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WHO confirms first case of mpox outside of Africa

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A day after the disease was designated a worldwide public health emergency, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Thursday that a case of the viral infection mpox in Sweden was connected to an outbreak in Africa, marking the first indication of its spread outside of the continent this year.

At a news briefing, Swedish health experts stated that the individual contracted the clade Ib kind of mpox, which is responsible for the current outbreak while travelling in Africa. The patient is undergoing medical care.

According to representatives from both the US and Canada, no cases have been found thus far.

Following the spread of infections from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to neighbouring countries, the WHO on Wednesday deemed the African outbreak to be a public health emergency.

 

Most reported cases of the disease outside Africa in 2023 were identified through sexual health or other health services in primary or secondary healthcare facilities, and involved mainly, but not exclusively, men who have sex with men.

In May 2023, WHO declared that the disease was no longer a global challenge. Its director-general of the body, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the end of the emergency status for the disease noting that almost 90% fewer mpox cases were reported in the past three months, compared with cases in the same duration before that. More than 87,000 mpox cases were confirmed globally from the beginning of 2022 through May 8 this year.

But a fresh trend of the disease has sprung again this year with the Democratic Republic of Congo remaining the epicentre.
The virus that is causing the current outbreak, Clade Ib, is thought to induce a more severe form of mpox than the one that resulted in a public health emergency in 2022. Close contact is how the virus spreads.

The viral infection spreads by intimate contact and results in lesions filled with pus and flu-like symptoms. Although most cases are mild and can be fatal.

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Musings From Abroad

Uganda signs contract with Yapi Merkezi to develop rail

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The Ugandan government and Turkish construction company, Yapi Merkezi, inked a contract on Monday to build a 272-kilometer (169-mile) stretch of railway, an official from Uganda stated.

Perez Wamburu, the project coordinator for Uganda’s Standard Gauge Railway, stated that the agreement covered the first phase of a 1,700 km electrified train line, costing 2.7 billion euros ($3 billion).

According to Wamburu, work on the project will begin in November.

At the signing event, Bageya Waiswa, the permanent secretary of Uganda’s works ministry, stated that the project will boost trade and lower transportation costs.

He stated that Uganda will finance the project, which will take 48 months to finish once it is underway, using both its own money and loans from export credit institutions.

The rail segment will connect landlocked Uganda to its neighbour’s rail network at the Kenyan border, Malaba, and eventually the Indian Ocean seaport of Mombasa. It will stretch from the capital, Kampala, to this location.

Uganda and China Harbour and Engineering Company Ltd. (CHEC) reached an agreement in 2015 to carry out the project, provided that CHEC assisted in obtaining funding for the railway from the Chinese government.

Uganda ended the deal last year and started negotiations with Yapi Merkezi, which is working on a project identical to this in adjacent Tanzania, after years of failed negotiations.

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Musings From Abroad

Russia’s Wagner claims to have recovered bodies of its mercenaries from July deadly attack

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The Wagner mercenary outfit from Russia announced that its forces had found the bodies of its mercenaries who were slain in a confrontation with Islamists and Tuareg rebels in July in the Mali desert sandstorm.

An Islamist insurgency that has been raging for years in Mali, where military authorities took control in coups in 2020 and 2021, originated from a Tuareg separatist revolt in the country’s north of the Sahel.

In July, Wagner stated that it suffered significant losses in the conflict, which it fought with the Malian military, but did not provide many specifics.

“An operation was completed to return the bodies of our brothers, who in July 2024 heroically took up the fight with Islamists many times outnumbered,” Wagner said in a rare statement on Telegram late on Tuesday.

The July battle’s defeat highlighted the risks faced by Russian mercenary forces used by military juntas, which are fighting to rein in rebels and potent branches of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in the parched Sahel of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

The army of Mali announced in a statement that it had also located and removed the soldiers’ bodies from the scene of the July attack.

Wagner stated that the rebel group had recovered the combatants’ bodies, but a spokesman for the group refuted this.

“It’s not true, there are no Wagner bodies there,” Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesman for a Tuareg organisation known as the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development, told journalists.

He said on social media on Sunday that shortly after the battle, the rebels removed the Wagner bodies from the area.

The assertions follow a pattern of contradictory statements: last week, the rebels maintained that both of their fighters who were seized in Mali were still alive, but Wagner said that two of them had passed away.

According to Wagner, its fighters had traversed a desolate region “teeming with Azawad militants” close to Tinzaouaten in north Mali.

“The bodies of our fallen brothers will return to the homeland,” Wagner said. “We do not leave our own, and all of them – dead or alive – will be returned home.”

 

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