deaths
Deaths from flooding in monsoon drenched Pakistan near 1,000
Flash floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains across much of Pakistan have killed nearly 1,000 people and injured and displaced thousands more since mid-June, officials said Saturday.
The new death toll came a day after Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif asked for international help in battling deadly flood damage in the impoverished Islamic nation.
The monsoon season, which began in June, has lashed Pakistan with particularly heavy rains this year and rescuers have struggled to evacuate thousands of marooned people from flood-hit areas. The crisis has forced the government to declare a state of emergency.
Also read: Pakistan seeks international help for flood victims
In northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, flooding destroyed the gates of a major water control system at the Swat River, leading to flooding in the districts of Charsadda and Nowshera, said Sania Safi, a top administrator in Charsadda.
“We preempted the situation and warned and forced hesitating residents to leave their homes for safety and move to relief camps established at government buildings in safe places,” she said.
Safi said there was concern of further rising of the Swat and Kabul rivers, adding to the misery of residents who have already suffered the loss of lives and property.
In Nowshera district, local administrator Quratul Ain Wazir said flood waters submerged streets before the gushing waters headed toward low-lying areas.
Also read: Official: Flooding in eastern Afghanistan kills at least 9
“Our administration has evacuated many people and taken others to relief camps where government provided beds and food in safe buildings," she said. ... "We will use police to force those hesitant to leave their homes.”
Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb said soldiers and rescue organizations were helping people to reach safety in many districts of southern Sindh, northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, eastern Punjab and southwestern Baluchistan provinces.
“Government has sanctioned sufficient funds to financially compensate the affected people and we will not leave our people alone in this tough time,” she said.
Aurangzeb asked wealthy people and relief organizations to come forward with aid to help flood-affected Pakistanis.
In response to Sharif's appeal for international aid, the United Nations planned a $160 million flash appeal for donations, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Asim Iftikhar. He said in his weekly briefing Friday that the appeal will be launched Aug. 30.
The picturesque Kalam Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is one of the areas most affected by the rains and flooding. Waters from overflowing rivers swept away entire buildings, including an iconic hotel.
“The situation is pretty serious as we don't have any road link left with the rest of the province, we don't have electricity, gas and communications network and no relief is reaching here,” said Muzaffar Khan, whose grocery store was swept away along with many other shops.
Thousands whose homes were swept away now live in tents, miles away from their inundated villages and towns, after being rescued by soldiers, local disaster workers and volunteers, authorities said.
In Baluchistan, Asadullah Nasir, a spokesperson at the provincial disaster management authority said all 34 districts of the impoverish province were badly affected due to the heavy rains and subsequent flooding. He said road networks were destroyed and bridges washed away and relief is possible only with helicopters, which are not often able to operate because of bad weather. He said provincial officials have confirmed 235 deaths but the number was expected to increase significantly after communications are restored.
The National Disaster Management Authority in its latest overnight report said 45 people were killed in flood-related incidents from Friday to Saturday. That brought the death toll since mid-June to 982 with 1,456 injured.
Monsoon rains were expected to continue this week, mainly in the south and southwest. The season usually runs from July to mid September in Pakistan.
Heavy rains and subsequent flash floods have damaged bridges, roads network across Pakistan, disrupting the supply of fruit and vegetables to markets and causing a hike in prices.
Dengue numbers rising in Bangladesh: 2 more deaths, 53 cases reported
Two more people died from dengue, and 53 people were hospitalised with the viral infection in the 24 hours to Sunday morning as cases are creeping up again in Bangladesh.
All the deceased were from Cox's Bazar. Thirty-five new patients were admitted to the hospitals of Dhaka and 18 outside it, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Two hundred and twenty-two dengue patients, including 170 in the capital, are now receiving treatment at hospitals across the country.
This year, the DGHS has recorded 1,723 dengue cases and 1,498 recoveries so far. Up to now, the directorate has reported three deaths from the mosquito-borne viral disease. On June 21, the DGHS reported the first death of the season from dengue.
Read: Dengue situation under control, says LGRD Minister
Dengue – a leading cause of serious illness and death in some Asian and Latin American countries – was first reported in Bangladesh in 2000 and claimed 93 lives. In three years, the fatality number almost fell to zero.
However, 105 dengue patients, including 95 in Dhaka division, died in 2021.
About 4 billion people, almost half of the world's population, live in areas with a risk of dengue, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Each year, up to 400 million people get infected with dengue while approximately 100 million get sick from infection, and 40,000 die from severe dengue, it says.
