola patient made FIVE trips before it was sanitized. That sounds like the plot of a cringe-y movie, where you watch the sneeze spray of an infected person in slow motion landing on everyone nearby. But that wasn’t the only mind-boggling thing that happened. But that wasn’t the only mind-boggling thing that happened. We brought some exposed people back to the US and put them in hotels. A couple of days ago an American healthcare worker who had been definitively diagnosed with Ebola was brought back to the US for treatment at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Eleven more patients have been isolated and are on their way to the United States as well, after having had “potential exposure” to the disease. Now, about those people who were “potentially exposed”? They aren’t being hospitalized. Oh no. They are being brought back to stay at hotels “near” three different hospitals in different regions of the country. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. (source) So, I think we can all agree, looking to the National Institute of Health, the CDC, and the WHO to keep us “safe” is not the best fall-back plan. We have to be prepared to take action ourselves. But you still need to pay attention. While we don’t need to panic, there are many reasons we definitely need to pay attention and perhaps begin to lay in some supplies just in case we have an outbreak in the United States. Knowledge is power, so also pick up this incredibly well-written book about preparing for pandemics. Be Ready for Anything:... Daisy Luther Best Price: $11.75 Buy New $9.49 (as of 11:10 EDT - Details) The most effective method for protecting yourself and your family in the case of Ebola is to go into lockdown – also known as social isolation. I have a chapter about surviving pandemics in my newest book, Be Ready for Anything. The last time Ebola was a threat, I provided a list that readers complained was perpetually sold out. I updated that list day and night with products that were in stock. The point is, don’t wait until it’s already here and everybody else is panicking before you go and get your supplies. Is Ebola going to make it back to the US? In DRC, Ebola has a death rate of 2/3. Not great odds. It’s likely that if it struck the US the death rate wouldn’t be quite as bad, but hemorrhagic diseases like this are deadly in many, many cases. Will it reach our shores again? It’s certainly not a long shot, what with global travel and asylum seekers from all over the world at our Southern border. But without a crystal ball, any projection I make is just a guess. What you should know is that it’s possible, it’s probably more likely than being wiped out by a giant meteor, and you should prepare for it. Just in case. Reprinted with permission from The Organic Prepper. The Best of Daisy Luther | Daisy Luther | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/07/daisy-luther/719438-2/ | 2019-07-23 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,563,868,860 | 1,567,536,110 | health | diseases and conditions |
318,500 | motherjones--2019-06-25--As Ebola Deaths Mount in Africa Trump Is Screwing Up the Response | 2019-06-25T00:00:00 | motherjones | As Ebola Deaths Mount in Africa, Trump Is Screwing Up the Response | Near-war with Iran, children being held at the US-Mexico border in horrific conditions, a credible rape accusation levied at Donald Trump—the news has been overwhelming in recent days. But there is another nightmare brewing that has been largely overlooked yet deserves serious attention and fast action: Ebola. The killer disease is again on the rampage in Africa. The number of confirmed Ebola deaths over the past 10 months in the eastern region of Congo has topped 1,500, and the outbreak has spread into Uganda, which earlier this month reported the country’s first Ebola deaths of this epidemic. This is a far cry from the 11,300 deaths that occurred in 2014 and 2015, but the current eruption is the second-worst flare-up, and it’s heading from rural areas toward a major city and refugee camps. So what is President Donald Trump doing about this? Not much. And that’s especially unfortunate because there are several obvious actions his administration could mount to arrest this epidemic before the ongoing tragedy becomes a catastrophe. Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton, a year ago signaled they didn’t consider epidemics a national security priority when they bounced Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer from his post as head of global health security on the White House’s National Security Council and eliminated the position. This news was announced one day after the World Health Organization declared an Ebola outbreak in Congo. The well-regarded Ziemer moved over to the US Agency for International Development, becoming an assistant administrator overseeing humanitarian assistance, but as Ronald Klain, the Ebola czar for President Barack Obama during the 2014-15 episode, notes, it is essential that a senior official in the Trump administration with full White House authority coordinate the various agencies involved—the State Department, USAID, the Centers for Disease Control, the Pentagon, and others—to have an effective response. Now no one holds such a position. Three months ago, Klain wrote an op-ed lamenting that “most Americans seem unaware or unconcerned” about the second-worst outbreak of Ebola. Klain is a veteran of Democratic administrations and no fan of Trump—who in 2014 complained that Obama was spending more time on climate change than Ebola and demanded that the US government block Ebola-infected health workers from entering the United States—but Klain acknowledged “that much of [the Trump administration’s] Ebola response so far has been responsible.” At that point, key US officials had visited the region, and the administration had contributed millions of dollars to the response and announced it would be sending a team of experts to Congo, although only to a location 200 miles from the center of the epidemic. Now Klain tells Mother Jones he believes that Trump is no longer responding responsibly and that the president is not doing what is necessary to battle this Ebola outburst. Klain maintains that the Trump White House ought to reverse its decision prohibiting the CDC and USAID from operating in the area of Congo where the disease is raging: “We have people in Congo—not many—but even those people have been banned from being on the front lines. It’s not without some rationale; it’s dangerous: armed groups roam, and the risk of kidnapping is real.” In fact, in the city of Beni, a group of people days ago attacked an Ebola response team that was trying to safely dispose of the bodies of two Ebola victims. But Klain points out that since the 2017 ambush in Niger that killed four American soldiers, “the basic Trump administration rule has been zero risk to US personnel. Hence, the very best disease responders in the world (US CDC personnel) and the very best development assistance teams (USAID Disaster Assistance Response Teams) are in Congo but not near where they are needed. These people want to go into the danger zone, but they are being stopped by a White House decision.” Then there is the question of money. Last week, the World Health Organization said that it needs $98 million to support its counter-Ebola efforts in Congo. And it only has $44 million for the mission. “The funding shortfall is immediate and critical: if the funds are not received, WHO will be unable to sustain the response at the current scale,” the group stated, noting, “The response risks being driven by decisions related to financial capacity rather than operational needs.” Meanwhile, health workers in Uganda are saying they are ill-equipped to handle a spread of the epidemic to their country. The Associated Press recently described a grim scene in Bwera, Uganda, which is on the border of Congo: “The isolation ward for Ebola patients is a tent erected in the garden of the local hospital. Gloves are given out sparingly to health workers. And when the second person in this Uganda border town died after the virus outbreak spread from neighboring Congo, the hospital for several hours couldn’t find a vehicle to take away the body. ‘We don’t really have an isolation ward,’ the Bwera Hospital’s administrator, Pedson Buthalha, told The Associated Press. ‘It’s just a tent. To be honest, we can’t accommodate more than five people.’” If the Trump administration is not going to allow American response teams into the hot-spot areas, it could send more money and supplies to the WHO and other responders. Hell, if Trump is worth as much as he claims, he could cut a check himself to cover the WHO’s current need. (Trump’s golf trips have cost the American taxpayer more than $100 million—about twice what the WHO requires—in security and travel and security expenses.) Another money issue hangs over the Ebola outbreak. Due to political tumult and corruption in Congo, the United States has frozen most of its $200 million or so in foreign assistance for the country. This is understandable, Klain notes. But he points out: “The problem the Ebola responders are facing is community resistance to the response: People don’t believe Ebola is real, they think it’s a government conspiracy, it’s not their No. 1 health concern. Every expert says that what you should do is build health clinics to treat all sorts of ailments and win community support. That helps facilitate the Ebola response. But the administration has banned the release of assistance to build these clinics because they are not—directly—emergency response. This needs to change.” As alarming as this new outbreak is, the situation could quickly turn much more dangerous. To date, this volley of Ebola has struck rural areas. But it is slowly edging toward the city of Goma, with a population of 1 million. And Goma is close to massive refugee camps in South Sudan. If it reaches these locations, Klain remarks, “we are screwed. We had 300,000 vaccine doses when this started. We’ve used 120,000. That will help as long as the disease remains rural. But if it hits a city of 1 million?” The solution: Have vaccines ready. An experimental vaccine issued last year has been found to be 97.5 percent effective, according to data released by WHO. As of April, this vaccine had been given to over 90,000 people, including nearly 30,000 health care workers and other responders—and only 71 developed Ebola. It’s manufactured by Merck & Co. “So what should be done?” Klain asks. “Merck is not going to make 1 million doses if they don’t know that there is a buyer. So the US government should place an order for 1 million doses, and pay for them, and put them in storage. If they are needed in Congo/Uganda/Sudan, we ‘sell’ them to the global vaccine alliance (which gives the shots in Congo). But if we don’t send (what the pros call) the ‘demand signal,’ the vaccine doesn’t get made—and certainly not in time.” With the advent of the vaccine, Ebola may seem a less frightening disease to people distant from the outbreak. And this latest epidemic has still not captured Americans’ notice like the previous one did—as today’s attention spans are overwhelmed by the crises, chaos, absurdities, and tweets of the Trump era. But there is a calamity under way in Africa. Hundreds have perished in agony. More deaths will come. And the threat could widen. What makes this story all the sadder is that simple actions Trump and his administration could implement to prevent more and much greater harm are going untaken. | David Corn | https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/as-ebola-deaths-mount-in-africa-trump-is-screwing-up-the-response/ | 2019-06-25 18:57:36+00:00 | 1,561,503,456 | 1,567,538,127 | health | diseases and conditions |
335,848 | naturalnews--2019-05-05--Congo Ebola outbreak exploding right on schedule hospital workers flee | 2019-05-05T00:00:00 | naturalnews | Congo Ebola outbreak exploding, right on schedule... hospital workers flee | (Natural News) Ebola is overtaking the Democratic Republic of Congo, a nation that is also currently being ravaged by war and unrest. Some 100 militias control the area around Butembo, a city in the nation’s eastern region. Butembo is the epicenter of Congo’s Ebola outbreak, but it is also home to other dangers — especially for healthcare workers. As Economist notes, locals are known for being wary of health workers and distrusting them. Locals have even gone so far as to attack and kill medical staff. But perhaps there is a reason for that. Ebola has been presented to us as a disease, but many experts have cautioned that this “virus” could actually be a weapon. There have already been reports of terrorist organizations attempting to use Ebola as a weapon — it is not hard to believe the United States government conspired to do the same. Some experts have spoken out about the U.S. government’s secret “biological warfare research” in African countries that also just so happen to be Ebola hot spots, with some even suggesting that our own military is testing weaponized viruses on innocent people. While such theories are often lambasted as “conspiracy theories,” it isn’t really that hard to believe. The U.S. government has been testing biowarfare weapons on American citizens for decades — surely they have no qualms about doing it to anyone else. If you follow the mainstream media, you’ve probably heard that Ebola comes from tainted bushmeat in West Africa. But what most of the media won’t say is that until 2013, Ebola had never been seen in West Africa. A two-year-old boy in the remote village of Meliandou, Guinea was the first case. Scientists have never determined how he contracted it or where it came from. Mother Nature's micronutrient secret: Organic Broccoli Sprout Capsules now available, delivering 280mg of high-density nutrition, including the extraordinary "sulforaphane" and "glucosinolate" nutrients found only in cruciferous healing foods. Every lot laboratory tested. See availability here. What they do know is that Ebola somehow managed to travel 3,5000 kilometers across the African continent, and infect that little boy’s community — apparently, without infecting anyone else along the way. Francis Boyle, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, has posited that the appearance of the virus in West Africa was no accident. In an interview with SIA Novosti, he said, “U.S. government agencies have a long history of carrying out allegedly defensive biological warfare research at labs in Liberia and Sierra Leone. This includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is now the point agency for managing the Ebola spill-over into the U.S.” He added: “Why has the Obama administration dispatched troops to Liberia when they have no training to provide medical treatment to dying Africans? How did Zaire/Ebola get to West Africa from about 3,500km away from where it was first identified in 1976?” The U.S. government’s patent on any and all forms of Ebola is also pretty suspicious. As Mike Adams, founder of Natural News and Brighteon.com, reports, the CDC was awarded a patent on the Ebola virus in 2010 — three years before Ebola “suddenly” appeared in West Africa. Adams reports that the patent gives the government agency “ownership over all variants of Ebola which share 70% or more of the protein sequences described in the patent,” as well as “ownership over any and all Ebola viruses which are ‘weakened’ or ‘killed.'” You can view the patent here. Some experts have also posited that Ebola was originally developed for the Department of Defense as a bioweapon, and that it has been released in Africa for testing purposes. Journalist Jon Rappaport has also sounded the alarm on bioweapons testing in Africa. We already know that the U.S. government is not above testing weapons and technology on unsuspecting innocents. Whether they’re doing it for profit, for defense purposes or purely for their own entertainment — who knows. But if one thing’s for certain, it’s that there’s more to the Ebola outbreak than meets the eye. See more coverage of Ebola at Outbreak.news. | Vicki Batts | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-05-05-congo-ebola-outbreak-exploding-hospital-workers.html | 2019-05-05 11:13:38+00:00 | 1,557,069,218 | 1,567,541,116 | health | diseases and conditions |
