26, May 2022
Dion Ngute says a spike in cholera has killed 140 people since October 0
A spike in cholera in Cameroon has killed 140 people since October last year, Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute said on Wednesday.
“The updated epidemiological situation report shows a total of 7 287 notified cases, including 140 deaths, since October 2021,” he said in a statement.
“Three regions continue to record new patients,” he added, referring to the Littoral region, the West region, and the English-speaking Southwest region.
A vaccination campaign is to start in June, the government has said.
Cholera is an acute form of diarrhoea that is treatable with antibiotics and hydration but can kill within hours if left untreated.
Outbreaks occur periodically in Cameroon, a west African nation of more than 25 million inhabitants. The last epidemic occurred between January and August 2020, when 66 people died.
Cholera is caused by a germ that is typically transmitted by poor sanitation. People become infected when they swallow food or water carrying the bug.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said in early 2021 there were between 1.3 and four million cases of cholera per year around the world, leading to between 21 000 and 143 000 deaths.
Source: AFP
4, June 2022
Shakira and footballer Gerard Pique separate 0
Colombian superstar Shakira and FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique announced Saturday they were calling time on their relationship of more than a decade.
The 45-year-old “Hips don’t Lie” songstress is one of the biggest names in the global music industry and has sold more than 60 million albums.
Spanish football hero Pique, 35, won the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 European Championship, and is a three-time Champions League winner with Barcelona.
The couple share two sons and had been living together for years on the outskirts of Barcelona.
“We regret to confirm that we are separating. For the well-being of our children, who are our upmost priority, we request respect for (our) privacy,” they said in a statement.
With her mix of Latin and Arabic rhythms and rock influence, three-time Grammy winner Shakira is one of the biggest stars from Latin America, scoring major global hits with songs such as “Hips don’t Lie” and “Whenever, Wherever”.
In 2020, she performed with Jennifer Lopez at the halftime show of the NFL’s Super Bowl championship final in Miami, typically one of the most-watched half-hours in US television.
The couple announced their separation just over a week after Spanish court documents inched Shakira closer to standing trial in Spain for tax fraud after a Barcelona court dismissed an appeal from the singer.
Spanish prosecutors accuse her of defrauding the Spanish tax office out of 14.5 million euros ($15.5 million) on income earned between 2012 and 2014.
They say she moved to Spain in 2011 when her relationship with Pique became public but maintained official tax residency in the Bahamas until 2015.
Her defence lawyers say she moved to Spain full time only in 2015 and insist that her “conduct on tax matters has always been impeccable in all the countries she had to pay taxes”.
In an interview with AFP in 2019, Shakira said temporarily losing her voice two years earlier had been “the darkest moment of her life” and affected her “deeply”.
She later recovered her voice naturally, without needing to undergo surgery as recommended by doctors and subsequently carried out a world tour in 2018.
Source: AFP