For Professor Torimiro, her research journey started years ago in the rainforests of Cameroon where she observed how hunter-gatherers live in close proximity to animals. At the time, she was among the first Cameroonian scientists to study zoonoses — disease or infections that are transmissible from animals to humans.

After years of study and postdoctoral research in clinical biochemistry and applied molecular biology in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, she returned to her country Cameroon, to support the national health system, teach and train health workers, and research infectious diseases that pose a risk to women and children.

From an assistant researcher to senior scientist

Since her return home in the 1990s, Professor Torimiro has helped create four health research institutions in Cameroon.

As Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Yaoundé I, she is a key figure in building academic capacities in molecular biology in her country and shaping Cameroon’s next generation of scientists. The research carried out by her students cuts across the use of molecular techniques to identify disease-associated genes to AIDS, hepatitis B, cancer, diabetes, fibroids and cardiovascular diseases. 

“Research output drives health policy and therefore patient management and care. In other words, responsible conduct in research yields reliable and accurate data that could be used for policy change,” she explains.

Professor Torimiro says that Cameroonian scientists are increasingly able to conduct research to international standards, thanks to better access to tools, facilities and training.

“Since I returned to Cameroon in 2005, I have done all my laboratory work in Cameroon without having to take a single specimen to Europe or the USA. This is a giant step in terms of capacity-building and retaining talents in Africa.”

Research that responds to health challenges

Professor Torimiro is driven by an interest in operational research because “research output, especially in low- and middle-income countries, is only useful and meaningful if it responds to the health challenges of the population,” she says.

While HIV diagnosis is routinely performed in health facilities in her country, early diagnosis and quality control remain a challenge. That is why she supports system-wide improvements. 

She is proud to have participated in a multi-disciplinary research group dealing with early infant diagnosis of HIV infection of children born to HIV-positive mothers and was instrumental to the creation of the national programme on this work, a key component of the National AIDS Treatment Programme. She later built capacities among health workers through international seminars on good clinical laboratory practice in the management of HIV/AIDS and co-infection of AIDS and hepatitis B patients.

“I wanted to transfer technical know-how, skills and competencies in research to gather evidence from populations in Cameroon that would make policy change possible in the diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS.” 

Professor Torimiro also leads a group of physicians, biologists, public health experts, career scientists and policymakers (including from Cameroon, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom) to research hepatitis B in pregnant and breastfeeding women and its impact on mother and child health. The aim is to improve cost-effective early diagnosis of hepatitis B infection among infants born to hepatitis B-infected mothers.

Women supporting women

Ever since her very first grant back in 1994, Professor Torimiro has dedicated herself to addressing the problems of AIDS, cancers and hepatitis among poor women in rural areas of Cameroon. 

For her outstanding achievements in maternal health, she received in 1999 the Award for Women’s Health from the Commonwealth. 

“I personally sponsored many screening campaigns for cervical and breast cancer, as well as free screening for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C,” she says.

This initiative was supported by national authorities and in particular the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and the Family, and involves various women’s associations in Cameroon. She also trains and mentors junior female scientists in health research.

“I was and still am motivated to study how viruses move from a pregnant woman to her fetus and the differential clinical outcomes for the infant,” she says, confirming that her work aims to help women suffering from sexually transmitted diseases (syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV and hepatitis B).

Professor Torimiro says she has seen a big change in the success of treating sexually transmitted diseases among rural women in her country. More women are assertive in addressing sexually transmitted infections and are committed to engage in addressing them.

What more needs to be done? Integrate early diagnosis of other bloodborne pathogens (such as hepatitis B virus that can be transmitted from mother-to-child) among pregnant women into routine antenatal care services, and for free.

Source: WHO

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warns the Ebola epidemic in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo could spread to urban areas and across international borders because of heightened insecurity and a serious shortage of money. DR Congo Ministry of Health reports 1,739 cases of Ebola, including 1,147 deaths, which indicates a 66 percent fatality rate.

The Ebola epidemic in conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces started 40 weeks ago on August 1. What is particularly frightening about the latest situation report is that 20 percent of overall cases have occurred in just the last three weeks.

The International Red Cross Federation finds this sharp upsurge alarming. It is urging the international community to redouble its efforts to contain this deadly virus before it escalates further.

The IFRC’s Director of Health and Care, Emanuele Capobianco, says the Ebola response faces a double jeopardy of insecurity and critical underfunding. He says the security situation is complex and will require a range of responses. But he notes the funding situation could be fixed now.