336,168 | naturalnews--2019-06-19--The incubation period lie about Ebola and why America is vulnerable to an Ebola outbreak from inf | 2019-06-19T00:00:00 | naturalnews | The "incubation period" lie about Ebola, and why America is vulnerable to an Ebola outbreak from infected migrants | (Natural News) It’s a huge, dangerous lie. City officials in San Antonio, Texas, are claiming that no migrants from the Ebola-infected Republic of Congo could possibly be carrying Ebola into the United States because “Ebola has a 21-day incubation period,” they say. And the migrants have been walking for more than 21 days. Therefore, they cannot possibly have Ebola. The “officials” saying this are either grossly incompetent or deliberately lying. (By the way, it also begs the question of how migrants from Africa “walked” to the U.S. / Mexico border. Can they walk on water?) For starters, Ebola’s incubation period only averages 21 days. It can be 40+ days in some people, and that’s according to the World Health Organization. As previously reported by Natural News: • 95% of Ebola incubations occur from 1 – 21 days • 3% of Ebola incubations occur from 1 – 42 days • 2% of Ebola incubations are not explained Furthermore, migrants from the Republic of Congo could have been infected by other carriers who perished before reaching the U.S. border. Infected migrants could enter the USA on, for example, day 10 of their own incubation period. Or day 30. By the time they begin to explode with symptoms, they will have already been transported by bus to any one of dozens of U.S. cities that are currently receiving these migrants. Surely medical personnel aren’t so stupid that they don’t understand the basics of infectious disease, symptomless carriers and incubation times. Surely doctors must know that magically declaring “zero risk” among people who come from a region of the world that’s known for producing symptomless carriers of Ebola isn’t a valid conclusion. Yet they draw these conclusions nonetheless, putting all of America at risk in order to appease the open borders pushers who seem to want America to be overrun with illegal immigrants. Watch my short explanation video to learn more: See more breaking news videos at Brighteon.com, the free speech alternative to YouTube. Read more news about migrants being bused across America at Migrants.news. | Mike Adams | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-06-19-the-incubation-period-lie-about-ebola.html | 2019-06-19 12:31:36+00:00 | 1,560,961,896 | 1,567,538,725 | health | diseases and conditions |
336,344 | naturalnews--2019-07-02--Can you prepare for an Ebola outbreak | 2019-07-02T00:00:00 | naturalnews | Can you prepare for an Ebola outbreak? | (Natural News) In 2014, the Ebola outbreak occurred in West Africa where 11,000 people died. Although it was contained for a few years, it has re-emerged in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Ebola virus causes severe hemorrhagic fever with up to a 90 percent death rate. An infected person will show symptoms within two to 21 days. Its symptoms start out like the flu, with cough, sore throat, fever, aches and pains, diarrhea, malaise, nausea, and vomiting. As the virus advances, the victim starts to get bruising, rashes, bloody diarrhea and vomiting, bleeding from the eyes, nose, mouth, and multiple organ failure leading to death. A person can contract the virus by being exposed to infected bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, vomit, perspiration, or stools. In many African countries, the practice of preparing their deceased loved ones for burial is often the cause of exposure. It can also spread via sexual contact because the virus can stay in sperm for months, even as the victim recovers. (Related: Ebola virus remains in survivors’ semen six months after recovery.) Currently, there is no cure for the Ebola virus disease, so preparing for an outbreak is important. Here are some tips that can help you cope if anything happens: The Centers for Disease and Prevention suggests avoiding the following in an area affected by Ebola: The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site. Apply these same prevention methods when traveling to an area affected by an Ebola outbreak. After returning from an area affected by Ebola, monitor your health for 21 days. If you develop symptoms of Ebola virus disease, seek medical help right away. | Melissa Smith | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-07-02-can-you-prepare-for-an-ebola-outbreak.html | 2019-07-02 09:32:18+00:00 | 1,562,074,338 | 1,567,537,212 | health | diseases and conditions |
384,182 | npr--2019-02-25--Why Does Ebola Keep Spreading In Congo Heres A Major Clue | 2019-02-25T00:00:00 | npr | Why Does Ebola Keep Spreading In Congo? Here's A Major Clue | A medical worker puts on protective gear at an Ebola treatment center in Beni in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Officials want to train workers at all health facilities to take precautions. **John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images** ****hide caption**** ****toggle caption**** John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images A medical worker puts on protective gear at an Ebola treatment center in Beni in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Officials want to train workers at all health facilities to take precautions. John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images Michel Yao says his job is a lot like being a detective. [Yao](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michel-yao-07105229/) is leading the World Health Organization's on-the-ground response to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And as each new person falls sick, his team must race to figure out how the person got infected. So, Yao says, "we ask the person a series of questions." First up: Were you in contact with any sick person who had some symptoms like bleeding or like fever? Perhaps a relative you were taking care of? No? OK, did you attend a funeral? (At traditional funerals, mourners often wash the body, another way many people are infected with Ebola.) No, again? Well, then, have you recently touched any dead animals? But some weeks ago, as cases started erupting around two towns, Katwa and Butembo, the investigators found that patient after patient had something else in common: They had all recently visited a health clinic for treatment for some other disease such as a respiratory infection or malaria. "They would say, 'I went to the hospital. They treated me. I got clear [of that illness]. And then a few days after, I start having fevers.' " Fevers that were the first of signs of Ebola. The surge of confirmed cases in Katwa and Butembo – 307 and rising — is now the largest flare-up during the course of this outbreak, which has infected nearly 900 people since August. And WHO officials estimate that in about one- fifth of these recent cases, the person contracted Ebola at health care facilities. When Yao started visiting the clinics, it was pretty obvious how this was happening: Even government-run facilities such as large hospitals hadn't set up triage tents to separate possible Ebola patients from everyone else. "This disease is not well-known in this part of the country. It is the first time," Yao explains, even though Ebola has broken out in other parts of the DRC on multiple occasions. Even more problematic, says Yao, are the hundreds of unofficial private health facilities in this area. Some are large operations. In many other cases, says Yao, "it's just a house — a very old house." And often a crowded one at that. "In one bed putting two children." These facilities are also often short on supplies. "You can see people using several times the same gloves or the same equipment," including syringes, says Yao. Along with modern medicine, many facilities also offer traditional cures. (Indeed, health officials commonly refer to such facilities as "tradi- moderns.") And this too creates opportunities for infection, says Yao. That's because the traditional medicines are often diluted in water and put in a cup for the patient to drink. Then, he has noticed on his visits, the cup often isn't cleaned before it's passed on to the next patient. In response to all these findings, Congo's government and the WHO are trying to reach out to every one of these health facilities in Katwa and Butembo. In conjunction with a range of nonprofit aid organizations, they are training the staff on infection control and providing them with necessary protective equipment. But it's a daunting task. Just finding all the private clinics is difficult because there's no official list, says Yao. Officials know about only the ones reported by Ebola patients. Dr. [Cimanuka Germain](https://www.linkedin.com/in/cimanuka-germain- a0250a102/) of International Medical Corps, which is helping with the effort, says private clinics sometimes resist the help. For instance, when he told the staff of one clinic that they should report suspected Ebola cases to a hotline instead of treating them, their response was: "This is not possible for us." That facility treats about 65 patients a day, says Germain. They didn't want to lose business. Then there's the facility where Germain spent days training nurses on how to set up and operate a triage tent. Two weeks ago he showed up for a surprise visit. "One of them was there without wearing gloves," Germain says, sighing incredulously. For Germain the takeaway was clear: "To change someone's behavior is not [a matter of] one day or two days — you need time." He had been visiting weekly — but from that point on he assigned two people from his organization to keep watch at the clinic all day every day. And he has done the same thing for the 11 other facilities working with International Medical Corps. Officials are optimistic the watchdogging will work because of the success of similar efforts in a town called Beni — about 40 miles from Katwa. Last autumn, Beni was the epicenter of the outbreak, with the number of cases ultimately topping 200. But over the last three weeks, the caseload there has dropped to nearly zero. Yao, of the World Health Organization, says improving infection control in Beni's health clinics played a big role in the change. Still, Yao notes, "it took us more than two months to reach these results." [Laurent Sabard](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurent-sabard-47113a8a/), health coordinator with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been working with health facilities in Beni, says they can't afford to let up anytime soon. "We have to continually follow up," he says. If only to ensure they don't run out of supplies. The thermometers given out by the Red Cross are a thermoflash type that lets you take someone's temperature with touching the person, notes Sabard. "But they have to change the battery regularly — so we have to provide them with batteries regularly." Adding to the difficulty is the insecurity of the area, where multiple armed groups frequently clash with government forces. Paul Lopodo of Save the Children — which has been working with 39 health centers in the outbreak zone — recalls how back in December the violence prevented the group from checking in with one public clinic for two weeks. By the time they returned, the staff was so out of practice, says Lopodo, that "we had to the run the training all over again." | Nurith Aizenman | https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/02/25/697073103/why-does-ebola-keep-spreading-in-congo-heres-a-major-clue?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-02-25 22:02:00+00:00 | 1,551,150,120 | 1,567,547,429 | health | diseases and conditions |
385,870 | npr--2019-06-21--Will 1 Of These 4 Experimental Treatments Cure Ebola | 2019-06-21T00:00:00 | npr | Will 1 Of These 4 Experimental Treatments Cure Ebola? | Will 1 Of These 4 Experimental Treatments Cure Ebola? When patients arrive at the Ebola Treatment Center in the city of Beni, Dr. Modet Camara oversees a strict protocol. First they're tested to confirm that they have the virus. Then a social worker asks if they're willing to participate in a study that would randomly assign them one of four experimental treatments intended to attack the virus, eliminating it from the body before it can kill the patient. "For us caregivers this study is so important," says Camara."It's the best chance we've had since Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976 to finally find a medication that can save people from this disease." Camara has seen firsthand how much the science around Ebola disease has advanced in recent years. During the world's worst recorded Ebola epidemic – the West Africa outbreak of 2014 to 2016 – Camara worked at several Ebola treatment centers in his native Guinea, where he was continually dismayed by how little he and the rest of the staff could do for patients. Now he's on the front lines of the ten-month-long Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, working for the nonprofit aid group ALIMA, which runs the Beni treatment center, one of three where the clinical trial of the therapies is taking place. The groundbreaking study is not the only new anti-Ebola effort in Congo. An experimental vaccine – which has already been given to more than 137,000 people – was recently found to be extremely effective. Camara says when it comes to the experimental therapies, patients are eager to help test them. "Since we started this work in November, not a single patient has refused. Everyone wants to do it." The study is likely to produce results soon, says Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – which is overseeing the study in conjunction with the World Health Organization and Congo's government. Fauci notes that to have statistically significant results investigators need to administer the treatments to at least 500 people – evenly divided between the four options. So far about 340 people have been treated through the trial. (In addition about 600 people have been given the treatments as part of a "compassionate use" provision but are not being studied through the trial.) "So I would imagine before this outbreak is under control it is likely we would have enough individuals in the clinical trial to be able to get an answer as to which [of the medications] actually work," says Fauci. One of the four treatments has already been subjected to an earlier clinical trial: It's called ZMapp, and is a cocktail of antibodies – the proteins that the human immune system can produce to attack a given virus. Toward the end of the West Africa outbreak ZMapp was tested in 72 patients – a study that Dr. Camara helped implement on the ground. That epidemic was over before enough people could enroll in the trial to produce definitive results. But, says Fauci, there were signs ZMapp may indeed reduce the death rate from Ebola. So officials decided the most ethical option would be to use ZMapp as the benchmark against which the other three treatments are measured rather than testing them against what happens when no medications are offered. Two of the other experimental medications — REGN-EB3 and MAb114 — also consist