Germany has declared its first confirmed case of the deadly coronavirus that broke out in China.

Bavaria’s health department said late on Monday that a man in the town of Starnberg, 30 kilometers (19 miles) southwest of Munich, has been confirmed as suffering from the virus.

The patient is in “good condition” and isolated under medical observation, Bavaria’s health department said in a statement posted on its website. It did not disclose any details of the patient’s age or nationality.

“People who have been in contact (with the patient) have been informed in detail about possible symptoms, hygiene measures and transmission channels,” the health department said.

The virus, that broke out in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of last year, has thus far killed 100 people, infected over 2,800 others, stranded tens of millions during the big Lunar New Year holiday and rattled global markets.

Cases linked to people who travelled from Wuhan have been confirmed in a dozen countries, from Japan to the United States.

(REUTERS)

France confirmed on Friday its first three cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, with two patients being hospitalised in Paris and the other in the southwestern city of Bordeaux.

Health Minister Agnes Buzyn told a news conference authorities had confirmed two cases, Europe’s first, and that more cases were likely to occur in France.

In a separate statement on Friday, the health ministry announced the third case, a relative of one of the first two.

Earlier, the charity SOS Medecins said it had treated one of the cases, a patient of Chinese origin who was showing symptoms of a fever and who said he had been in contact with people from Wuhan in China, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak.

Buzyn said the patient was 48 years old and had returned two days ago from a trip to China which included a stop in Wuhan.

“He’s been put in an isolated room so as to avoid any contact with the outside world. He’s fine”, she said.

Most of the cases and all of the deaths so far have been in China, where officials have imposed severe restrictions on travel and public gatherings.

The virus has created alarm, but there are still many unknowns surrounding it, such as just how dangerous it is and how easily it spreads between people. It can lead to pneumonia, which has been deadly in some cases.

The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the virus an “emergency in China”, but stopped short of declaring it a global health emergency.

Buzyn said the official advice to those suspecting they might have caught the virus was not to go to hospital – to avoid spreading it – but to call a special number where they would be told what to do.

The minister said she planned to hold daily news conferences on the issue.

(REUTERS)

Investigation into the epidemiology of hepatitis D in Cameroon revealed intrahousehold infection and large differences in prevalence between regions, with cases concentrated in forested areas close to the equator, which has been seen in other tropical areas.

“Central Africa has the unfortunate peculiarity of being highly endemic for infection with HIV, hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and hepatitis delta virus (HDV) so that concomitant infections with more than one of these pathogens occur frequently,” Arnaud Fontanet, MD, DrPH, from the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, and colleagues wrote. “While much attention has been paid to the first three, relatively little is known about the epidemiology of HDV and its interactions with the other blood-borne viruses. Here, we extend [previous work in HCV] to HBV and HDV, and investigate the distribution and risk factors of HDV infection in Cameroon.”

Of the 14,510 participants in the study, 1,621 (11.9%) were positive for HBV surface antigen and 224 of those with HBV were seropositive for HDV. These data led to an estimate of 1,160,799 HBsAG-positive individuals and 122,910 HDV-seropositive individuals in the 15 years to 49 years age group in 2011.

While HDV antibody prevalence did not vary by sex or age, the researchers found variations between regions and ethnic groups. The HDV prevalence was 50% in Sud and 54% in Est, whereas the prevalence ranged between 1% and 19% in the remaining 10 regions (P < .0001). By similar variance, HDV prevalence was 49% among Eastern Bantus and 25% in Southern Bantus, whereas the prevalence ranged between 3% and 8% in the remaining ethnic groups. (P < .0001).

Additionally, the researchers observed a “pronounced South to North gradient” in HDV prevalence, from 28.3% under 4°N down to 4.2% above 9.6° N.

Among the 239 households with at least two individuals with HBV, if HDV seropositivity was randomly distributed across individuals of these households, the expected number of households with at least one case of HDV seropositivity would be 48 (95% CI, 44-50).

However, the observed number was 31, which Fontanet and colleagues noted was significantly lower than expected and suggested an intra-household clustering of cases. Similarly, the observed number of houses with two or more cases of HCV seropositivity was significantly higher than expected by chance, indicating clustering of infected individuals within a household.

“It is noteworthy that in the family with four chronically infected with HBV, all four were co-infected with HDV,” they wrote. “Likewise, of the three families with all three chronically infected with HBV, all three were coinfected with HDV in two families, and two out of three were co-infected with HDV in the remaining.”

Source: Healo.com

The death toll from a measles epidemic in Congo has surpassed 6,000, the World Health Organization said Tuesday as it warned that more funds are needed to save lives during the world’s worst outbreak of the infectious disease.