“At the moment, the financial situation for many of the humanitarian organizations is quite dire,” he said. “There is a real need to step up the response. Otherwise, activities will have to be scaled down and the impact on the future of the epidemic will be extremely serious.”

People who get infected with the Ebola virus have a very high risk of dying. Studies from the 2014 historic outbreak in West Africa show that between 60 and 80 percent of Ebola cases were linked to Ebola-infected bodies at traditional burials.

Capobianco says Red Cross efforts to provide communities with safe and dignified burials are meeting with increasing success.

“Up to now, there have been up to 5,000 safe and dignified burials conducted and they are conducted for, as I mentioned before, the people who died either in the community or the Ebola treatment centers of Ebola confirmed,” he said. Also, for people who may be just suspected of Ebola. And, that is why the number of 5,000 is so high. That is a critical part of the work that we have done and which, at the moment is threatened by the lack of funding.”

Capobianco says the Red Cross has received less than half of the $30 million it needs to carry out its Ebola-control activities across affected parts of DR Congo, as well as preparedness efforts in neighboring Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda.

He warns Red Cross operations will be forced to close within the next two weeks without additional urgent investment.

Source: VOA

Congo’s Ebola epidemic is expected to continue spreading though the country’s east, where it has killed 1,000 since August and sparked mistrust and frequent attacks on medical centers, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The WHO plans to expand vaccination in that part of Democratic Republic of Congo in coming weeks once a new treatment by Johnson & Johnson is approved. It is already using another experimental vaccine made by Merck .

Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said vaccine supplies were plentiful, but accessing target communities to administer them and treat patients was being hampered by hostility towards medical staff.

Security incidents continued to plague efforts to halt the outbreak, with 119 documented attacks since January, he said.

As a result, “we are anticipating a scenario of continued intense transmission,” Ryan told a news briefing.

“We haven’t exceeded the 1,000 (deaths) as of this morning but we will likely exceed that today when we see the numbers later this evening… You want to use every tool in the box.”

The Merck vaccine will still be used in ‘ring vaccination’ of people exposed to the virus and their contacts, he said. But WHO was also studying use of a single dose to stretch supplies, an option experts would review on Monday.

More than 100,000 people have been vaccinated so far, and the treatment has been highly effective, WHO says.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine would be deployed outside the rings in surrounding areas to protect people from infection, “as a way of laying down a barrier to the virus”, Ryan said.

Militiamen attacked a hospital treating Ebola patients two weeks ago, killing a senior WHO epidemiologist and wounding two others, officials said at the time.

The attacks curtail humanitarian access, slowing efforts to vaccinate more than 900 people a day as well as daily checks on some 12,000 people potentially exposed to the virus, Ryan said.

“We still face major issues of community acceptance and trust,” he said.

There was an attempted assault on an Ebola treatment facility in Butembo on Thursday, he said, adding that nobody was injured and the assailants were captured.

(Source: Reuters)

The killing of a Cameroonian doctor is a chilling reminder of the difficulties health workers face as they combat the Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dr Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, an epidemiologist with the World Health Organization (WHO), was killed in an attack on Apr. 19 at the university hospital in Butembo in DRC’s North Kivu Province. Two others were injured. His body was flown back home to Cameroon where he is survived by a wife and four young children the WHO said.

WHO’s director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the attack as “extremely heartbreaking” and said his office was assessing security arrangements for its staff and patients.

“The death of Dr Mouzoko also underscores that when health workers are targeted and attacked, it has huge ripple effects that are felt by the people they served, the communities in need, and of course their loved ones, friends and co-workers. It’s a loss for everyone, everywhere” – Dr Tedros said on Twitter.

The outbreak in DR Congo is the second largest and second deadliest Ebola outbreak the world has ever experienced and it is DR Congo’s ninth outbreak since 1976 when the disease was first discovered there. In its latest update on the outbreak, the WHO said: “As of 16 April, a total of 1290 confirmed and probable Ebola viral disease cases have been reported, of which 833 died (case fatality rate 65%).”

This is not the first time health workers have been attacked in the volatile northeast of DR Congo, near its borders with Rwanda and Uganda and where for years the government has been unsuccessful at countering rebel activities.

In February, two separate attacks on Ebola treatment centers forced the medical charity, Doctors Without Borders to evacuate staff and suspended medical services in the epicenter of the outbreak, Butembo and Katwa.

In March, an attack on another treatment center killed a police officer and injured others. Shortly after the attack that killed Dr Mouzoko, there was another attack on a treatment facility in which one assailant was killed and four others were captured.