of various antibodies. The latter is an antibody that was extracted from a person who had contracted Ebola during a 1995 outbreak in Congo and survived. "It was a patient who naturally recovered," says Fauci. "Now that person has in their body an immune response that's protecting them from ever getting infected with the same strain of Ebola. So what we did is we brought that individual to the United States – here to the National Institutes of Health — and drew their blood." NIH scientists then cloned the antibodies from that survivor's blood to produce enormous quantities. The idea, says Fauci, "is you inject [the antibodies] into someone who is infected with Ebola and that antibody will knock out Ebola in exactly the same way as it did for the person from whom we got that antibody." The fourth therapy being tested – called Remdesivr – is an antiviral, essentially, says Fauci, a chemical that researchers hope will interfere with the process the Ebola virus uses to replicate. Yet for all the potential of the medications study it has also been dogged by the larger challenge that has made this outbreak so difficult to end: Violence. The outbreak – which has already infected more than 2,000 people and shows little sign of abating — is taking place in a northeastern region of Congo that has been wracked by conflict between dozens of armed groups and the government. The clashes continually shut down health services in major population centers and have forced hundreds of thousands to flee their villages. Many people are also deeply distrustful of authorities – and by extension, health workers. And many attacks have directly targeted Ebola responders. These include several instances in which gunmen stormed two of the Ebola treatment centers where the clinical trial is underway – setting fire to the centers as patients ran for their lives. "Thankfully we did not lose any of the follow-up on the individuals," says Fauci, when it came to continuing their treatment. But he says the incidents have delayed progress of the study. The atmosphere of insecurity and distrust also means that many patients only come forward for care when they are in an advanced stage of Ebola disease. And at that point it's far less likely that any medication can save them. This shouldn't prevent the study from producing useful findings, says Fauci, given that the four medications are being compared against one another. But it is devastating for patients. "There's no end to the examples of this," laments Camara. "Just yesterday we lost a 4-year-old boy, a pregnant woman and a father who was the breadwinner for the whole family." They had been living in an area near Beni where one of the local armed groups staged an attack earlier this month, he explains. "So they had to take shelter in another location, where it happened that Ebola is spreading. There they all caught the virus." But even as their symptoms progressed the family did not come forward seeking treatment. "People have so much reluctance to believe that Ebola is real," says Camara. And because of the continued insecurity in the area, the local Ebola response team was unable to get to them until early this week. Almost as soon as the three were brought to the center, they were enrolled in the trial and given the experimental therapies. "But their organs were already hemorrhaging," says Camara. Within 24 hours they were dead. "To see our patients die like this, when we know that we have medications that could probably have saved them if they had arrived sooner – frankly, as a caregiver, it's extemely painful," says Camara. And he adds that it underscores a larger lesson of the current outbreak: Scientific advancements will mean little unless officials can address the political power struggles, mismanagement, and poverty driving the violence and mistrust of health workers. "If the population won't come to us for care," says Camara, "frankly, we can't do anything for them." | Nurith Aizenman | https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/06/21/734477699/will-1-of-these-4-experimental-treatments-cure-ebola?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-06-21 15:08:47+00:00 | 1,561,144,127 | 1,567,538,473 | health | diseases and conditions |
426,021 | pravadareport--2019-06-13--Why is Ebola raging in DR Congo after a year | 2019-06-13T00:00:00 | pravadareport | Why is Ebola raging in DR Congo after a year? | Why is Ebola raging in DR Congo after a year? Ebola nightmare still rages in DR Congo unabated nearly one year after the Health Ministry reported an outbreak. Why? Ebola Virus Disease is a horrific virus with a high mortality rate, so much so that it is classified as a Category A bioterrorism agent. EVD is not (yet) an airborne virus like the Influenza viruses, and it is transmitted by contact with bodily fluids, such as blood, feces and vomit, milk, urine and semen, possibly also saliva and tears, more especially in the later stages of the illness. Some studies also indicate that it can be spread through sweat and contact with the body of someone infected or contact with contaminated surfaces. Some say that the virus then needs to be passed to mucous membrane through touching the mouth, nose or eyes, others say it can be transmitted through lesions in the skin, while others state that it can be absorbed directly through the skin, in which case it is enough to touch an infected and contagious person. Contagion occurs when a patient is infectious, in other words displaying the first symptoms, which is a sudden high fever, extreme fatigue, headache, sore throat, body pain and lack of appetite. This develops into nausea, then diarrhea and vomiting. As the virus takes hold and destroys the blood vessels, the central nervous system takes control from the digestive system and tells the body to expel as much fluid as it can through violent and sustained, copious projectile vomiting and diarrhea, which in the terminal stage can include blood. The patient becomes a human volcano of bodily fluids and torrents of blood. An outbreak is caused by contact with an infected animal and a common vector (transmitting agent) is the fruit bat which is roasted and eaten in part of Africa. Primates, rodents and some plants are believed to be a possible source of transmission and therefore deforestation could be a factor in releasing the virus resevoir contained in the biome. The disease is named after the first patient in Zaire (now DR Congo), Mabalo Lokela, a school headmaster, died after visiting the Ebola River in the north of the country in 1976. The patient lies extremely ill, with a fever, confused, unable to swallow, has difficulty in breathing and may suddenly start bleeding from the skin, the nose or even the eyes. Shocking? Let us look at this most recent outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Health Ministry of this country reported an outbreak of EVD in North Kivu Province nearly one year ago, on August 18, 2018. The latest figures from June 10, 2019 indicate a total of 2071 cases (1977 confirmed, 94 probable) with 1396 deaths (1392 confirmed, 94 probable), a mortality rate of 67%. But more shocking still is the fact that on May 11, 2017, the Health Ministry of DR Congo notified the World Health Organization about an outbreak of EVD. There were 4 deaths and 4 survivors and the outbreak was declared over in July of 2017. In May 2018, the DR Congo reported 39 cases of EVD with 19 deaths. In July, the outbreak was declared over. A month later, the current outbreak was announced. Fighting in the region over the mineral resources hampers the work of aid workers and medical teams. While as yet there are claims that effective treatment does not exist, there is the experimental drug Brincidofovir, administered during the West African Outbreak of EVD in 2016 to Thomas Eric Duncan unsuccessfully, there is the plasma treatment in which a patient receives a transfusion from an EVD survivor with the same blood type (as was the case of Nina Pham receiving plasma from Dr. Kent Brantly, one of the first two American citizens infected), and there is Z-Mapp, which was successfully administered to these two patients, Dr. Brantly and aid worker Nancy Writebol. ZMapp is a treatment composed of the use of cultures of cells which make monoclonal antibodies, mAbs. The experimentation began with MB-003, a cocktail of three human/human-mouse mAbs, namely c13C6, h13F6 and c6D8, which showed promising results when administered to rhesus monkeys infected with EVD. The process evolved to the creation of ZMab, namely m1H3, m2G4 and m4G7. These also proved very promising in trials on Ebola-infected macaque monkeys. ZMapp humanized the three ZMab antibodies and tested these with combinations of MB-003 first in guinea pigs and then in monkeys. The best and most successful therapeutic combinations were the c13C6 from MB-003 and the humanized mAbs c2G4 and c4G7, from ZMab, and the result is what is known today as ZMapp. During the West Africa outbreak of EVD, a medical team of Russian virologists, epidemiologists and bacteriologists was in the field in the Republic of Guinea, alongside humanitarian aid-workers. Russia sent doses of the anti-viral drug Triazavirin, which is effective in 70 to 90% of cases of infections with 15 strains of Influenza, including A H1N1 (Swine Flu) and H5N1 (Avian flu), at any stage of the infection. On January 13, 2016, President Putin announced that Russia had developed a cure for EVD. In December 2015, Anna Popova, the Director of Rospotrebnadzor, declared that the documents for the registration of a vaccine against EVD had been delivered and Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova declared that the clinical trials of the vaccine revealed a very high degree of efficiency. So what, we may ask, is going on in DR Congo and why is the disease raging out of control? It has even spread to Uganda. Has the world gone back to a slumber of complacency because this is Africa, where shit happens? The first outbreak took place in Sudan and was discovered only after it had ended, although at the time experts knew they weree dealing with a hitherto-unknown disease later named the Sudan variant (SUDV) of the genus of what would later in the year be identified as Ebola Virus Disease. Between June and November 284 people were infected with 151 deaths (53% mortality rate). In August 1976, EBOV (Ebola Virus Disease) was identified as the cause of 318 cases with 280 deaths (88%) in Zaire. Zaire, now known as Democratic Republic of Congo, experienced another outbreak in 1995 (EBOV) with 315 cases and 254 deaths (81%). Next in 2000, Uganda (SUDV) 425 cases, 224 deaths (53%); in 2003, DR Congo (EBOV) 143 cases, 128 deaths (90%); 2007, DR Congo with 264 cases and 187 deaths (71%); and the same year, Uganda with a new variant of the Ebolavirus genus, named after the place it was discovered, Bundibugyo with 149 cases and 37 deaths (25%). In 2012, 2 outbreaks in Uganda (SUDV) with 7 cases and 4 deaths (57%) and 24 cases with 17 deaths (71%). The worst outbreak was the West African Outbreak (EBOV) (2013-2016) causing a total of 17.140 cases and 6.069 deaths (35%): Country, cases, deaths %mortality: plus some cases of deaths and survival among foreign aid workers who had become infected while working in the region. ...and in 2019 to date, a total of 2071 cases (1977 confirmed, 94 probable) with 1396 deaths (1392 confirmed, 94 probable), a mortality rate of 67%. May we ask the question, if this was in Europe or North America, would the story be the same? If not, then why not? Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey works in the area of teaching, consultancy, coaching, translation, revision of texts, copy-writing and journalism. Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru since 2002, and now Co-Editor of the English version, he contributes regularly to several other publications in Portuguese and English. He has worked in the printed and online media, in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly magazines and newspapers. A firm believer in multilateralism as a political approach and multiculturalism as a means to bring people and peoples together, he is Official Media Partner of UN Women, fighting for gender equality and Media Partner with Humane Society International, promoting animal rights. His hobbies include sports, in which he takes a keen interest, traveling, networking to protect the rights of LGBTQI communities and victims of gender violence, and cataloging disappearing languages, cultures and traditions around the world. A keen cook, he enjoys trying out different cuisines and regards cooking and sharing as a means to understand cultures and bring people together. Join the most international forum on the Net | null | http://www.pravdareport.com/science/142467-ebola_raging/ | 2019-06-13 14:54:00+00:00 | 1,560,452,040 | 1,567,539,102 | health | diseases and conditions |
431,549 | prisonplanet--2019-07-16--Ebola-Stricken Man Takes Bus To DRC Travel Hub With 2 Million Residents | 2019-07-16T00:00:00 | prisonplanet | Ebola-Stricken Man Takes Bus To DRC Travel Hub With 2 Million Residents | The Congolese health ministry announced that a pastor infected with Ebola took a bus to the city of Goma late Sunday, the first time the virus has spread to the major travel hub and home to more than two million people. The man, traveling from Butembo, was quickly identified and transported to an Ebola treatment center, while authorities say that they have tracked down the other 18 passengers aboard the bus and would vaccinate them on Monday, according to the Washington Post. “Because of the speed with which the patient was identified and isolated, and the identification of all the other bus passengers coming from Butembo, the risk of it spreading in the rest of the city of Goma is small,” the ministry said in a statement. The official statement was echoed by WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who said “Goma is a city of two million people, near the border with Rwanda, and is a gateway to the region and the world,” adding “We are confident in the measures we are put in place and hope that we will see no further transmission of Ebola in Goma.” “Nevertheless, we cannot be too careful.” The outbreak has killed 1,665 people as of Monday, while nearly 700 have survived the virus, which causes high fevers and internal bleeding. Days with dozens of new cases are common, despite a massive public health intervention across the affected area. Health workers worry that some cases — if not whole transmission chains — are in places that are inaccessible because of poor infrastructure or insecurity, making the extent of the outbreak hard to fully measure. The area where the outbreak is taking place is also home to one of Congo’s most protracted and violent conflicts — a patchwork of ethnic militias, vigilantes and government-aligned forces. Fighting has at times targeted the Ebola response, hampering it and leading to spurts of new cases. Near the outbreak’s epicenter in the city of Beni on Monday, two health workers were killed by unknown assailants. Tedros Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said there have been almost 200 attacks on health workers, killing seven, since January. –Washington Post As the Post points out, the virus is now present in two cities with populations exceeding one million people – Butembo being the other. The current outbreak is the second-worst on record, after the 2013-2016 epidemic which killed 11,300 in West Africa. This article was posted: Tuesday, July 16, 2019 at 6:14 am | admin | https://www.prisonplanet.com/ebola-stricken-man-takes-bus-to-drc-travel-hub-with-2-million-residents.html | 2019-07-16 11:14:47+00:00 | 1,563,290,087 | 1,567,536,501 | health | diseases and conditions |