Measles has killed nearly three times as many people in Congo than an Ebola outbreak in the country that has garnered far more international attention, particularly after health teams came under attack from armed militias operating in the area.

“Lack of funding remains a huge impediment to successfully curbing the outbreak,” WHO said in announcing its appeal.

While $27.6 million already has been mobilized to curb the measles epidemic, WHO said that $40 million is needed for a special six-month plan to vaccinate older children between the ages of 6 and 14.

A vaccine against measles has existed for decades but some 310,000 cases have been reported in Congo since the beginning of 2019. Health workers in Congo struggle to access remote parts of the vast country, and vaccination rates remain low in areas where armed groups operate.

Many health resources in Congo this year also have been devoted to the simultaneous outbreak of Ebola, which has become the second worst in history after the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic. At least 2,231 people have died of Ebola since that outbreak was first identified in August 2018.

AP

Two Cameroonian girls born as conjoined twins, separated by doctors in Lyon in November, have spend their first Christmas as regular twins out of the hospital. Bissie and Eyenga Merveille are to return home to Cameroon in January.

Bissie and Eyenga Merveille were joined by the abdomen when they were born in November 2018. Doctors in France separated them in November during a five-hour operation that involved separating their shared liver.

One of the two girls had to undergo a heart operation two weeks later, but is now recovering.

“The little girl has gained weight and is recovering,” said the hopsital and the Chaine de l’Espoir, the charities that organised their transfer from Cameroon to France, in a statement.

The twins’ mother had taken refuge in a hospital in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, after being rejected by her family when she gave birth to conjoined, or Siamese, twins.

The charities took her case on, and brought her to France with the help of the Cameroonian government.

The family is being hosted in the le Val-de-Saône, where they will stay until a final medical exam before leaving back to Cameroon.

Source: RFI

 Members of measles vaccination teams in southern Cameroon have been attacked and beaten by locals who say the serums triggered side effects that sent 12 children to local hospitals.

Many rural Cameroonians distrust vaccination campaigns, which have been organized as part of a national initiative to stop a measles outbreak that has afflicted a number of children.

Thirty-four-year-old Samuel Amougou, a vaccination team member in Cameroon’s commercial town of Ebolowa, is still recovering from wounds he sustained from angry parents who oppose the vaccination campaign. He says Roman Catholic clergy transported him and five other vaccination team members to Ebolowa regional hospital after angry parents harassed them last Friday in front of a local government school.

“They [the parents] did not want to hear any explanations. They did not allow me to speak. I just got blows [to] my face and all over my body, severe beatings on my face and all over my body,” Amougou said.

At the same hospital, Etala Suza, a 35-year-old trader and father of two, says his son also suffered side effects of the vaccine and has been hospitalized for several days.

Suza said after his son came home from school feeling tired, running a fever and vomiting, he, Suza, was told about the vaccination campaign for children in all schools. Suza said he was told by the child’s driver that the youngster threw up several times in the car.

Cameroon organized the national vaccination campaign last week to contain the current measles outbreak it said had infected more than 3,000 people, especially children. The health ministry reported that the most affected area was in the central African state’s northern border with Nigeria and Chad, where 17 children had died this month.

The government said but for the south region where the towns of Ebolowa and Sangmelima are located, the vaccination campaign went well in the country’s nine other administrative regions.

Nurse Christelle Manedji of the Ebolowa regional hospital said medical staff attended to 12 children who suffered side effects of the vaccine. She said none of them died, as some people had claimed on social media.

Manedji said the first case they received was that of a 2-year-old whose diarrhea and vomiting led to severe fatigue; the second was that of a 3-year-old who had a convulsion and fever a day after she received a dose of the measles and rubella vaccine. She says they had been told to be ready to handle such cases during the vaccination campaign because there are normal reactions for some vaccinated babies.

Many parents in Cameroon’s south region do not trust vaccinations. They say traditional healers carry out traditional treatments that protect children. Many prefer African traditional medical practitioners, who are more accessible and available than hospitals, which often are very far from home, understaffed and lack medication. Others say Western countries create vaccines to stop children from being able to have babies when they are of child-bearing age. Some say the vaccinations are trial drugs that may paralyze their babies. Others claim their religious practices prohibit them from having children vaccinated.

Dr. Jeudi Debnet, the highest government officer supervising the vaccination campaign in Cameroon’s south region, says such allegations are unfounded. He said officials have given instructions for all affected children to be taken to the nearest health centers.