"There is no specific treatment for dengue or severe dengue. Early detection of disease progression associated with severe dengue, and access to proper medical care lowers fatality rates of severe dengue to below 1 percent," according to the World Health Organization.
Bangladesh sees 2 more Covid deaths, 1,051 cases
Two more people died from Covid, and 1,051 tested positive for the virus in the 24 hours to Friday.
While the country's total fatalities reached 29,225, the new number took its caseload to 1,994,433, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, the daily case positivity rate fell to 11.55 percent from Thursday's 11.89 percent as 9,130 samples were tested.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.47 percent. The recovery rate rose to 96.32 percent from Thursday's 96.28 percent.
In June, the country reported 18 Covid-linked deaths and 20,201 new cases, according to the DGHS.
Read: Global Covid cases top 565 million
Bangladesh reported its first zero Covid death on November 20 last year since the pandemic broke out here in March 2020.
The country registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 in the same year.
Global Covid cases top 554 million
The overall number of Covid cases has surpassed 554 million amid a rise in new infections in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 554,031,239and the death toll from the virus reached 6,360,788 Sunday morning.
The US has recorded 89,522,328 cases so far and 1,043,308 people have died from the virus in the country, the data shows.
The UK has recorded 22,741,065 cases so far and 180,417 people have died from the virus in the country, it said.
With 16,103 new cases during the past 24 hours, India recorded 43,502,429 covid cases, data released by the country's federal health ministry showed on Sunday.
Besides, 29 deaths due to Covid since Saturday morning took the total death toll to 525168.
READ: Global Covid cases top 553 million
Covid in Bangladesh
Bangladesh registered six more Covid-linked deaths with 1,105 new cases in 24 hours till Saturday morning amid an upward trend of infections.
The fresh cases took the country's total caseload to 1,976, 787 and the total fatalities to 29,160, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The daily case positivity rate dropped to 13.22 from Friday’s 15.31 per cent as 8,177 samples were tested during the period, said the DGHS.
Of the deceased, three were men and three women. Of them three were from Dhaka division, two from Chattogram and one from Mymensingh division.
On Friday, the country recorded 5 more Covid deaths with 1,897 cases.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.48 per cent. The recovery rate declined to 96.52 per cent from Friday’s 96.56 per cent as 233 patients recovered during this period.
In June, the country reported 18 Covid-linked deaths and 20,201 new cases, according to the DGHS.
The country reported its first zero Covid death in a single day on November 20 last year, along with 178 cases, since the pandemic broke out here in March 2020.
On January 28, Bangladesh logged its previous highest positivity rate of 33.37 per cent.
The country registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 in the same year.
Bangladesh reports 5 more Covid deaths with 1,897 cases
Bangladesh registered five more Covid-linked deaths with 1,897 new cases in 24 hours till Friday morning amid an upward trend of infections.
The fresh cases took the country's total caseload to 1,975,682 the total fatalities to 29,154, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The daily case positivity rate slightly dropped to 15.31 per cent from Thursday’s 15.70 per cent as 12,403 samples were tested during the period, said the DGHS.
READ: Bangladesh reports 4 more Covid deaths with 2,183 cases
Of the deceased three were men and two women, all from Dhaka division.
On Thursday, the country recorded 2,183 cases with four deaths from Covid-19.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.48 per cent. The recovery rate declined to 96.56 per cent from Thursday’s 96.64 per cent as 248 patients recovered during this period.
In June, the country reported 18 Covid-linked deaths and 20,201 new cases, according to the DGHS.
The country reported its first zero Covid death in a single day on November 20 last year, along with 178 cases, since the pandemic broke out here in March 2020.
On January 28, Bangladesh logged its previous highest positivity rate of 33.37 per cent.
The country registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 in the same year.
At least 20 dead in South African club; cause not yet known
South African police are investigating the deaths of at least 20 people at a nightclub in the coastal town of East London early Sunday morning.
It is unclear what led to the deaths of the young people, who were reportedly attending a party to celebrate the end of winter school exams.
Read:Survivors recount Mali's deadliest attack since coup
Local newspaper Daily Dispatch reported that bodies were strewn across tables and chairs without any visible signs of injuries.
“At this point we cannot confirm the cause of death,” said health department spokesperson Siyanda Manana.
“We are going to conduct autopsies as soon as possible to establish the probable cause of death. The deceased have been taken to state mortuaries,” Manana added.