495,334 | sottnet--2019-01-20--Ebola popping up unexpectedly and proving impossible to control | 2019-01-20T00:00:00 | sottnet | Ebola "popping up unexpectedly and proving impossible to control" | a top WHO official told me, "all bets are off," for stopping the epidemic. And there is a genuine threat that this Congo health crisis-the 10th the African nation has faced-could become essentially permanent in the war-torn region bordering South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, making a terrible transition from being epidemic to endemic.Despite having a tool kit at its disposal that is unrivaled-including a vaccine, new diagnostics, experimental treatments, and a strong body of knowledge regarding how to battle the hemorrhage-causing virus-the small army of international health responders and humanitarian workers in Congo is playing whack-a-mole against a microbe that keeps popping up unexpectedly and proving impossible to control. This is not because of any special attributes of the classic strain of Ebola-the same genetic strain that has been successfully tackled many times before-butThe sheer duration of the present epidemic means that the 4.5 million people in the currently affected North Kivu province of Congo are no longer the only ones in danger. The rest of the country and populations in the bordering nations of Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Burundi are now at risk, too.Like homicide detectives tracking murder clues, teams of Ebola hunters are scouring urban areas and remote villages across North Kivu province, trying to catch the culprit before it claims more victims. But all too often, this killer, which, is leaving no useful clues. In past brushes with Ebola, humanity has won out by tediously, and often perilously, finding an infected individual and then tracking backward through the person's recent life to reckon who might have had contact with the ailing patient, building a chain of transmission that not only leads back to the first case introduced into a given location but also steers the disease detectives toward the killer's next likely targets. By building chains of transmission, the Ebola fighters know who to quarantine, where to target their searches for other patients, and how best to deploy limited supplies of vaccines and diagnostic equipment.But day after day, cases are popping up all over North Kivu that don't connect to any known chains of transmission - it's as if they popped out of thin air. The problem: North Kivu is one of the most violent places on Earth, rife with distrust, rumors, conflicts, and multigenerational hatreds. Investigators can't find the links in the disease chains because the people there do not trust anything, even the very idea that a virus called Ebola exists, and refuse to comply with investigations.On Jan. 11, for example, villagers in Marabo rose up in protest against the construction of an Ebola treatment center in their community after three high school students were diagnosed and placed in quarantine to stop a local chain of transmission.An Ebola disease that became endemic in Congo would pose many novel dangers.It can also spread within military units that refuse scrutiny from virus detectives and among groups involved in illegal war-related activities such as arms smuggling. Even immune survivors might be at risk in an endemic context, as a recent study found thatPeter Salama, who heads up the World Health Organization's Ebola effort, predicted in December that the epidemic would last at least another six months. And that's likely an overly optimistic forecast. "It's an outbreak I describe as a perfect storm - a combination of this deadly disease in," he told Vox last month.The current crisis comes even though the disease has likely been slowed by. As of Jan. 11 , teams have administered a Merck-madein North Kivu and small numbers of health care workers in neighboring countries, in case of cross-border spread. First used to halt a smaller 2018 outbreak hundreds of miles away in Congo's Equateur province last May, the vaccine is considered fully effective and has lowered risks toto date in North Kivu. In the West African 2014-2016 epidemic, in the absence of the Merck vaccine,"One thing I am really certain of now is: If it wasn't for the vaccine we're using, the number of cases we have could have been really high, high, high," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said after spending New Year's Eve and two other days in the disease epicenter. It was Tedros's fourth trip into the heart of the epidemic. (No prior WHO leader ever set foot in an Ebola hot zone.) But despite swift mobilization by Congolese health officials, a strong WHO response, financing, the presence of humanitarian medical groups such as the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the Alliance for International Medical Action, an effective vaccine, and scores of volunteers and experts on the ground, the epidemic just keeps growing. "This is a very dangerous enemy, and we have to stay," Tedros said . "If we leave ... the virus will get an advantage and will spread freely. Not only for [Congo]-it will be bad for the neighboring countries and even beyond."The epidemic has already transformed fromthat parallels the Ugandan border and Semliki River. Farther south along the highway are two pivotal metropolises, Goma and Bukavu, each with a million residents, bordering Rwanda and Lake Kivu. Were Ebola to reach these cities,Meanwhile, health responders keep playing that whack-a-mole game against the virus because the threat of violence from ongoing warfare in Congo limits their movements and public distrust impedes assistance with investigations. As a result, the disease keeps popping up in unforeseen places and people.A significant unknown is the extent of Ebola in the ranks of warring soldiers, gangs, arms smugglers, and rapists. The groups have not only refused testing, but they have threatened health responders with guns and machetes.This makes it even harder for public health officials to estimate future transmissions-a difficult task in any case, since past outbreaks have shown the disease can lie dormant for more than a year in tissue including the eyes and genitals. Raping and pillaging soldiers can carry the virus from village to village long after they may personally have survived the viral disease. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, who served as theGoing forward, that could make the current outbreak the first to be heavily transmitted, and reignited repeatedly, by sexual abuse.Short of vaccination, combination of contact tracing and quarantine -finding and blocking chains of transmission. But those methods require freedom of movement and public compliance, both of which are lacking in war-torn Congo. In a grim assessment last November, Robert Redfield, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters that the outbreak might not be controllable and could easily become entrenched and endemic.It's hard to know what steps could break the Ebola impasse. Warring forces have shown little inclination to give the disease hunters free rein across the region. Political leaders in Kinshasa are obsessed with the strongly contested results of the country's long-delayed national elections, leaving no clarity about who is in charge of the country at the moment. The United States has little skin in the game, as the Trump administration decided months ago that the security situation was too risky to allow any U.S. government employees-including CDC Ebola veterans-into North Kivu. U.N. peacekeepers are unlikely to either increase their force numbers or alter activities in any way that might make disease investigation safer, andMerck shows no sign of ramping up vaccine production to replenish or increase supplies. And on the front lines, the responders-the Africa CDC, WHO, a host of NGOs and humanitarian groups, and the Red Cross-are already toiling valiantly.Health officials in Uganda, South Sudan , and Rwanda see the writing on the wall: This epidemic won't end anytime soon and constantly threatens to cross their borders. They're preparing their health teams, giving them vaccinations and Ebola training. Vigilance is high across the region.If Ebola hitchhikes its way in an unwitting human carrier across Lake Edward into Uganda, down the highway to Goma and Rwanda, or up the Semliki River toward South Sudan, the world community will face tough choices. Option one: Keep on muddling through with the tools, personnel, and funding that have carried the response to date. Option two: Declare a global public health emergency, escalating financing and on-the-ground response to the multibillion-dollar scale seen in West Africa. Option three: Dedicate massive financial resources to pushing Merck and other vaccine-makers to rapidly manufacture millions of doses, andMaybe we'll all get lucky, and the virus will just peter out. But there's no reason to think it will. | null | https://www.sott.net/article/405389-Ebola-popping-up-unexpectedly-and-proving-impossible-to-control | 2019-01-20 16:55:51+00:00 | 1,548,021,351 | 1,567,551,692 | health | diseases and conditions |
510,767 | spiegel--2019-01-08--Fund in China Neu entdeckter Virus ahnelt Ebola | 2019-01-08T00:00:00 | spiegel | Fund in China: Neu entdeckter Virus ähnelt Ebola | Die Familie der Filoviren ist vielleicht nicht jedem ein Begriff. Doch die Vertreter ihrer beiden wichtigsten Gattungen sind weltweit bekannt und gefürchtet: Marburg- und vor allem Ebolaviren können beim Menschen zu schweren Erkrankungen führen, mit hohen Todesraten unter den Infizierten. Aktuell tobt etwa eine Ebola-Epidemie im Kongo. Wissenschaftler haben in Asien nun einen bisher unbekannten Erreger entdeckt, der ebenfalls zur Familie der Filoviren gehört. Forscher um Lin-Fa Wang von der Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapur und Zheng-Li Shi von der Chinesischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wuhan berichten im Fachmagazin "Nature Microbiology" von einem Fund, den sie in der Leber eines Rosettenflughunds in der südwestchinesischen Provinz Yunnan gemacht haben. Aus dem Gewebe des Tieres konnten sie demnach einen Virus isolieren, der sich genetisch von den Gattungen der Marburg- und Ebolaviren unterscheidet, gleichzeitig jedoch mit diesen verwandt ist. So würde dasselbe Rezeptorprotein namens NPC1 genutzt, um Zellen zu infizieren. Die Forscher sprechen vom Mengla-Virus, der Name verweist auf den Landkreis, aus dem der Flughund stammte. Das untersuchte Genmaterial des Erregers stimme nur zu 32 beziehungsweise 54 Prozent mit den bisher bekannten Filoviren überein, so die Forscher. Man könne den neuen Erreger im Stammbaum zwischen Marburg- und Ebolavirus ansiedeln. Es sei möglich, dass man sogar eine neue Gattung entdeckt habe, zu der gleich mehrere verschiedene, bisher noch unbekannte Viren zählen. Wie bei anderen Filoviren gibt es nach den Erkenntnissen der Forscher auch jetzt das Risiko, dass der Erreger Artgrenzen überwinden könnte. Man habe bei Versuchen im Labor unter anderem Zellen von Affen, Hamstern, Hunden und Menschen infizieren können. Es brauche jedoch noch weitere Forschungen, um das praktische Ausbreitungsrisiko über die Flughunde hinaus bestimmen zu können. Zur Familie der Filoviren gehört übrigens noch eine weitere, eher unbekannte Gattung, die der Cuevaviren. Diese wurden erstmals 2011 bei Langflügelfledermäusen in einer Höhle in Spanien nachgewiesen. Hier gibt es bisher noch keine Erkenntnisse über eine mögliche Gefahr für Menschen. Flughunde und Fledermäuse gelten als Hauptverdächtige für die Übertragung von Ebolavriren auf den Menschen - ohne selbst krank zu werden. Tatsächlich ist ihre Rolle bei der Verbreitung der Krankheit aber auch nicht unumstritten. Manche Forscher argumentieren, dass die Tiere die Erreger zwar zweifelsfrei beherbergen könnten, diesen allerdings nicht weitergeben würden. Man solle daher keine unüberlegten Maßnahmen ergreifen, mit denen der Bestand von Flughunden und Fledermäusen dezimiert werden würde. | null | http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/mengla-virus-in-china-neu-entdeckter-erreger-aehnelt-ebola-a-1247036.html#ref=rss | 2019-01-08 18:13:00+00:00 | 1,546,989,180 | 1,567,553,531 | health | diseases and conditions |
516,012 | spiegel--2019-07-31--Hochgefahrliches Virus Neuer Ebolafall in kongolesischer Millionenstadt entdeckt | 2019-07-31T00:00:00 | spiegel | Hochgefährliches Virus: Neuer Ebolafall in kongolesischer Millionenstadt entdeckt | Bisher beschränkte sich der neuste Ausbruch der Ebola-Krankheit eher auf ländliche Teile der Demokratischen Republik Kongo. Doch nun wurde erneut ein Patient in der Großstadt Goma im Osten des Landes registriert. "Unsere Eingreiftrupps haben gerade einen zweiten Fall entdeckt und isoliert", erklärte der Ebolaforscher Jean-Jacques Muyembe. Es handele sich um einen Mann, der am 13. Juli aus einer spärlich besiedelten Region in die Millionenstadt gekommen sei. Der Fall steht demnach nicht in Verbindung mit einem ersten Ebolapatienten in Goma, der vor zwei Wochen gemeldet wurde. Damals war ein infizierter Priester per Bus in die Metropole gekommen und hatte bereits klare Symptome gezeigt. Die Epidemie war vor einem Jahr in der Gegend von Butembo in der Provinz Nord-Kivu ausgebrochen. Seitdem sind laut offiziellen Zahlen vom Dienstag 1790 Menschen in der Region an dem Virus gestorben. Nach dem Tod des ersten Ebolapatienten in Goma, der zweitgrößten Stadt des Landes, rief die WHO einen internationalen Gesundheitsnotstand aus. Es bleibe jedoch bei einer regionalen Bedrohung, so die WHO. Grenzschließungen seien derzeit nicht nötig. Sie könnten den Kampf gegen die Krankheit im Gegenteil noch erschweren, weil Menschen dann womöglich Schleichwege benutzten und nicht die offiziellen Grenzübergänge, wo medizinisches Personal bei Passanten nach Krankheitsanzeichen Ausschau hält. Probleme mit bewaffneten Gruppen in der Region Erschwert wird der Kampf gegen Ebola im Kongo durch Angriffe bewaffneter Milizen auf Behandlungszentren. Zwischen 2013 und 2016 waren in Westafrika bei einem schweren Ausbruch mehr als 11.300 Menschen gestorben. Beim Ebolavirus leiden die Betroffenen an Fieber, Muskelschmerzen, Durchfall sowie in heftigen Fällen an inneren Blutungen und Organversagen. Die Krankheit endet in etwa der Hälfte der Fälle tödlich. Unter Menschen reicht schon eine Berührung zur Infektion mit dem Virus. Ein neuer Impfstoff hilft aber bei der Eindämmung der Krankheit. | null | https://www.spiegel.de/gesundheit/diagnose/ebola-neuer-fall-in-kongolesischer-millionenstadt-entdeckt-a-1279767.html#ref=rss | 2019-07-31 01:15:00+00:00 | 1,564,550,100 | 1,567,535,286 | health | diseases and conditions |
519,808 | sputnik--2019-01-02--Confirmed Ebola Cases in DR Congo Hit 560 - Countrys Health Ministry | 2019-01-02T00:00:00 | sputnik | Confirmed Ebola Cases in DR Congo Hit 560 - Country's Health Ministry | The death toll from the virus in the DRC previously stood at 360, while the number of confirmed Ebola cases amounted to 545, according to the ministry. "Ebola — the situation on Wednesday, January 2, 2019: a total of 608 cases (560 confirmed and 48 possible), 368 [people] died and 207 have recovered," the DRC Ministry of Public Health wrote on Twitter. The Ebola virus is transmitted to humans from wild animals and is estimated by the World Health Organization to have a 50-percent fatality rate. Ebola is named after the DRC's Ebola River, near which the virus was discovered by Belgian microbiologist Peter Piot and his team in 1976. | null | https://sputniknews.com/africa/201901021071175178-ebola-congo-virus-outbreak/ | 2019-01-02 20:19:00+00:00 | 1,546,478,340 | 1,567,554,267 | health | diseases and conditions |
