United News of Bangladesh

African countries recorded more than 100 mpox-related deaths in the past week, the continental health body said Thursday as it described the rising toll as “not acceptable.” Dr. Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said 107 new deaths and 3,160 new cases had been recorded in the past week, just a week after his agency and the U.N. World Health Organization launched a continental response plan. “In the one week, we lost 107 (people). It’s too much. It’s not acceptable.” he said as he emphasized the need for stronger cross-border surveillance. Mpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms like fever, chills and body aches. People with more serious cases can develop lesions on the face, hands, chest and genitals. In testing for the disease, men recorded the highest positivity rate at 63%, while children under the age of 15 were at 41%. Kaseya said there was need for increased testing and resources to support it, adding that the continent was not testing enough and that it "cannot rely on only confirmed cases for decision-making and response.” Mpox can be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy, and Kaseya said more research is needed to determine how common this is. The number of cases has been rising rapidly, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last month, but until recently there have been relatively few deaths. The increased number of cases come a month after WHO declared outbreaks in 12 African countries a global emergency. The estimated budget for the six-month plan put forward by Africa CDC and WHO is almost $600 million, with 55% allocated to the response to mpox in 14 affected nations and boosting readiness in 15 others. Some African Union member states have already contributed to the response plan budget, a step that Kaseya lauded as showing ownership by the continent. Africa is in the process of receiving vaccines. Some 250,000 doses have already been delivered to Congo, but these are just a fraction of the 3 million doses authorities have said are needed to end the outbreak there, the epicenter of the global health emergency. EU countries pledged to donate more than 500,000 doses, but the timeline for delivery remained unclear. The recommended course of vaccination requires two doses. Kaseya said this would still be ideal despite the high level of need, because “we don’t want to compromise on protection of our people.” The director-general said he would be travelling to Congo to get vaccinated when the exercise kicks off in the first week of October “to show the African people and Congolese people that the vaccine is safe.” Africa CDC has so far recorded 5,731 confirmed mpox cases and 724 associated deaths since the beginning of the year.

A fuel tanker collided head-on with another truck in Nigeria on Sunday causing an explosion that killed at least 48 people, the country’s emergency response agency said. The fuel tanker was also carrying cattle in the Agaie area in north-central Niger state and at least 50 of them were burned alive, Abdullahi Baba-Arab, director-general of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, said. Search and rescue operations were underway at the scene of the accident, Baba-Arab said. Baba-Arab said initially that 30 bodies were found but in a later statement said an additional 18 bodies of victims who were burned to death in the collision were found. He said the dead had been given a mass burial. Mohammed Bago, governor of Niger state, said residents of the affected area should remain calm and asked road users to "always be cautious and abide by road traffic regulations to safeguard lives and property.” With the absence of an efficient railway system to transport cargo, fatal truck accidents are common along most of the major roads in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. In 2020 alone, there were 1,531 gasoline tanker crashes resulting in 535 fatalities and 1,142 injuries, according to Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps.