Police Minister Bheki Cele was on Sunday morning expected to visit the scene.
The owner of the club, Siyakhangela Ndevu, told local broadcaster eNCA that he had been called to the scene early Sunday morning.
Read: 55 people killed in latest attack in northern Burkina Faso
“I am still uncertain about what really happened, but when I was called in the morning I was told the place was too full and that some people were trying to force their way into the tavern," he said.
“However, we will hear what the police say about the cause of death,” Ndevu added.
Deaths rise to 23 from mass attempt to enter Spanish enclave
The number of people who were killed after they tried to scale a border fence between Morocco and a Spanish enclave in North Africa rose to 23 Saturday as human rights organizations in Spain and Morocco called on both countries to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
Moroccan authorities said the individuals died as a result of a “stampede” of people who attempted Friday to climb the iron fence that separates the city of Melilla and Morocco. In a statement, Morocco’s Interior Ministry said 76 civilians were injured along with 140 Moroccan security officers.
The ministry initially reported five deaths. Local authorities cited by Morocco’s official Television 2M updated the number to 18 on Saturday and then reported that the death toll had climbed to 23. The Moroccan Human Rights Association reported 27 dead, but the figure could not immediately be confirmed.
Two members of Morocco's security forces and 33 migrants who were injured during the border breach were being treated at hospitals in the Moroccan cities of Nador and Oujda, MAP said.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Saturday condemned what he described as a “violent assault” and an “attack on the territorial integrity” of Spain. Spanish officials said 49 Civil Guards sustained minor injuries.
“If there is anyone responsible for everything that appears to have taken place at that border, it is the mafias that traffic in human beings,” Sánchez said.
His remarks came as the Moroccan Human Rights Association shared videos on social media that appeared to show dozens of migrants lying on the ground, many of them motionless and a few bleeding, as Moroccan security forces stood over them.
“They were left there without help for hours, which increased the number of deaths,” the human rights group said on Twitter. It called for a “comprehensive” investigation.
In another of the association’s videos, a Moroccan security officer appeared to use a baton to strike a person lying on the ground.
In a statement released late Friday, Amnesty International expressed its “deep concern” over the events at the border.
READ: Ida deaths rise by 11 in New Orleans; Louisiana toll now 26
“Although the migrants may have acted violently in their attempt to enter Melilla, when it comes to border control, not everything goes," said Esteban Beltrán, the director of Amnesty International Spain. "The human rights of migrants and refugees must be respected and situations like that seen cannot happen again.”
Five rights organizations in Morocco and APDHA, a human rights group based in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, also called for inquiries.
The International Organization for Migration and U.N. refugee agency UNHCR also weighed in with a statement that expressed “profound sadness and concern” over what happened at the Morocco-Melilla border.
“IOM and UNHCR urge all authorities to prioritize the safety of migrants and refugees, refrain from the excessive use of force and uphold their human rights,” the organizations said.
In a statement published Saturday, the Spanish Commission for Refugees, CEAR, decried what it described as “the indiscriminate use of violence to manage migration and control borders" and expressed concerns that the violence had prevented people who were eligible for international protection from reaching Spanish soil.
The Catholic Church in the southern Spanish city of Malaga also expressed its dismay over the events. “Both Morocco and Spain have chosen to eliminate human dignity on our borders, maintaining that the arrival of migrants must be avoided at all costs and forgetting the lives that are torn apart along the way,” it said in a statement penned by a delegation of the diocese that focuses on migration in Malaga and Melilla.
A spokesperson for the Spanish government’s office in Melilla said that around 2,000 people had attempted to make it across the border fence but were stopped by Spanish Civil Guard Police and Moroccan forces on either side of the border fence. A total 133 migrants made it across the border.
The mass crossing attempt was the first since Spain and Morocco mended relations after a year-long dispute related to Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1976. The thaw in relations came after Spain backed Morocco’s plan to grant more autonomy to the territory, a reversal of its previous support for a U.N.-backed referendum on the status of Western Sahara.
COVID vaccines saved 20M lives in 1st year, scientists say
Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday.
On Dec. 8, 2020, a retired shop clerk in England received the first shot in what would become a global vaccination campaign. Over the next 12 months, more than 4.3 billion people around the world lined up for the vaccines.
The effort, though marred by persisting inequities, prevented deaths on an unimaginable scale, said Oliver Watson of Imperial College London, who led the new modeling study.