520,133 | sputnik--2019-01-04--Swedish Hospital Says Has Received One Case of Suspected Ebola Patient Isolated | 2019-01-04T00:00:00 | sputnik | Swedish Hospital Says Has Received One Case of Suspected Ebola, Patient Isolated | The patient was initially admitted to Enkoping Hospital, but later transferred to a facility in Uppsala County. The hospital in Enkoping was swiftly closed over fears of staff potentially being exposed to the deadly virus. The Ebola virus is transmitted to humans from wild animals and is estimated by the World Health Organization to have a 50-percent fatality rate. The largest Ebola outbreak to date killed more than 11,000 people in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone between December 2013 and April 2016, according to published reports. Ebola is named after the DRC's Ebola River, near which the virus was discovered by Belgian microbiologist Peter Piot and his team in 1976. | null | https://sputniknews.com/europe/201901041071216282-ebola-sweden-case/ | 2019-01-04 12:07:00+00:00 | 1,546,621,620 | 1,567,554,004 | health | diseases and conditions |
197,133 | foreignpolicy--2019-09-20--The World Knows an Apocalyptic Pandemic Is Coming | 2019-09-20T00:00:00 | foreignpolicy | The World Knows an Apocalyptic Pandemic Is Coming | The World Knows an Apocalyptic Pandemic Is Coming A new independent report compiled at the request of the United Nations secretary-general warns that there is a “very real threat” of a pandemic sweeping the planet, killing up to 80 million people. A deadly pathogen, spread airborne around the world, the report says, could wipe out almost 5 percent of the global economy. And we’re not ready. The ominous analysis was compiled by an independent panel, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), which was assembled last year in response to a request from the office of the U.N. secretary-general, and convened jointly by the World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO). Co-chaired by the former WHO head and former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and the head of the international Red Cross, Elhadj As Sy, the GPMB commissioned expert studies and issued a scathing attack on the political, financial, and logistical state of pandemic preparedness affairs. “Preparedness is hampered by the lack of continued political will at all levels,” read the report. “Although national leaders respond to health crises when fear and panic grow strong enough, most countries do not devote the consistent energy and resources needed to keep outbreaks from escalating into disasters.” With no intention of degrading the GPMB’s effort, I must sadly say that this core message has been shouted from the rafters many times before, with little discernable impact on tone-deaf political leaders, financial enterprises, or multinational institutions. There’s no reason to think this time will be any different. It’s hard to know what, shy of a genuinely devastating pandemic of killer influenza or some currently unknown microbe, will motivate global leaders to take microscopic threats seriously. In May 1989, Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg gathered fellow Nobelists and a roster of extraordinary virus-hunters for a three-day meeting in Washington to consider a then bold hypothesis that viruses, far from being vanquished by modern medicine, were actually surging worldwide in animals and people, often in forms never previously seen. And air travel increasingly meant that an outbreak in an obscure location could spread to large cities, even make its way around the world. At the time, the exploding HIV/AIDS epidemic focused collective attention: If the incurable virus could claim millions of lives, what other threats might lurk? During the gathering I felt tensions rise by the hour, as the volume of evidence grew in support of the dire hypothesis. The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine was sufficiently shaken by the meeting that it delved further, beyond the kingdom of viruses to all microbial threats, and in 1992 published a call to arms—a report that drew sufficient interest at U.S. President Bill Clinton’s White House to prompt the formal classification of emerging diseases as national-security threats in 1996. In 1994 I published my book on the subject, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, arguing that human disruption of the global environment, coupled with behaviors that readily spread microbes between people and from animals to humans, guaranteed a global surge in epidemics, even an enormous pandemic. And in 2000, my book Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health demonstrated that outbreaks were aided and abetted by inept health systems, human behavior, and the complete lack of consistent political and financial support for disease-fighting preparedness everywhere in the world. So what has changed? An enormous number of previously unknown viruses, such as the one that caused the 2003 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), have claimed the lives of people and animals around the world. In just seven years (from 2011 to 2018), for example, the WHO did battle with 1,483 epidemics. And the costs of containment, coupled with the disruptions’ general economic impact, have worsened, according to a GPMB study commissioned by the World Bank. The 2003 SARS epidemic exacted a toll of about $40 billion on the global economy, the 2009 swine flu epidemic reached about $50 billion, and the 2014-16 West African Ebola epidemic cost nearly $53 billion. An influenza pandemic akin to the 1918 flu would today cost the world economy $3 trillion, or up to 4.8 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP). Economically, wealthy nations have proven the most resilient in recent outbreaks, and the GPMB predicts that countries such as the United States and Germany could get through a devastating epidemic with less than 0.5 percent loss of GDP. But poorer nations—from India and Russia down to the countries of Central Africa—could lose up to 2 percent of their GDPs from the same hypothetical pandemic. The West African Ebola epidemic directly cost the hardest-hit countries—Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea—$2.8 billion, knocking Sierra Leone’s GDP down a whopping 20 percent in 2015. And risks are increasing. Climate change favors outbreaks, as rising heat and humidity spawn surges in populations of disease-carrying mosquitoes, allow water surfaces to suffocate under toxic algae, fill hospitals and agricultural fields with deadly fungi, and change the migratory patterns of birds and animals—which, in turn, carry their microbial hitchhikers to new geographies. Consider the events of the first two weeks of this month, for example. A mysterious explosion in a Soviet-era laboratory complex outside Novosibirsk, Russia, raised concerns about the safety of smallpox and hundreds of other viruses locked in the facility’s freezers. The Russian lab, known as Vector, was once one of a handful of top-security pathogen research centers in the world, but today there are more than 1,000 such so-called Biosafety Level-3 and -4 labs, in which lethal microbes are stored and studied: Many of the facilities have had leaks and safety breeches. Australia’s H3N2 influenza is still spreading as the country heads into spring. Seemingly on track to be the nation’s largest flu year—for both cases and hospitalizations—in recent history, it has sickened 279,326 Australians so far, a possible harbinger of what’s ahead in a few weeks for North America. According to the Pan American Health Organization, more than 2,384,029 people in Latin America and the Caribbean contracted dengue virus infections last week alone. The so-called TR4 fungus is suddenly wiping out bananas across Central America and recently turned up in Australia, increasing fear of the fruit’s extinction. The African swine-fever epidemic that started in China late in 2018 has spread across Asia and just turned up in the Philippines: Tens of thousands of pigs in the region have died of the incurable, usually lethal disease. The GPMB says that the current Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) exemplifies everything that is wrong with the current state of epidemic preparedness. When it first emerged on Aug. 1, 2018, according to a report commissioned by GPMB, “the fundamentals of an effective response were put in place within days of the declaration of the outbreak. The response in the first weeks of August was the fastest, best equipped, and best-funded in the history of Ebola outbreak response.” Yet despite these efforts, “the outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri persisted and spread, crossing the national border to Uganda in June 2019, and reaching Goma, the capital of North Kivu in July 2019. The outbreak now stands, [after] more than one year, [at] 3000 cases, and 2000 deaths since its declaration.” The Ebola response has failed in the DRC so far because the country’s health system is in shambles, the outbreak is nested in a violent war zone, the local population harbors deep suspicions about it and fails to fully cooperate with health authorities, donors have left DRC humanitarian needs woefully underfunded, and the Ebola response is compelled to beg for dollars and euros. Prospects for even deadlier, airborne microbes have also risen since the 1989 gathering of scientists in Washington because the technology to alter viral and bacterial genes is now fast, easy, cheap, and precise. Whether achieved via CRISPR or even newer genetic manipulations, it is now possible to give microbes all sorts of attributes—or make them, from the DNA up. Whether a man-made killer leaks accidentally, or is deliberately spread by malevolent individuals, no nation has the organization and technology to halt an outbreak once the germs escape their lab confines. The GPMB provided a list of seven policy initiatives that should be implemented worldwide to improve humanity’s odds against the microbes. All of them have, in some form, been on the table for years, even decades. We have been here before. “Preparedness and response systems and capabilities for disease outbreaks are not sufficient to deal with the enormous impact, rapid spread and shock to health, social and economic systems of a highly lethal pandemic, whether natural, accidental or deliberately released. There is insufficient R&D investment and planning for innovative vaccine development and manufacture, broad-spectrum antivirals, appropriate nonpharmaceutical interventions,” read the GPMB report. “Epidemic control costs would completely overwhelm the current financing arrangements for emergency response.” The United Nations General Assembly that convenes in New York this week and next, and delegates will be deluged with similarly grim reports about climate change, humanitarian crises, refugees, intractable conflicts, diminishing supplies of safe drinking water, and literally dozens more crises. Every one merits attention, financing, and global cooperation. In 1996, the Clinton administration declared that “emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS present one of the most significant health and security challenges facing the global community,” and issued an eight-point plan for improving pandemic preparedness. The specifics may have changed, but the tone and recommendations in the new GPMB pandemic report are remarkably similar, if not more urgent. The GPMB insists it is possible to render microbial outbreaks to controllable, containable scale—if humanity has the political and financial will to do so. So far, however, humanity has pushed disease threats out of its collective consciousness shortly after every epidemic ceased. The 1918 influenza pandemic killed some 50 to 100 million people—estimates vary widely. And the plague of the 14th century claimed 60 percent of the European population: roughly 50 million souls. We have already, in my lifetime, failed to stop HIV, which, since its emergence on the global stage in 1981, has sickened 75 million people, killing about 32 million of them. We know there will be another terrible epidemic—perhaps not as large as 1918 flu or the plague, but awful nonetheless. Yet it will likely take much more than expert reports to mobilize serious collective efforts to prevent and prepare catastrophe. | Laurie Garrett | https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/20/the-world-knows-an-apocalyptic-pandemic-is-coming/ | 2019-09-20 16:48:24+00:00 | 1,569,012,504 | 1,569,590,612 | health | diseases and conditions |
202,551 | fortune--2019-03-11--Another Flu Pandemic Is Inevitable World Health Organization Says | 2019-03-11T00:00:00 | fortune | Another Flu Pandemic Is Inevitable, World Health Organization Says | The World Health Organization released what it’s calling the “most comprehensive and far-reaching” strategy for fighting influenza Monday, reminding the world that the threat of a pandemic is “ever-present.” “The question is not if we will have another pandemic, but when,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. “We must be vigilant and prepared—the cost of a major influenza outbreak will far outweigh the price of prevention.” The WHO Global Influenza Strategy for 2019-2030 urges every country to have a plan to fight influenza and contribute to global preparedness. It also focuses on the development of improved vaccines, antivirals, and treatments to distribute worldwide. While the danger influenza poses to public health is well recognized during a pandemic—such as the H1N1 virus of 2009, which infected at least one in five people worldwide within the first year—the WHO strategy says the “substantial morbidity and mortality” of the flu is “often underappreciated in the context of year-round seasonal influenza.” WHO estimates there are 1 billion cases of influenza around the world each year, with 290,000 to 650,000 influenza-related respiratory deaths. The organization recommends an annual vaccination as the most effective prevention, especially for those at higher risk of contracting the virus. This year’s flu season is ongoing, with as many as 26.3 million people infected, resulting in 31,200 deaths. | Renae Reints | http://fortune.com/2019/03/11/flu-pandemic-influenza-who/ | 2019-03-11 19:08:45+00:00 | 1,552,345,725 | 1,567,546,718 | health | diseases and conditions |