Algerians head to the polls Saturday to cast votes for president and determine who will govern their gas-rich North African nation — five years after pro-democracy protests prompted the military to oust the previous president after two decades in power. Algeria is Africa's largest country by area and, with almost 45 million people, it's the continent's second most populous after South Africa to hold presidential elections in 2024 — a year in which more than 50 elections are being held worldwide, encompassing more than half the world's population. Since elections were scheduled in March — ahead of the predicted schedule — there has been little suspense as military-backed President Abdelmadjid Tebboune appears poised to breeze to victory against the two challengers running against him: an Islamist and a leftist. The hot summer campaign has sparked little enthusiasm, apart from on public television, where it's required that candidate and surrogate appearances be covered. On TV, election season has been presented as a vibrant affair. “Voting has no meaning in Algeria like in the big democracies,” 28-year-old Kaci Taher told The Associated Press a month before the election. “Where I come from, the results and quotas are fixed in advance in the back room of the government, so what’s the point of taking part in the electoral farce?” “Uncle Tebboune," as his campaign has framed the 78-year-old, was elected in December 2019 after nearly a year of weekly demonstrations demanding the resignation of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Their demands were met when Bouteflika resigned that April and was replaced by an interim government of his former allies, which called for elections later in the year. Protestors opposed holding elections too soon, fearing the candidates running that year each were close to the old regime and would perpetuate the corruption-ridden system they wanted to end. Tebboune, a former prime minister seen as close to Algeria's politically powerful military, emerged the winner. But his victory was marred by low voter turnout, widespread boycotts from protestors and Election Day tumult, during which crowds sacked voting stations and police broke up demonstrations. This year, Tebboune ran as an independent candidate with the support of several political parties including the National Liberation Front, which has dominated Algerian politics since the country wrested independence from France after more than a decade of war in 1962. The southwestern Algeria native and political veteran has framed his first term in office as a turning point, telling voters in a campaign rally the week before polls that he “put Algeria back on track." To cement his legitimacy both domestically and to Algeria's allies, he hopes more of the country's 24 million eligible voters will participate in Saturday's election than in his first, when 39.9% turned out to vote. “It seems that what matters most to ‘le pouvoir’ in this election is voter turnout to lend legitimacy to their candidate, whose victory is a foregone conclusion,” said Algerian sociologist Mohamed Hennad, employing a term frequently used to describe the military-backed political establishment. Twenty-six candidates submitted preliminary paperwork to run in the election, although only two were ultimately approved to challenge Tebboune. Like the president, both have also emphasized turnout. Neither political novices, they have avoided directly criticizing Tebboune on the campaign trail. Abdelali Hassani Cherif, a 57-year-old engineer from the Islamist party Movement of Society for Peace has made populist appeals to Algerian youth, running on the slogan “Opportunity!” and calling for efforts to boost employment and reform education, where French language has long played a major role in addition to Arabic. Youcef Aouchiche, a 41-year-old former journalist running with the Socialist Forces Front, campaigned on a “vision for tomorrow,” and referenced human rights issues plaguing journalists, activists and critics of the government in Tebboune's Algeria. It's the first time since 1999 that his party, which enjoys strong support among ethnic minorities in central Algeria, has put forth a candidate. Andrew Farrand, the Middle East and North Africa director at the geopolitical risk consultancy Horizon Engage, said both opposition candidates were more aimed at the 2025 legislative elections than the 2024 presidential contest. Because Algerian law funds political parties based on the number of seats they win in legislative elections, they hope campaigning will position them for a strong performance in 2025. “It’s a long game: How can I mobilize my base? How can I build up a campaign machine? And how can I get into the good graces of the authorities so that I can be in a position to increase my seats?” he said. “We’ve seen that in their choice not to overtly criticize president … paired with a very strong message to Algerians to come out and vote.” Besides Aouchiche and Cherif, others boycotted the contest, denouncing it as a rubber stamp exercise that could only entrench the power of Tebboune and the elites that rule the country.

Weeks of flooding have killed nearly 200 people in Nigeria and washed away homes and farmlands, the country's disaster management agency said, further threatening food supplies, especially in the hard-hit northern region. The floods blamed on poor infrastructure and badly maintained dams have killed 185 people and displaced 208,000 in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states, the National Emergency Management Agency said in an update Friday, triggering frantic efforts to evacuate hundreds of thousands to makeshift shelters. Nigeria records flooding every year mostly as a result of failure to follow environmental guidelines and inadequate infrastructure. The worst floods the country has seen in a decade were in 2022 when more than 600 people were killed and over 1 million displaced. However, unlike in 2022 when the floods were blamed on heavier rainfall, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency predicted delayed or normal rains in most parts of the country this year and said the current floods were more a result of human activities. “What we are doing is causing this climate change so there is a shift from the normal," said Ibrahim Wasiu Adeniyi, head of the central forecasting unit. "We have some who dump refuse indiscriminately, some build houses without approvals along the waterways,” he added. The Nigeria disaster response agency warned the flooding could get worse in the coming weeks as the flood waters flow downwards to the central and southern states. “People (in flood-prone areas) need to evacuate now … because we don’t have time any longer,” its spokesperson, Manzo Ezekiel, said. In Jigawa, the worst-hit state, which has recorded 37 deaths, the impact of the floods has been “devastating” and authorities are converting public buildings and schools as shelters for those displaced, according to Nura Abdullahi, head of emergency services in the state. The floods have so far destroyed 107,000 hectares of farmland, especially in northern states, among the most affected and where most of Nigeria’s harvests come from. Many farmers in the region are already unable to farm as much as they would like either because of decreasing inputs as families struggle amid Nigeria’s economic hardship or as a result of violent attacks that have forced them to flee. As a result, Nigeria has the highest number of hungry people in the world, with 32 million — 10% of the global burden — facing acute hunger in the country, according to the U.N. food agency. Resident Abdullahi Gummi in Zamfara state’s Gummi council area said the floods destroyed his family's farmlands which are also their source of income. “We spent around 300,000 naira ($188) on planting, but everything is gone," Gummi said.