“All the children who go to the hospital [are admitted] with some effects of the vaccines should be taken care free of charge. We use vaccines that are going to expire in 2021. There are the vaccines that we are already using in routine immunization programs, so we just took the same vaccines to use during the campaign,” Debnet said.

Cameroon’s health ministry reports that progress has been made in persuading parents to have their children vaccinated. Vaccination coverage in towns is estimated at 80 percent, but in some villages in the country’s hinterlands, barely have three out of every 10 children are vaccinated.

The last vaccination campaign, between Dec. 4 and Dec. 8, targeted 3.3 million children between the ages of nine months and five years of age. The government says it is still considering launching a catch-up exercise for measles. The disease is caused by a virus that is spread through the air by breathing, coughing, or sneezing.

Measles is said to be highly contagious and can remain in the air, ready to infect, for up to two hours.

Source: VOA

Cameroon has organized a national vaccination campaign to stop a measles outbreak that has infected more than 3,000 people, especially children, this year. The most-affected area is the central African state’s northern border with Nigeria and Chad, where 17 children have died this month. Health officials believe many more people are infected, since barely 30% of the population visits conventional health facilities.

Dr. Edzoa Brice, coordinator of the vaccination teams dispatched to towns and villages around Cameroon’s capital city, Yaounde, says vaccination teams are stationed in all road junctions, churches, schools, markets and popular spots, and will not be visiting homes as they have always done in the past. He says back the teams found that few parents and children were at home as they had gone to schools, farms, offices or markets.

Nurse Theresia Mabuh, a member of the vaccination team from Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry, says the vaccination campaign is aimed at saving millions of lives threatened by the outbreak.

“It is efficient, it is simple and it is free for all the children, so I am calling on all the parents, all the mothers to [have their children vaccinated]. We also have the deworming of children from 1 year to 5 years. We have vitamin A that is given [to children aged] from 6 month to 5 years,” Mabuh said.

The Public Health Ministry reports that  the northern regions, where more than 2,000 of this year’s 3,000 reported cases have occurred, have higher birth rates and lower routine vaccination coverage, as barely 3 out of every 10 mothers visit conventional health facilities. They prefer African traditional medical practitioners, who are more accessible and available than hospitals which are often very far away, understaffed and lack medication. Fear and misinformation make some distrust vaccinations. Some parents either refuse or forget to have their children vaccinated when they are 9 months old, as recommended by the World Health Organization.

Twenty-three-year old mother of two Loveline Tossam says it was after she lost her 2-year-old daughter shortly after she arrived at the Biyem Assi district hospital in Yaounde that the medical staff informed her that she had to vaccinate her children.

“She was coughing. She was very weak and she was vomiting ceaselessly. Twenty-four hours afterwards, we lost her and it is now that I am learning that we had to go for vaccination,” Tossam said.

The WHO lists vaccination hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health that have  been leading to the resurfacing of measles is some countries.

Dr. Phanuel Habimana, WHO resident representative in Cameroon, says people should trust the vaccines’ ability to save lives.

He said people should be informed that the vaccines given to their children are efficient and certified by the WHO. He says he was also vaccinated when he was young and is calling on community, religious, opinion and political leaders and everyone in authority to educate all parents to allow their children to be vaccinated. He says after the campaign, the knowledge of the need for routine vaccinations for newborns should be reinforced.

Two injections of a vaccine can prevent measles, and the WHO says treatment is safe and effective, and has been in use since the 1960s.

Cameroon reported its last massive measles outbreak from February 2010 to July 2011 when 37 out of the 179 health districts in the country were affected.

Source: VOA

Japanese scientists will begin the country’s first human trial for a new vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus this month, they said Friday.

The vaccine, which has previously been tested in monkeys, uses an inactivated form of the virus that can only effectively replicate in artificial cells.

Scientists hope that will make it safer than other treatments, the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo said in a press release.

“We think there’s high hope for a new, safe vaccine which can be produced effectively,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of infectious diseases at the university who helped developed the vaccine, said in the release.

The university will begin the clinical study later in December, injecting 30 healthy adult men with two doses of the vaccine, four weeks apart.

They will be monitored for side effects and whether they have developed immunity to Ebola.

The Ebola virus is passed on by contact with the blood, body fluids, secretions or organs of an infected or recently deceased person.

The death rate is typically high, ranging up to 90 percent in some outbreaks, according to the WHO.

Several Ebola vaccines exist, including rVSV-ZEBOV and a new formula produced by a Belgian subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson that went into use last month in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The country is in the grip of an Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 2,000 people in 15 months.