334,793 | naturalnews--2019-02-20--Governments warned to stockpile antibiotics to prepare for the coming global pandemic | 2019-02-20T00:00:00 | naturalnews | Governments warned to stockpile antibiotics to prepare for the coming global pandemic | (Natural News) A new report is urging government officials to begin stockpiling antibiotics in preparation for a potential global influenza pandemic, claiming that doing so will ultimately end up saving authorities tens of billions of dollars. The first study yet to model the financial value of stockpiling antibiotics, the analysis claims that the world can save between $3 and $4 billion simply by preparing now for a worst-case scenario, rather than reacting to it once it arrives. Somewhere between 50 and 100 million people are said to have died during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic – not necessarily from the virus itself, but from secondary bacterial infections. Had antibiotics been around at that time, many lives could have been saved, experts claim. “Most people don’t realise that what kills people during a pandemic is not just an influenza virus, but a secondary bacterial infection,” says Ramanan Laxminarayan, the director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy in the United States, and senior author of the new study. “In many instances we don’t have effective antibiotics, (and) this is a problem that keeps people awake at night.” For more news about influenza and the potential for another major flu pandemic, be sure to check out Influenza.news. Published in the journal Health Economics, the paper’s conclusion is based on a mathematical framework that estimates how much it would likely cost to treat people affected by an influenza pandemic after the fact, versus having antibiotics on hand in advance. 100% organic essential oil sets now available for your home and personal care, including Rosemary, Oregano, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Clary Sage and more, all 100% organic and laboratory tested for safety. A multitude of uses, from stress reduction to topical first aid. See the complete listing here, and help support this news site. Based on this analysis, the suggestion is for governments to purchase both new and existing antibiotics now, as doing so will save them money in the long run as opposed to the much higher economic costs associated with handling a high death toll following the ravages of a pandemic. “Make no mistake, it’s inevitable that there will be another flu pandemic – it may happen next year, or in the next 15 years, but it is inevitable and we cannot prevent it,” says Laxminarayan. “There is huge value in stockpiling and withholding antibiotics so we are prepared.” Part of Laxminarayan’s plan also involves encouraging governments to invest in more antibiotics research, particularly with regards to their long-term potential for treating a future flu pandemic. Doing this would encourage drug companies to develop new antibiotics for such purposes, greatly curtailing the fallout from a pandemic. “If a framework like this came into being, it would act as a mechanism to drive innovation from drugs companies,” he says. “Antibiotic resistance is a problem on a day to day basis, but it is really during a pandemic influenza that we will see the real scale of the problem. We must prepare.” As we’ve previously reported, the constant tampering with nature that goes on in pharmaceutical laboratories where flu vaccines are made has many people concerned that the next flu pandemic won’t be random and unpredictable, but rather a direct consequence of such activity. As earlier reported by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, genetic butchery in the form of flu virus manipulation “may have pandemic potential” – meaning these viruses researchers are playing with in an attempt to develop new vaccines is like playing with fire. “The work they are doing is absolutely crazy,” Lord May, the United Kingdom’s former chief science advisor, is quoted as saying about all this genetic tampering. “The whole thing is exceedingly dangerous. Yes, there is a danger, but it’s not arising from the viruses out there in the animals, it’s arising from the labs of grossly ambitious people.” | Ethan Huff | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-02-20-governments-warned-to-stockpile-antibiotics-to-prepare-for-global-pandemic.html | 2019-02-20 22:47:48+00:00 | 1,550,720,868 | 1,567,547,898 | health | diseases and conditions |
173,899 | eveningstandard--2019-05-03--HIV-suppressing drug can stop virus being sexually transmitted study finds | 2019-05-03T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | HIV-suppressing drug can stop virus being sexually transmitted, study finds | Scientists say an end to the "HIV pandemic" could be in sight after a study found that effective treatment can prevent sexual transmission of the virus. Researchers tested 1,000 gay male couples - one HIV positive and taking antiretroviral drugs to suppress the virus and the other HIV negative - and found no cases of transmission over eight years. Experts said the results were a "powerful message" that should be spread widely. "Our findings provide conclusive evidence for gay men that the risk of HIV transmission with suppressive ART (antiretroviral therapy) is zero," said Professor Alison Rodger, from University College London, who co-led the research. "This powerful message can help end the HIV pandemic by preventing HIV transmission, and tackling the stigma and discrimination that many people with HIV face," she added. "Increased efforts must now focus on wider dissemination of this powerful message and ensuring that all HIV-positive people have access to testing, effective treatment, adherence support and linkage to care." The study, published in The Lancet journal, reported that the couples had sex without condoms around 77,000 times. The researchers said about 472 transmissions of HIV would have been expected without the treatment. The scientists added that ART proved just as effective for gay couples as it had for heterosexual couples. Over the eight years, a total of 15 men were infected with HIV, but DNA testing showed the virus did not come from their main partner. Professor Anna Maria Geretti, from the University of Liverpool's Institute of Infection and Global Health, who led the study's genetic analysis work, said: "We used cutting-edge technology to analyse the genetic strains of the virus in the rare cases where a new HIV infection occurred. "Our work was key because we were able to show that there was no relation between the virus strains of the two people in the couple. In other words, in all cases of new HIV infections, the new virus was so different from that of the HIV-positive partner that it must have come from somebody else." Dr Michael Brady, medical director at HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust, said it was "impossible to overstate the importance of these findings". "The study has given us the confidence to say, without doubt, that people living with HIV who are on effective treatment cannot pass the virus on to their sexual partners. This has incredible impact on the lives of people living with HIV and is a powerful message to address HIV-related stigma." | Harriet Brewis | https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/hivsuppressing-drug-can-stop-virus-being-sexually-transmitted-study-finds-a4133261.html | 2019-05-03 06:56:00+00:00 | 1,556,880,960 | 1,567,541,257 | health | diseases and conditions |
373,095 | newyorkpost--2019-03-29--HIV-positive woman becomes first to donate kidney to another patient with virus | 2019-03-29T00:00:00 | newyorkpost | HIV-positive woman becomes first to donate kidney to another patient with virus | Saquon Barkley isn’t here for the continued criticism of Eli... | Amanda Woods | https://nypost.com/2019/03/29/hiv-positive-woman-becomes-first-to-donate-kidney-to-another-patient-with-virus/ | 2019-03-29 14:32:56+00:00 | 1,553,884,376 | 1,567,544,802 | health | diseases and conditions |
531,261 | sputnik--2019-04-15--Ebola Virus Death Toll in DR Congo Hits 803 - Officials | 2019-04-15T00:00:00 | sputnik | Ebola Virus Death Toll in DR Congo Hits 803 - Officials | "As of Sunday, April 14, 2019, [Ebola virus infection] totals to 1,251 cases [1,185 confirmed and 66 possible], 803 deaths", the ministry wrote on Twitter late on Sunday. On 12 April, the death toll stood at 764, while number of infection cases amounted to 1,206, according to the ministry’s figures. On Thursday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) humanitarian organization issued a warning, saying the situation in the DRC was worsening as people had stopped seeking relief assistance due to loss of trust in Ebola responders. The Ebola virus is a deadly disease that is spread through blood and body fluid. Symptoms include fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, sore throat, diarrhea. READ MORE: No Grounds to Declare Emergency of Int'l Concern Amid DRC Ebola Outbreak — WHO | null | https://sputniknews.com/africa/201904151074132126-congo-ebola-virus-death-toll/ | 2019-04-15 03:11:00+00:00 | 1,555,312,260 | 1,567,542,978 | health | diseases and conditions |
539,718 | sputnik--2019-08-02--Final 3 Weeks of July See 260 New Ebola Victims in DR Congo - UN Health Agency | 2019-08-02T00:00:00 | sputnik | Final 3 Weeks of July See 260 New Ebola Victims in DR Congo - UN Health Agency | "In the 21 days from 11 July through 31 July 2019, 71 health areas within 18 health zones reported new cases … within North Kivu and Ituri provinces", the report said. "During this period, a total of 260 confirmed cases were reported". The number of new cases per week has recently ranged between 79 and 91, the report added. "As of 31 July 2019, a total of 2713 EVD [Ebola Virus Disease] cases were reported, including 2619 confirmed and 94 probable cases, of which 1823 cases died (overall case fatality ratio 67 percent)", in the past year the report said. At present, Ebola cases are confined to rural areas of North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the nation’s northeast, with the exception of four cases in Goma, a city of about 2 million on the nation’s border with Rwanda, according to the release. Last week, Rwanda closed down border crossings near Goma only to reopen the crossings after several hours. UN officials have warned that border closings drive victims into hiding, where they continue to spread disease. | null | https://sputniknews.com/africa/201908031076447006-final-3-weeks-of-july-see-260-new-ebola-victims-in-dr-congo---un-health-agency/ | 2019-08-02 23:32:00+00:00 | 1,564,803,120 | 1,567,535,052 | health | diseases and conditions |
560,766 | tass--2019-02-01--Siberian scientists wrap up Ebola vaccine trials | 2019-02-01T00:00:00 | tass | Siberian scientists wrap up Ebola vaccine trials | NOVOSIBIRSK, February 1. /TASS/. Specialists at the Novosibirsk State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR have completed trials of a vaccine against the Ebola virus disease, which claimed the lives of over 11,000 people in Africa recently, said Nikolai Krasnikov, Head of the Administration of Koltsovo Science City near Novosibirsk where the research center is located, at the TASS press center on Friday. "Our scientists have wrapped up clinical trials of the Ebola vaccine this year. Now it is ready for use," he announced. The World Health Organization describes the Ebola virus disease (EVD, formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever) as "a severe, often fatal illness in humans. EVD outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90%." Symptoms include a sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, a headache and a sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhea, a rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding. The infection is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and the tissues of infected animals or people. The incubation period lasts from two to 21 days. The virus was first registered in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1976, with outbreaks reported from Sudan, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, Angola, and Cote d’Ivoire. The latest Ebola epidemics in West Africa in 2014-2016 killed more than 11,300 people, with more than 28,600 contracting the disease. The most lethal outcomes were reported in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Russian doctors and scientists have played an important role in fighting Ebola. In 2017, reports said that an Ebola vaccine had been developed by the Novosibirsk-based VECTOR Research Center. Founded in 1974, VECTOR is one of the world’s largest research centers. Initially, it studied the causative agents of such deadly disease as anthrax and tularemia to create biological weapons based on them. Currently, the center develops tools for diagnosing and treating infectious diseases. Its specialists, in particular, are developing vaccines against swine flu, HIV and Ebola. | null | http://tass.com/science/1042792 | 2019-02-01 09:23:03+00:00 | 1,549,030,983 | 1,567,549,943 | health | diseases and conditions |
576,459 | telesurtv--2019-09-24--DRC Gives Green Light to Second Ebola Vaccine Amid Criticism | 2019-09-24T00:00:00 | telesurtv | DRC Gives Green Light to Second Ebola Vaccine Amid Criticism | The World Health Organization ([WHO](https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/WHO- Declares-Ebola-an-International-Emergency--20190718-0026.html)) announced Monday that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will introduce the use of a second vaccine to control and in the long term eradicate the Ebola pandemic that has caused more than 2,000 deaths since it restarted in August 2018 in the country's eastern North Kivu and Ituri provinces. > _**RELATED:**_ > > [_**DRC: New Drug 'Cures' Two Ebola Patients, Brings Hope to Nation**_](https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/DRC-New-Drug-Cures-Two-Ebola- Patients-Brings-Hope-to-Congo-20190816-0016.html) “The health authorities in the DRC have announced plans to introduce a second experimental Ebola vaccine, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson (J&J), from mid- October,” the WHO said in its statement, adding that the vaccine will be provided “to targeted at-risk populations in areas that do not have active Ebola transmission.” The new experimental vaccine will complement the current one produced by U.S. pharmaceutical group Merck, whose product will continue to be provided to health workers and people at high risk of infection. Last July, the WHO recognized a shortage of the Merck vaccine, while J&J says it has 1.5 million doses of its vaccine to introduce to the market, meaning that if DRC wants to immunize people in other parts of the country it will need more supplies from both pharmaceutical giants. J&J’s vaccine introduction has sparked controversy among DRC health officials. The country’s health minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga presented his resignation in July after President [Felix Tshisekedi](https://www.telesurenglish.net/news /DR-Congos-Tshisekedi-to-Release-700-Political-Prisoners-20190314-0003.html) stripped him of the management of the pandemic. Kalenga had denounced the creation of parallel chains of authority and the interference in the management of the response to the epidemic, but also the urging from foreign actors to introduce the second vaccine to be tested in DRC. The former minister had expressed that the vaccine currently used proved its efficiency since it is estimated to be 97.5 percent effective, with the capacity to protect a person up to 12 months. "It would be fanciful to think that the new vaccine proposed by actors, who have shown an obvious lack of ethics by voluntarily hiding important information from medical authorities, could have a significant impact on the control of the current outbreak," the ex-official had stated recalling that some medical organizations have willingly hidden vital data from the country’s health authorities. > _**RELATED:**_ > > [_**Rwanda Closes Border with DRC to Control Ebola Outbreak**_](https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Rwanda-Closes-Border-with- DRC-to-Control-Ebola-Outbreak-20190801-0016.html) While J&J states on its website that it has tested the product on more than 6,000 volunteers in several trials, defenders including the WHO and the international medical organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF), have urged for its use, arguing that all "available tools and resources" must be mobilized to end the epidemic. Backers of the use of the experimental vaccine proposed to use it to vaccinate and protect people outside the outbreak zone. Health expert and United States law professor Lawrence Gostin welcomed on Monday the decision to introduce the experimental vaccine. "We need a major increase in vaccination coverage in the DRC ... [so] it must be rapidly implemented," Gostin told Al Jazeera. "It is well within the power of DRC health authorities to educate the public without confusing them about the differences in the vaccines. The bottom line is simple; they are both very effective vaccines," he added. Ebola’s crisis grew rapidly since it resurfaced 13 months ago, and is [the second largest](https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ebola-Outbreak-in-DR- Congo-Now-Second-Largest-in-History-20181130-0010.html) one just behind the crisis that hit West Africa in 2014. Active armed groups and communities’ profound distrust in the medical health teams have so far hindered the efforts to stop the outbreak. However, and among the unrest, health workers have managed to vaccinate around 225,000 people with the Merck vaccine. | teleSUR / ao-MS | https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/DRC-Gives-Green-Light-to-Second-Ebola-vaccine-Amid-Criticism-20190923-0014.html | 2019-09-24 00:19:42+00:00 | 1,569,298,782 | 1,570,222,353 | health | diseases and conditions |