Sudan has been stricken by a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly two dozen people and sickened hundreds more in recent weeks, health authorities said Sunday. The African nation has been roiled by a 16-month conflict and devastating floods. Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim said in a statement that at least 22 people have died from the disease, and that at least 354 confirmed cases of cholera have been detected across the county in recent weeks. Ibrahim didn’t give a time frame for the deaths or the tally since the start of the year. The World Health Organization, however, said that 78 deaths were recorded from cholera this year in Sudan as of July 28. The disease also sickened more than 2,400 others between Jan. 1 and July 28, it said. Cholera is a fast-developing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and possible death within hours when not treated, according to WHO. It is transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water. The cholera outbreak is the latest calamity for Sudan, which was plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and a powerful paramilitary group exploded into open warfare across the country. The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields, wrecking civilian infrastructure and an already battered health care system. Without the basics, many hospitals and medical facilities have closed their doors. It has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation, with famine already confirmed in a sprawling camp for displaced people in the wrecked northern region of Darfur. Sudan’s conflict has created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of those fled to neighboring countries. The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the U.N. and international rights groups. Devastating seasonal floods in recent weeks have compounded the misery. Dozens of people have been killed and critical infrastructure has been washed away in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to local authorities. About 118,000 people have been displaced due to the floods, according to the U.N. migration agency. Cholera is not uncommon in Sudan. A previous major outbreak left at least 700 dead and sickened about 22,000 in less than two months in 2017. Tarik Jašarević, a spokesman for WHO, said the outbreak began in the eastern province of Kassala before spreading to nine localities in five provinces. He said in comments to The Associated Press that data showed that most of the detected cases were not vaccinated. He said the WHO is now working with the Sudanese health authorities and partners to implement a vaccination campaign. Sudan's military-controlled sovereign council, meanwhile, said Sunday it will send a government delegation to meet with American officials in Cairo amid mounting U.S. pressure on the military to join ongoing peace talks in Switzerland that aim at finding a way out of the conflict. The council said in a statement the Cairo meeting will focus on the implementation of a deal between the military and the Rapid Support Forces, which required the paramilitary group to pull out from people’s homes in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country. The talks began Aug. 14 in Switzerland with diplomats from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations attending. A delegation from the RSF was in Geneva but didn’t join the meetings.