Violent attacks in North Kivu province, is disrupting outreach efforts by medical teams to treat confirmed and probable cases of Ebola and affecting their ability to reach individuals at risk of the disease by virtue of coming into contact with an infected person.

Mass vaccination has helped to prevent more infections and death according to a preliminary report on the efficacy of the trial vaccine released earlier this month. Of the 93,965 at-risk people who consented to vaccination, 71 cases were confirmed and nine deaths occured. There have been no deaths recorded in vaccinated people who showed symptoms more than 10 days after the trial vaccine was administered.

Source: Quartz Africa

Cameroon customs seized tonnes of smuggled drugs and fuel in the economic capital, Douala, late Sunday in its latest move to curb the inflow of “overseas dangerous and illicit” drugs and goods into the country, customs officials said in a statement Monday.

According to the customs, the drugs including 100,051 tramadol pills, 100,072 combiart tablets and 7,000 liters of fuel were seized in an operation that involved Cameroon Marine and Cameroon customs brigade in charge of combating illicit trade.

The illicit goods were smuggled from a neighboring country through Cameroon’s seaport in Tiko locality and then transported to Douala in a “heavy duty truck”, the officials, said adding that the suspects have been remanded in custody.

According to Cameroon police, tramadol is one of the most abused substances in the country and is making its way into schoolyards.

“There is growing addition to the pills which are readily available on black market. The opioid is also known to be used by terrorists in the country to boost courage and commit atrocities. It is also widely used by students. So we are doing all we can to put an end to this malaise,” a police officer, Emmanuel Watat revealed.

Source: Xinhuanet

Cameroon health minister, inked April 4 a decision setting terms for accessing & monitoring HIV testing services and population care in public health facilities.

According to the document, the rapid HIV screenings will be free of charge as of January 1st, 2020. Other free services are also planned for people living with the virus. These are medical and prenatal consultations including booklets, medical records, biological follow-up examinations (CD4 and viral load), early HIV testing for children, antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and drugs to prevent opportunistic infections and others.

The official points out that reagents and medicines for all the above-mentioned examinations and services, in accordance with the national guidelines in force, are provided free of charge to health facilities and laboratories selected under the program. “Failure to comply with this decision or the application of informal costs to the services mentioned above will be subject to sanctions,” warns the department.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Cameroon recorded a decline in number of HIV/AIDS infections in the last seven years, according to Minister of Public Health Malachie Manaouda.

Prevalence rate fell from 4.3 percent in 2011 to 3.4 percent in 2018 due to increase in financing and the “massive scale-up” of sensitization, prevention and treatment measures, Manaouda said on Wednesday.

The figures were made public during an evaluation meeting of the National Aids Control Committee held in the capital, Yaounde.

According to the committee, in terms of absolute numbers, over 500,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in Cameroon and new infections are common among youths between 15 and 24 years, young girls are hit hardest.

Sixteen thousand newborn babies from infected mothers were taken care of in 2018, statistics from the committee indicated.

As part of measures to reduce new infections by the year 2022, Cameroon has announced it will conduct monthly campaign on behavioral change, increase intensive care and test over 2 million people, especially women.

Source: Xinhuanet

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 haemorrhagic 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.

Deaths occur outside treatment centers

More alarmingly, about three-quarters of 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.

New outreach program

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.

Source: Reuters

Kenya’s pharmacy and poisons regulator on Friday destroyed packs of condoms deemed to be unsafe for public use. The product is said to have failed quality tests prompting a recall.

The Pharmacy and Poisons Board said its drug inspectors supervised the destruction of the Fiesta condoms valued at 10 million Kenyan shillings (which comes up to over $100,000). The incarceration took place at the facility located in Athi River, a town located outside the capital Nairobi.

The authorized market dealers of the product were listed as Deep Kumar Tyagi Healthcare International Limited. Apparently, the board had ordered a recall of all the affected consignments.

“The recall of the affected batches of the fiesta condoms was concluded on 11th March, 2019 upon which Pharmacy and Poisons Board Kenya directed the market authorization holder to carry out destruction of the recalled consignment under PPB supervision,” they said in a tweet.

Workers in protective are seek unpacking the products and hurling them into a fire place. The Board has meanwhile urged vigilance on the part of the public to identify any sub-standard health products on the market.

Reports indicate that it is not the first time such an incident is taking place. In 2018, the Health Ministry did order a recall of some condom brands on the same grounds.

The Fiesta Stamina and Fiesta Big Black products were said to have failed thickness tests in November 2018 hence the recall.

Source: Africa News