Read: WTO holds big meeting to tackle vaccines, food shortages
“Catastrophic would be the first word that comes to mind,” Watson said of the outcome if vaccines hadn't been available to fight the coronavirus. The findings “quantify just how much worse the pandemic could have been if we did not have these vaccines."
The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom.
An additional 600,000 deaths would have been prevented if the World Health Organization target of 40% vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 had been met, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The main finding — 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented — is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period. Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines.
The London scientists excluded China because of uncertainty around the pandemic’s effect on deaths there and its huge population.
The study has other limitations. The researchers did not include how the virus might have mutated differently in the absence of vaccines. And they did not factor in how lockdowns or mask wearing might have changed if vaccines weren’t available.
Another modeling group used a different approach to estimate that 16.3 million COVID-19 deaths were averted by vaccines. That work, by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, has not been published.
Read: COVID-19: Urgent action sought to close vaccine equity gap
In the real world, people wear masks more often when cases are surging, said the institute's Ali Mokdad, and 2021's delta wave without vaccines would have prompted a major policy response.
“We may disagree on the number as scientists, but we all agree that COVID vaccines saved lots of lives," Mokdad said.
The findings underscore both the achievements and the shortcomings of the vaccination campaign, said Adam Finn of Bristol Medical School in England, who like Mokdad was not involved in the study.
“Although we did pretty well this time — we saved millions and millions of lives — we could have done better and we should do better in the future," Finn said.
Funding came from several groups including the WHO; the UK Medical Research Council; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Global Covid cases surpass 544 million
The overall number of Covid cases has surpassed 544 million amid a rise in new infections in parts of the world.
According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 544,055,243 while the death toll from the virus reached 6,340,234 Sunday morning.
The US has recorded 87,981,568 cases so far and 1,038,289 people have died from the virus in the country, the data shows.
Meanwhile, cases in India rose to 43,296,692 Sunday morning, according to the global data.
With 15 new deaths since Saturday morning, the death toll in India rose to 524,855.
READ: Global Covid cases near 544 million
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh recorded 304 new Covid cases in 24 hours till Saturday morning taking the country's total caseload to 1,955,731.
The country's total fatalities, however, remained unchanged at 29,131 as no death was reported during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The daily test positivity rate slightly declined to 5.94 per cent from Friday’s 6.27 per cent with 5,122 samples tested during the period.
The country on Friday saw 433 cases with zero death.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.49 per cent. The recovery rates declined to 97.44 per cent as 47 patients recovered during this period.
In May, the country reported only four Covid-linked deaths and 816 new cases, while 7,356 patients recovered from the disease, according to the DGHS.
Among the four deaths during the period, one was vaccinated with single dose of Covid vaccine while three were vaccinated with two doses.
The country reported its first zero Covid death in a single day on November 20 last year, along with 178 cases, since the pandemic broke out here in March 2020.
On January 28, Bangladesh logged its previous highest positivity rate of 33.37 per cent.
The country registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 in the same year.
Global Covid cases surpass 540 million
The overall number of Covid cases has surpassed 540 million amid a rise in new infections in parts of the world.
According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 540,221,830 while the death toll from the virus reached 6,330,934 on Sunday morning.
The US has recorded 87,305,419 cases so far and 1,035,828 people have died from the virus in the country, the data shows.
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 43,219,491 during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the health ministry's latest data.
Besides, 10 deaths from the pandemic registered since Saturday morning took India's total death toll to 524,757.
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh registered 71 new Covid cases in 24 hours till Saturday morning taking the country's total caseload to 1,954,006.
READ: Global Covid cases near 540 million
The country's total fatalities remained unchanged at 29,131 as no death was reported during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The daily test positivity rate decreased to 1.14 per cent from Friday’s 1.35 per cent as 6,225 samples were tested during this time.
The country on Friday saw 64 cases with zero death.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.49 per cent. The recovery rate also remained static at 97.50 per cent as 110 patients recovered during this period.
In May, the country reported only four Covid-linked deaths and 816 new cases, while 7,356 patients recovered from the disease, according to the DGHS.
Among the four deaths during the period, one was vaccinated with single dose of Covid vaccine while three were vaccinated with two doses.
The country reported its first zero Covid death in a single day on November 20 last year, along with 178 cases, since the pandemic broke out here in March 2020.
On January 28, Bangladesh logged its previous highest positivity rate of 33.37 per cent.
The country registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 in the same year.