Sarah Bagheni had a headache, fever, and itchy and unusual skin lesions for days, but she had no inkling that her symptoms might have been caused by mpox and that she might be another case in a growing global health emergency. She also has no idea where to go to get medical help. She and her husband live in the Bulengo displacement camp in eastern Congo, a region that is effectively ground zero for a series of mpox outbreaks in Africa. This year's alarming rise in cases, including a new form of the virus identified by scientists in eastern Congo, led the World Health Organization to declare it a global health emergency on Wednesday. It said the new variant could spread beyond the five African countries where it had already been detected — a timely warning that came a day before Sweden reported its first case of the new strain. In the vast central African nation of Congo, which has had more than 96% of the world's roughly 17,000 recorded cases of mpox this year — and some 500 deaths from the disease — many of the most vulnerable seem unaware of its existence or the threat that it poses. “We know nothing about this,” Bagheni’s husband, Habumuremyiza Hire, said Thursday about mpox. “I watch her condition helplessly because I don’t know what to do. We continue to share the same room.” Millions are thought to be out of reach of medical help or advice in the conflict-torn east, where dozens of rebel groups have been fighting Congolese army forces for years over mineral-rich areas, causing a huge displacement crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people like Bagheni and her husband have been forced into overcrowded refugee camps around Goma, while more have taken refuge in the city. Conditions in the camps are dire and medical facilities are almost nonexistent. Mahoro Faustin, who runs the Bulengo camp, said that about three months ago, administrators first started noticing people in the camp exhibiting fever, body aches and chills — symptoms that could signal malaria, measles or mpox. There is no way of knowing how many mpox cases there might be in Bulengo because of a lack of testing, he said. There haven't been any recent health campaigns to educate the tens of thousands of people in the camp about mpox, and Faustin said he's worried about how many people might be undiagnosed. “Just look at the overcrowding here,” he said, pointing to a sea of ramshackle tents. “If nothing is done, we will all be infected here, or maybe we are already all infected.” Around 70% of the new mpox cases in the Goma area in the last two months that were registered at a treatment center run by Medair were from displacement camps, said Dr. Pierre Olivier Ngadjole, the international aid group's health advisor in Congo. The youngest of those cases was a month-old baby and the oldest a 90-year-old, he said. In severe cases of mpox, people can develop lesions on the face, hands, arms, chest and genitals. While the disease originated in animals, the virus has in recent years been spreading between people via close physical contact, including sex. Bagheni's best hope of getting a diagnosis for her lesions is a government hospital that's a two-hour drive away. That's likely out of the question, given that she already struggles with mobility having previously had both her legs amputated. Seven million people are internally displaced in Congo, with more than 5.5 million of them in the country's east, according the U.N. refugee agency. Congo has the largest displacement camp population in Africa, and one of the largest in the world. The humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo has almost every possible complication when it comes to stopping an mpox outbreak, said Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of Duke University’s Global Health Institute. That includes war, illicit mining industries that attract sex workers, transient populations near border regions, and entrenched poverty. He also said the global community missed multiple warning signs. “We’re paying attention to it now, but mpox has been spreading since 2017 in Congo and Nigeria,” Beyrer said, adding that experts have long been calling for vaccines to be shared with Africa, but to little effect. He said the WHO’s emergency declaration was “late in coming,” with more than a dozen countries already affected. Beyrer said that unlike COVID-19 or HIV, there’s a good vaccine and good treatments and diagnostics for mpox, but “the access issues are worse than ever” in places like eastern Congo. In 2022, there were outbreaks in more than 70 countries around the world, including the United States, which led the WHO to also declare an emergency that lasted until mid-2023. It was largely shut down in wealthy countries within months through the use of vaccines and treatments, but few doses have been made available in Africa. The new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox was first detected this year in a mining town in eastern Congo, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Goma. It's unclear how much the new strain is to blame, but Congo is now enduring its worst outbreak yet and at least 13 African countries have recorded cases, four of them for the first time. The outbreaks in those four countries — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda — have been linked to Congo's, and Doctors Without Borders said Friday that Congo's surge “threatens a major spread of the disease” to other countries. Salim Abdool Karim, an infectious disease expert who chairs the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's emergency committee, said the Congo outbreak has a particularly concerning change, in that it's disproportionately affecting young people. Children under 15 account for 70% of cases and 85% of all deaths in the country, the Africa CDC reported. Unlike the 2022 global outbreak, which predominantly affected gay and bisexual men, mpox now appears to be spreading in heterosexual populations. All of Congo’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases, according to the state-run news agency. But Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said Thursday that the country doesn't have a single vaccine dose yet and he pleaded for "vigilance in all directions from all Congolese.” Dr. Rachel Maguru, who heads the multi-epidemic center at Goma's North Kivu provincial hospital, said they also don't have drugs or any established treatments for mpox and are relying on other experts such as dermatologists to help where they can. A larger outbreak around the city and its numerous displacement camps already overburdened with an influx of people would be “terrible,” she said. She also noted a pivotal problem: poor and displaced people have other priorities, like earning enough money to eat and survive. Aid agencies and stretched local authorities are already wrestling with providing food, shelter and basic health care to the millions displaced, while also dealing with outbreaks of other diseases like cholera.

The death toll from a mountain of rubbish that collapsed in the Ugandan capital rose to 24 on Monday as rescuers with excavators continued searching for victims, according to the city authority. At least four children are among those killed by the collapse at the Kiteezi landfill Friday, police told reporters. The collapse is believed to have been triggered by heavy rainfall. The precise details of what happened were unclear, but the city authority said there was a “structural failure in waste mass.” Irene Nakasiita, a spokeswoman for the Uganda Red Cross, said there was no hope of rescuing more people alive. It was not clear how many people were unaccounted for. The Kiteezi landfill is a vast rubbish dumpsite in an impoverished hillside area that receives hundreds of garbage trucks daily. The city authority has been aiming to decommission it since declaring it full years ago. It's also a kind of no-man's land in the city of 3 million, attractive to women and children who scavenge plastic waste they aim to sell. Others have built permanent homes nearby. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ordered an investigation into the disaster, asking in a series of posts on the social platform X why people were living in close proximity to an unstable heap of garbage. “Who allowed people to live near such a potentially hazardous and dangerous heap?” Museveni said, adding that effluent from the site is hazardous enough that people should not be living there.