582,084 | theblaze--2019-03-25--Second worst outbreak of Ebola in history hits the Congo more than 1000 infected | 2019-03-25T00:00:00 | theblaze | Second worst outbreak of Ebola in history hits the Congo; more than 1,000 infected | Second worst outbreak of Ebola in history hits the Congo; more than 1,000 infected Hundreds of people have already died from the outbreak | Mike Ciandella | https://www.theblaze.com/news/second-worst-outbreak-of-ebola-in-history-hits-the-congo-more-than-1-000-infected | 2019-03-25 14:12:15+00:00 | 1,553,537,535 | 1,567,544,961 | health | diseases and conditions |
632,878 | thedailymirror--2019-05-15--Terrifying Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo now out of control | 2019-05-15T00:00:00 | thedailymirror | 'Terrifying' Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo now 'out of control' | A terrifying Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo is out of control and could result in thousands of new infections. Over a thousand people have died in the new outbreak which has spread through the north-eastern parts of the war-torn nation since mid 2018. Health experts have warned the outbreak is so bad that it could rival the one that devastated three different African countries between 2013 and 2016. Aid agencies and other international response teams have struggled to contain the spread of disease due to regular fighting between armed militias which has plagued the country for decades. At least 298 cases of the disease have been encountered in the past month alone and the fatality rate of the disease is at 67% percent, higher than any other previous outbreaks. Around 99 health workers were also infected of which 34 have died. “Whether it gets to the absolute scale of west Africa or not, none of us know, but this is massive in comparison with any other outbreak in the history of Ebola and it is still expanding," Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust told the Gaurdian. "It’s remarkable it hasn’t spread more geographically but the numbers are frightening and the fact that they are going up is terrifying.” David Miliband, from the International Rescue Committee, says the situation is out of control, despite the availability of a proven vaccine. “The situation is far more dangerous than the statistic of 1,000 deaths, itself the second largest in history, suggests and the suspension of key services threatens to create a lethal inflection point in the trajectory of the disease,” he said. DR Congo’s North Kivu province is at the centre of the crisis but attempts to vaccinate locals have been hampered by the presence of armed groups. An Ebola treatment centres resulted in the death of one assailant when it was attacked by Mai-Mai rebels last week. WHO director general Dr Matshidiso Moeti said: “Cases are increasing because of violent acts that set us back each time.” Last month a WHO epidemiologist, Dr Richard Mouzoko, was killed by armed men during an attack on the Butembo University Hospital. | Neil Murphy | https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/terrifying-ebola-outbreak-democratic-republic-16026459 | 2019-05-15 14:24:06+00:00 | 1,557,944,646 | 1,567,540,609 | health | diseases and conditions |
656,882 | thedcclothesline--2019-06-20--The incubation period lie about Ebola and why America is vulnerable to an Ebola outbreak from inf | 2019-06-20T00:00:00 | thedcclothesline | The “incubation period” lie about Ebola, and why America is vulnerable to an Ebola outbreak from infected migrants | (Natural News) It’s a huge, dangerous lie. City officials in San Antonio, Texas, are claiming that no migrants from the Ebola-infected Republic of Congo could possibly be carrying Ebola into the United States because “Ebola has a 21-day incubation period,” they say. And the migrants have been walking for more than 21 days. Therefore, they cannot possibly have Ebola. The “officials” saying this are either grossly incompetent or deliberately lying. (By the way, it also begs the question of how migrants from Africa “walked” to the U.S. / Mexico border. Can they walk on water?) For starters, Ebola’s incubation period only averages 21 days. It can be 40+ days in some people, and that’s according to the World Health Organization. As previously reported by Natural News: • 95% of Ebola incubations occur from 1 – 21 days • 3% of Ebola incubations occur from 1 – 42 days • 2% of Ebola incubations are not explained Furthermore, migrants from the Republic of Congo could have been infected by other carriers who perished before reaching the U.S. border. Infected migrants could enter the USA on, for example, day 10 of their own incubation period. Or day 30. By the time they begin to explode with symptoms, they will have already been transported by bus to any one of dozens of U.S. cities that are currently receiving these migrants. Surely medical personnel aren’t so stupid that they don’t understand the basics of infectious disease, symptomless carriers and incubation times. Surely doctors must know that magically declaring “zero risk” among people who come from a region of the world that’s known for producing symptomless carriers of Ebola isn’t a valid conclusion. Yet they draw these conclusions nonetheless, putting all of America at risk in order to appease the open borders pushers who seem to want America to be overrun with illegal immigrants. Watch my short explanation video to learn more: See more breaking news videos at Brighteon.com, the free speech alternative to YouTube. Read more news about migrants being bused across America at Migrants.news. | Mike Adams | https://www.dcclothesline.com/2019/06/20/the-incubation-period-lie-about-ebola-and-why-america-is-vulnerable-to-an-ebola-outbreak-from-infected-migrants/ | 2019-06-20 15:07:44+00:00 | 1,561,057,664 | 1,567,538,655 | health | diseases and conditions |
689,716 | theguardianuk--2019-02-12--Ebola vaccine offered in exchange for sex say women in Congo | 2019-02-12T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Ebola vaccine offered in exchange for sex, say women in Congo | An unparalleled Ebola vaccination programme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has become engulfed in allegations of impropriety, amid claims that women are being asked for sexual favours in exchange for treatment. Research by several NGOs has revealed that a deep mistrust of health workers is rife in DRC and gender-based violence is believed to have increased since the start of the Ebola outbreak in August. The research, presented at a national taskforce meeting in Beni, follows calls by international health experts urging the World Health Organization to consider issuing a global alert in relation to the outbreak. The experimental vaccine has been described by the WHO as “highly, highly efficacious” and hopes have been pinned on it controlling the outbreak. In one study cited, multiple respondents raised concerns over individuals offering Ebola-related services, such as vaccinations, in exchange for sexual favours. The risk of exploitation by frontline Ebola workers was also mentioned by several focus groups. Concerns were raised over a reported increase in stigma and violence facing women. Some women are blamed for failing to prevent the spread of the disease, according to the research by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), whose study was cited in the presentation. Women, who are responsible for caring for the sick and ensuring that children wash their hands, faced a rising workload, with many feeling traumatised and exhausted, the recent meeting was told. One participant in a focus group said women are isolated during their periods, and are being accused of having the virus. The IRC has since said those claims were based on preliminary findings. The charity, which consulted more than 30 focus groups, added in a statement that it is still analysing research: “We will take the findings and work with partners to address concerns raised and ensure that women and girls are protected.” Trina Helderman, senior health and nutrition adviser for Medair’s global emergency response team, said the Ebola response should have established a higher standard of protection for women. “This region of DRC has a long history of sexual violence and exploitation of women and girls. Though shocking, this is an issue that could have been anticipated,” said Helderman. “Humanitarian actors should have been more prepared to put safety measures in place to prevent this from happening.” On Thursday, the health ministry urged people to report anyone offering services such as vaccinations or other treatment in exchange for money. The ministry said it was aware of separate rumours, spread on social media, that women working on the Ebola response had been given jobs in exchange for sexual favours. In a statement, it said it took such claims seriously, and advised that women should only meet with recruiters wearing an official badge. The warnings come as international health experts urged the WHO to consider issuing a global alert in relation to the outbreak. Writing in the Lancet, they said the response had been complicated by a “storm of detrimental factors”, including political instability, conflict and large numbers of people on the move. Since August, there have been 811 Ebola cases, and 510 deaths as a result of the virus. The WHO has warned that there is a very high risk of the outbreak spreading not only across DRC but to Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan. There are also concerns that the source of transmission is unclear in one in five cases. Suspicion of authorities and health agencies has further hampered efforts to contain the response, said Eva Erlach, of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The agency has analysed feedback from thousands of people living in Ebola-affected areas. “Across all locations there are lots and lots of people who do not think that Ebola is real, that it is just a way for humanitarian organisations to make money, or that it was just used to postpone elections,” said Erlach. Last week, agencies were urged to work closely with women’s groups and local community leaders to build trust in services. Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the WHO, which supports the Ebola response, said most community engagement activities are already led by national DRC experts who work closely with local networks. There are around 20 dialects spoken in North Kivu and Ituri, he added. “Together, we continually adapt and work to improve our response to adjust to local challenges in this delicate social, political, economic context,” he said. Jasarevic added that sexual exploitation is a grave concern, and said the agency continually monitors its services. “A large part of the communication effort with communities is to inform them that all Ebola services are free,” he said. “We will continue to check and improve measures we have in place to prevent, monitor and report on any such incidents. More can always be done.” | Kate Holt in Beni and Rebecca Ratcliffe | https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/feb/12/ebola-vaccine-offered-in-exchange-for-sex-say-women-in-congo-drc | 2019-02-12 07:00:28+00:00 | 1,549,972,828 | 1,567,548,817 | health | diseases and conditions |
699,400 | theguardianuk--2019-05-03--Ebola death toll in Congo to pass 1000 World Health Organization warns | 2019-05-03T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Ebola death toll in Congo to pass 1,000, World Health Organization warns | The number of people killed by the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is expected to exceed 1,000 on Friday, the World Health Organization has warned. Weekly infections have been rising since late February, with attacks by armed groups and a failure to win community trust undermining the response to the epidemic. Since the outbreak began in August, 1,510 cases have been recorded in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, according to figures released by the DRC’s ministry of health on Thursday, while 994 people have died of the disease. An experimental vaccine, thought to be highly effective, is being offered to frontline workers as well as known contacts of Ebola patients and, in turn, their contacts. But this resource-intensive strategy depends on response teams having safe and quick access to affected areas. In a statement released this week, the World Health Organization warned the security situation remains volatile and “a major impediment” to such work. Reported cases of Ebola underwent a “considerable, although not unexpected rise” following an attack on Butembo hospital last month, in which Dr Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, an epidemiologist, was killed, the WHO added. Each time facilities are attacked, services are wound down, further aggravating the epidemic. More than half of Ebola infections so far have affected women, and almost three in 10 involve children under 18 years of age, according to available data. Repeated attacks on health centres, as well as the high number of patients not seeking help from specialist Ebola workers, have prompted calls for agencies to do more to address community mistrust. “The sad reality is that community engagement is not at the centre of the government’s and WHO’s strategy for the Ebola response,” said Tamba Emmanuel Danmbi-saa, humanitarian program manager for Oxfam in DRC, who added that far greater emphasis and funding have been allocated to medical aspects of the response. “We are talking about a context where people have been subjected to continuous armed attacks, people have lost loved ones, properties and are in perpetual situation of displacement.” The wider needs of communities have received little attention from international donors, said Danmbi-saa: “With Ebola, now they see all these donors, all these actors are coming, inundating their communities and villages – for a threat that is not visible.” This has contributed to suspicions and rumours about Ebola, not least beliefs that it is a money-making business for agencies, or that the disease does not really exist. “The Ebola crisis itself has exposed the enormous gaps in the humanitarian response,” added Kimberly Bennett, advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council in DRC. “There has been an extensive neglect of communities.” The humanitarian response plan for DRC, which is funded separately to the Ebola response, requires $1.6bn (£1.2bn) but is only 12% funded. Among people who have been displaced by conflict in North Kivu, almost 90% are living on just over a meal a day, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council. On Thursday, the health ministry announced a further 10 deaths from Ebola, seven of which were community deaths, meaning people had not sought care from an Ebola treatment centre. Delays in isolating patients and vaccinating contacts at risk, as well as high transmission rates within general health facilities, have all contributed to growing case loads. WHO teams have met with local residents as part of efforts to empower communities, and the organisation said it has had some success in persuading people to accept care from Ebola teams. The risk of the disease spreading nationally or across borders remains very high, according to a WHO assessment. On Friday, 18 humanitarian groups warned that tens of thousands of people have fled to the border with Uganda, following violence in Kamango, Beni territory, near to the Ebola outbreak in North Kivu. The NGOs, including Oxfam, said they had received reports that people have been prevented from crossing the border at sixteen official crossings. Some are crossing illegally and not being screened before entering Uganda, while others have been forced to return to villages they fled, where there is a risk of further violence. The WHO has appealed for greater resources to support the Ebola response and said on Friday that there is a funding gap of £54m. | Rebecca Ratcliffe | https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/may/03/ebola-death-toll-in-congo-to-pass-1000-world-health-organization-warns | 2019-05-03 13:42:33+00:00 | 1,556,905,353 | 1,567,541,313 | health | diseases and conditions |