It is the second most deadly to date after a 2014-2016 outbreak which left some 11,000 people dead and underscored the urgency to bring a vaccine to market.

The current outbreak is the tenth in the country since its first in 1976.

Source: AFP

The non-profit group Doctors without Borders (MSF) pulled its foreign staff out of an eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after an armed group tried to enter its compound.

The group is the latest aid agency to withdraw its staff from the Biakato region, after three health workers treating Ebola were killed in an unclaimed attack last week at an accommodation camp in Biakato Mines in Ituri Province.

That attack prompted the World Health Organization to withdraw its staff from the area.

MSF said that on Tuesday night, a group wielding machetes and sticks broke into the Biakato Health Center, where it operates an Ebola Treatment Center. There were no casualties and the group did not enter the Ebola facility, it said.

A separate group with the same weapons then tried but failed to enter the MSF facility in Biakato Mines. The NGO said they threw stones but did not do any damage.

“Due to a deterioration in the security situation, MSF made the difficult decision to withdraw all non-local staff from the Biakato region,” MSF said in a statement.

According to local authorities, the attackers from last week’s incident are likely to be members of the Mayi-Mayi armed militia group, which is fighting for a share of the country’s wealth.

The DRC is undergoing its 10th Ebola epidemic, which is the second-deadliest on record.

The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to more than 200.

An outbreak of the much-feared hemorrhagic virus has killed 2,206 people mainly in North Kivu and neighboring Ituri, according to the latest official figures.

Insecurity has complicated the epidemic from the outset, compounding resistance within communities to preventive measures, care facilities, and safe burials.

On November 4, the authorities said more than 300 attacks on Ebola health workers had been recorded since the start of the year, leaving six dead and 70 wounded, some of them patients.

(Source: AFP)

Cameroonian health and emergency personnel are working to stem a cholera outbreak that has killed at least a dozen people and sickened at least 100 others in the Bakassi Peninsula that shares a maritime boundary with Nigeria.

It is feared the outbreak will claim more lives in the coastal area, which lacks health infrastructure.

Emergency medical workers, together with some civilians, are working to improve hygiene and sanitation by clearing dirt and debris from water beneath houses on the shores in the area. Among them is 31-year-old Cameroonian fisherman Lucas Emimo, who says he lost his younger sister to cholera. Emimo says he has joined the humanitarian workers because he fears many more people may die from the infectious disease that causes severe watery diarrhea, leading to dehydration and even death if untreated.

“We lack toilets, potable water,” Emimo said. “There is no hospital. People defecate beside the sea, under the houses, everywhere and so it makes the place not good to stay.”

Dr. Ebongo Zakius Nandji, the area’s top health official, says humanitarian workers were deployed when news broke that people were dying and some were being rushed to hospitals. He says there is no doubt cholera is to blame.

“Upon the reception of a distress signal from our team in the Bakassi health district, we came down to [the city of] Idabato, myself and my entire emergency response team,” Nandji said. “The situation on the ground really sends a pointer to the fact that we are in an outbreak of cholera.”

Nandji said six people had been reported dead and hundreds of suspected cholera sufferers were still in villages around Idabato. Civilians said they had buried six others before the medical team’s arrival. The actual death toll could be higher, because many live in remote locations, complicating efforts to get accurate health data.

Nandji urged people to be vigilant and report any cholera symptoms.

Hospitals underused

But the government says only 20 percent of the population visits hospitals. Most of them prefer traditional African medicine. Some complain that the only government hospital in Idabato is understaffed and lacks medication.

Roland Ewane, a top Cameroonian official in Idabato, says Nigerians living in the region prefer to return to their country for health care. However, making the journey reduces chances of survival for cholera patients.

“We have a population of about 40,000,” Ewane said. “They are mostly Nigerians. We have been carrying out sensitization campaigns [educating the population] on the necessity of using or the importance of using government services. One of them is the hospital. They do not come to the hospital. It is a big cry [to use hospitals].”

The Bakassi Peninsula is by the sea, but potable water is hard to find. Few have toilets and the local hospital struggles to handle epidemics.

Nigeria ceded full control of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon in 2013, in keeping with a 2002 International Court of Justice ruling. Some 300,000 Nigerians live on the peninsula — approximately 90 percent of its population. The territory is rich in hydrocarbons and fisheries, but lacks basic social services.

Most health workers trained by Nigeria to serve in the area returned to their country when Cameroon did not continue paying their salaries. Some also fled attacks by separatists fighting for the independence of Cameroon’s English-speaking regions from the French-speaking majority. Cameroon has faced difficulties replacing departed medical staff.

Source: VOA