Police hurled tear gas at protesters calling for the president's resignation in the Kenyan capital on Thursday as a new Cabinet was sworn in. The protests in Nairobi were organized by activists upset with President William Ruto even after he dismissed almost all of his ministers and added opposition members to what he called a “broad-based” government. Businesses in the city were closed and public transport vehicles remained out of the central business district where they normally operate. Police also mounted roadblocks on roads leading to the city. The president’s office, where the new ministers were sworn in on Thursday morning, also remained cordoned off. Major towns and cities including the lakeside city of Kisumu — an opposition stronghold that has previously witnessed protests — remained calm with some residents telling journalists they were not protesting because the opposition figures had been incorporated into the new Cabinet. Civil society groups, along with the Law Society of Kenya, called in a joint statement for the upholding of human rights during demonstrations and urged police to refrain from deploying nonuniformed police and using unmarked vehicles. “We reiterate constitutional protection of all persons to peaceably and unarmed to protest, picket and to present petitions to the authorities,” the statement said. Ruto earlier on Wednesday condemned the protests and urged Kenyans to stay away from them, saying those who want change can vote him out in 2027 elections. Also Wednesday, activists planned an “8/8 Liberation March” and warned that demonstrators would treat nonuniformed police officers as criminals. “We shall march for our rights, and tomorrow we shall liberate this country,” activist Kasmuel Mcoure said. Protests in Kenya started on June 18 with initial calls for legislators to vote against a controversial finance bill that was proposing increased taxes amidst the high cost of living. On June 25, protesters stormed parliament after legislators voted to pass the bill. More than 50 people have died since the protests started, according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. The president declined to sign the bill and sent it back to parliament saying he had “heard Kenyans who wanted nothing to do with the bill” but warned there would be revenue and expenditure consequences. Protests continued with calls for the president to resign over bad governance, corruption, incompetence in his Cabinet and lack of accountability. Ruto dismissed all but one Cabinet minister but protests continued.

Seven people were killed and many others were injured during a stampede at a music concert in Congo’s capital Saturday, authorities said. The stampede occurred at the 80,000-capacity Stade des Martyrs stadium in the heart of Kinshasa where Mike Kalambayi, a popular Congolese gospel singer, was performing, Kinshasa Gov. Daniel Bumba said. State television RTNC said seven people were killed in the chaos and some of those injured were admitted to intensive care. Authorities did not comment on what caused the stampede, saying an investigation into the incident was underway. However, the local music management company that organized the event said the chaos erupted when “the security services tried to neutralize some troublemakers.” An estimated 30,000 people attended the concert, which featured several other musicians and pastors, the management company Maajabu Gospel said in a statement. Videos that appeared to be from the scene and broadcast of the event showed large crowds gathered outside the stadium in front of barricades as they waited to enter. Inside, people could be seen rushing to the center stage. Congo has witnessed such stampedes in past years, often blamed on poor crowd control measures such as excessive use of force. Eleven people died in a similar crush at the same stadium last October during a music concert.

Mudslides triggered by heavy rain in a remote part of Ethiopia have killed at least 229 people, including many who tried to rescue survivors, local authorities said Tuesday, in what the prime minister called a "terrible loss." Young children and pregnant women were among the victims in Kencho Shacha Gozdi district of southern Ethiopia, said Dagmawi Ayele, a local administrator, adding that at least five people have been pulled out alive. The death toll rose sharply from the initial one of 55 late Monday. Search operations continued in the area, said Kassahun Abayneh, head of the communications office in Gofa Zone, the administrative area where the mudslides occurred. Ethiopia's ruling party in a statement said it felt sorrow over the disaster. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement on Facebook that he was “deeply saddened by this terrible loss." The federal disaster prevention task force has been deployed to assist in search and rescue efforts, Abiy's statement said. It was not immediately clear how many people were still unaccounted for. Many victims were buried on Monday as rescue workers searched the steep terrain for survivors of another mudslide the previous day. Markos Melese, director of the disaster response agency in Gofa Zone, said many rescuers remained missing. "There are children who are hugging corpses, having lost their entire family, including mother, father, brother and sister," he said. Some women wailed as rescuers attempted to dig through the thick mud with shovels. Landslides are common during Ethiopia's rainy reason, which started in July and is expected to last until mid-September. Deadly mudslides often occur in the wider East African region, from Uganda's mountainous east to central Kenya's highlands. In April, at least 45 people were killed in Kenya's Rift Valley region when flash floods and a landslide swept through houses and cut off a major road.