700,235 | theguardianuk--2019-05-15--Ebola in the DRC everything you need to know | 2019-05-15T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Ebola in the DRC: everything you need to know | With more than 1,600 cases and almost 1,100 deaths, the outbreak in the eastern DRC is the second largest in history. It has a 67% fatality rate and 10 months after it began, the case numbers are still escalating. It is disproportionately affecting women (55% of cases) and children (28%). The WHO says the national and regional risk levels are very high and containment of the spread to North Kivu and Ituri provinces is unlikely, unless a break in the fighting makes it safe for health workers. Ebola hemorrhagic fever is caused by a virus that has a reservoir among forest animals, including monkeys and bats. It is spread through body fluids, which is why carers – mostly female relatives and nursing staff – are particularly at risk. It causes fever, aches and diarrhoea and attacks the immune system, causing blood clotting cells to malfunction so that victims bleed extensively and die if their immune system cannot fight off the viral infection. Drugs are still experimental. Patients are isolated and treated by nurses wearing full protective body suits and masks who try to boost their immune response. Friends and relatives are quarantined for 21 days. Patients have their temperatures taken every day, because a rise beyond 37.5C is the first sign of infection. Prevention measures include washing hands at every opportunity and safe burial practices, with no touching or washing of the body, as is traditional in some cultures. The 2013 and 2016 outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea spread for months through forest regions in west Africa where Ebola was unknown before the emergency was recognised. It escalated when it emerged in towns and cities, with 28,600 cases and 11,300 deaths. DRC successfully stamped out nine previous Ebola outbreaks in rural areas within a matter of a few months. There was concern that the previous outbreak between May and July 2018 in Équateur province might spread to towns via the Congo river but it was stopped after 53 cases and 29 deaths. Aid agencies, infectious disease experts and the WHO say it will be very hard to bring this outbreak under control, even though they have had vaccines and experimental drugs from the outset. There is almost no functioning state in much of eastern DRC. There is an almost total lack of basic services such as power, education, roads, healthcare, and the authority of the government only extends to the edges of urban areas. The president, national assembly and other institutions in Kinshasa are a four-hour flight away. Most people in the region live hand to mouth, growing their own vegetables or scraping enough to make a living from day labour, gathering wood for charcoal and a small amount of trade. Police are corrupt, predatory and violent. In rural zones, militia and armed bands provide security and employment opportunities but also steal, rape and kill at will. It is one of the most hostile environments faced by aid and health workers anywhere in the world. Mistrust of officials and foreigners is harming efforts to tackle the disease and conspiracy theories are rampant. Some believe the outbreak is fake news spread by rapacious NGOs and the UN to justify their presence in the country and allow the extraction of valuable mineral resources. Others believe the outbreak was deliberately created for the same reason. Some locals wonder why money is poured into fighting Ebola when many more people die each year of malaria without any similar international interest. Many people also fear going to Ebola treatment centres, choosing instead to stay at home and risk transmitting the disease to carers and neighbours. Insecurity also has prevented vaccination teams from getting to some areas, further limiting the health response. | Sarah Boseley and Jason Burke | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/15/ebola-in-the-drc-everything-you-need-to-know | 2019-05-15 04:00:02+00:00 | 1,557,907,202 | 1,567,540,618 | health | diseases and conditions |
700,334 | theguardianuk--2019-05-15--Terrifying Ebola epidemic out of control in DRC say experts | 2019-05-15T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | 'Terrifying' Ebola epidemic out of control in DRC, say experts | An Ebola epidemic in a conflict-riven region of Democratic Republic of Congo is out of control and could become as serious as the outbreak that devastated three countries in west Africa between 2013 and 2016, experts and aid chiefs have warned. New cases over the past month have increased at the fastest rate since the outbreak began last year, as aid agencies struggle to enact a public health response in areas that have suffered decades of neglect and conflict, with incredibly fragile health systems and regular outbreaks of deadly violence involving armed groups. “I’m very concerned – as concerned as one can be,” said Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust, who called for a ceasefire to allow health teams to reach the sick and protect others in the community. “Whether it gets to the absolute scale of west Africa or not, none of us know, but this is massive in comparison with any other outbreak in the history of Ebola and it is still expanding. It’s remarkable it hasn’t spread more geographically but the numbers are frightening and the fact that they are going up is terrifying.” A six- to nine-month ceasefire, brokered by the UN, the Red Cross or similar bodies, is vital to stopping the spread, he said. “There was violence in west Africa, in Freetown and Monrovia, but this is on a different scale and it is coming from multiple sources.” More than 1,600 people have been infected with the Ebola virus in the North Kivu region of DRC and more than 1,000 have died so far – the great majority women and children. At least 10 months since the outbreak began, the numbers are rising steadily and the fatality rate is higher than in previous outbreaks, at about 67%. Returning from a visit to his teams in the region, David Miliband, the head of the International Rescue Committee, called for a “reset” in the response. “The situation is far more dangerous than the statistic of 1,000 deaths, itself the second largest in history, suggests and the suspension of key services threatens to create a lethal inflection point in the trajectory of the disease,” he said. “The danger is that the number of cases spirals out of control, despite a proven vaccine and treatment.” IRC teams, who have had three triage units in health centres burned down, have warned that the situation in North Kivu is increasingly volatile and is making progress against the disease impossible. Last week, fighters from the armed Mai-Mai rebel group attacked a treatment centre in Butembo, one of the towns at the centre of the crisis. This week, two patients were killed during an assault on a treatment centre in Katwa, the second such incident in the town this month. The WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has also voiced profound disquiet. In March, Dr Tedros said the Ebola outbreak was contracting and would be over in six months. After a visit at the end of April with the regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, he said he was deeply worried about the situation. “Cases are increasing because of violent acts that set us back each time,” he said. The pair went to Butembo, where a WHO epidemiologist, Dr Richard Mouzoko, was killed by armed men while he and colleagues were working on the Ebola response. “We are entering a phase where we will need major shifts in the response,” said Dr Tedros. “WHO and partners cannot tackle these challenges without the international community stepping in to fill the sizeable funding gap.” Only half of the currently requested funds have been received, which could lead to WHO and partners rolling back some activities when they are most needed. Those on the frontline in North Kivu fear no end is in sight. Whitney Elmer, a country director for Mercy Corps, one of the humanitarian NGOs working on preventing the spread, said there had been “a drastic change in the security situation”, which was causing a big rise in the number of cases. Elmer said there had been about 400 cases over the past month – the highest figure for that time period since the outbreak began – and the number of new cases was increasing at a much higher rate than seen previously. “We are very concerned,” she said, adding that there was real potential for the outbreak to spread to neighbouring Rwanda or Uganda. Frontline workers say there has not been enough community involvement and that bringing in armed police and especially cancelling elections in the region have provoked hostility and suspicion. “The overall strategy has been to go full force to do things as quickly as possible,” said Elmer. She added that it was vital that local people and organisations were included in decision-making. Médecins Sans Frontières, whose volunteer doctors have been at the forefront of every Ebola outbreak, agreed that the failure to engage communities had been a disaster. “We are very concerned and the signs around the outbreak response are not good right now,” said Kate White, one of its emergency managers. New cases should be picked up by routine surveillance and testing the contacts of people who fall ill. “But what we see right now is that the majority of confirmed cases are coming through community deaths. It’s a very worrying sign,” she said. “It means communities are not aware or not active participants in the response. People die in their communities and they have the ability to transmit the virus to as many people as possible.” She said agencies needed to have the local people actively working against Ebola. “Anything else is a band-aid solution.” WHO recently announced an expansion of the vaccination guidelines and the introduction of a second vaccine to try to protect people. Experimental drugs have also been given to 700 people, although nobody yet knows how successful they have been. But unless it is possible to reach affected communities with vaccines and drugs, the new technologies are useless. “The tragedy is that we have the technical means to stop Ebola, but until all parties halt attacks on the response, it will be very difficult to end this outbreak,” Dr Tedros tweeted on Friday. | Sarah Boseley Health editor | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/15/terrifying-ebola-epidemic-out-of-control-in-drc-say-experts | 2019-05-15 04:00:02+00:00 | 1,557,907,202 | 1,567,540,613 | health | diseases and conditions |
701,930 | theguardianuk--2019-06-03--DRC set to exceed 2000 Ebola cases in second largest outbreak ever | 2019-06-03T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | DRC set to exceed 2,000 Ebola cases in second largest outbreak ever | Aid agencies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are set to announce that more than 2,000 people have been infected with Ebola since the outbreak was declared in August last year. So far, there have been 1,994 confirmed and probable cases of infection with the virus, making the outbreak the second largest in history. New cases are being reported at a rate of around 10 every day. Some 1,339 people have died Violence by armed groups and community mistrust have severely undermined attempts to halt the epidemic, forcing health workers to suspend vaccination and treatment work. Last week, DRC’s military forces killed 26 rebels from one local militia in a clash near the city of Beni. The acute insecurity has prevented vaccination teams from getting to some areas, while many people fear going to Ebola treatment centres, choosing instead to stay at home and risk transmitting the disease to carers and neighbours. In some areas, health workers are afraid to wear protective equipment because they fear they will be targeted by armed groups, the World Health Organization has said. “Community members do not trust medical staff and aid organisations, and are not coming into health facilities when they show Ebola symptoms,” said Tariq Riebl, emergency response director of the International Rescue Committee. “In Butembo, the current epicentre of the outbreak, doctors and nurses are being threatened and health centres attacked regularly, hampering the response and forcing the IRC and other aid agencies to frequently suspend operations.” Some in the affected communities believe the outbreak is fake news spread by rapacious NGOs and the UN to justify their presence in the country and allow the extraction of valuable mineral resources. Others believe the outbreak was deliberately created for the same reason. “To say that things are not going well is an understatement. It’s time the international community wakes up to the severity of this crisis,” said Riebl. Aid workers are concerned by the accelerating spread of the disease. It took 224 days for the landmark figure of a thousand confirmed and probable cases to be reached. But it has taken only 71 days to reach almost 2,000 such cases in the outbreak. Though a decline in the number of new confirmed Ebola virus disease cases was reported last week, experts said the figures should be interpreted with caution given the complex operating environment and fragility of the security situation. The UN has been urged by charities to ramp up Ebola prevention work in DRC to the highest level of emergency response. Only three crises – Yemen, Syria and Mozambique – are treated as the equivalent of a level-three response, activated when agencies are unable to meet needs on the ground. Last month, the UN announced several measures to strengthen its response, including the appointment of a new emergency coordinator, David Gressly. Aid agencies, infectious disease experts and the WHO say it will be very hard to bring this outbreak under control, even though they have had vaccines and experimental drugs from the outset. There is almost no functioning state in much of eastern DRC and an almost total lack of basic services such as power, education, roads or healthcare. The authority of the government only extends to the edges of urban areas. | Jason Burke Africa correspondent | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/03/drc-set-to-exceed-2000-ebola-cases-in-second-largest-outbreak-ever | 2019-06-03 16:30:27+00:00 | 1,559,593,827 | 1,567,539,269 | health | diseases and conditions |
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