Zimbabwe has fired all nurses who went on strike to demand higher salaries, in a hardline response by the country’s new leadership to growing labor arrest.

Several thousand nurses were sacked in a terse statement issued on Tuesday evening by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who accused the strikers of being “politically motivated.”

Patients were turned away from major hospitals after the nurses began their industrial action on Monday, shortly after doctors ended their own weeks-long strike earlier in the month.

“Government has decided in the interest of patients and of saving lives to discharge all the striking nurses with immediate effect,” Chiwenga said in a statement.

He said unemployed and retired nurses would be hired to replace those fired.

Chiwenga was the military general who led the ousting of Robert Mugabe in November when the army briefly took control and ushered Emmerson Mnangagwa into the presidency.

Chiwenga described the nurses’ strike as “deplorable and reprehensible” as the government had released $17 million (14 million euros) to boost their pay and allowances.

He said the funds would now be used to employ new nurses.

Zimbabwe’s nurses association said they “noted” Chiwenga’s statement but added that they remained on strike.

After Mugabe’s 37-year rule, Mnangagwa has vowed to revive the country’s moribund economy and attract foreign investment to fund better public services.

“Government has done everything to comply with the demands of the striking nurses,” Mnangagwa said, according to state-owned media. “This leaves us with no option but to dismiss them.”

More than 90 percent of Zimbabwe’s budget is spent on government wages.

Teachers at public schools have threatened to go on strike if their pay is not increased.

Zimbabwe is due to hold elections in July or August, the first since the shock fall of Mugabe, who ruled since independence from Britain in 1980.

Mnangagwa, Mugabe’s former deputy, is a veteran loyalist in the ruling ZANU-PF party.

(Source: AFP)

The circulation of fake Penicillin –V tablets in South West Cameroon is responsible for the fake penicillin circulation in Nigeria, according to the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN).

The president of the society, Ahmed Yakasai, said it is alerting the general public to the threat posed by Nigeria’s close proximity to Cameroon.

“Nigerians, especially pharmacists and other health care professionals, should place precautions with a view to preventing the importation of the drug into Nigeria,” he said.

PSN is not the only group that is concerned about the development, Yakasai added that the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), Federal Ministry of Health and office of the Secretary of the Government of the Federation issued similar advisory in line with the report of the General Council of Medical Colleges, Spain in the January/February 2018 edition of its Journal of Tropical Medicine.

Source: Concise News

Zimbabwean doctors at main state hospitals have escalated their strike, dealing only with emergency cases to pressure the government to agree to pay raise and address drugs shortage in hospitals.

Senior doctors on Wednesday joined the strike, which started two weeks ago among junior doctors, stoking fears of loss of lives.

“We will only return to work when all issues raised have been fully resolved,” the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) said in a statement.

“We note with concern the closure of almost all central hospitals, children’s units, provincial hospitals and cessation of emergency life-saving procedures throughout the country.”

Labor unrest could pose a test for President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was officially sworn in as the country’s new president in November after long-time ruler Robert Mugabe resigned under pressure. Mnangagwa pledged to revive the country’s ailing economy and attract foreign investment, after public sector strikes over the state’s failure to pay salaries on time became a regular feature of Mugabe’s rule.

“My brother had an appointment for a review for his broken arm, but the doctors are only attending to critical cases,” said Sicelo Phahlane, leaving the main state hospital of Mpilo in Bulawayo City. “This new government must address the doctors’ grievances urgently to save lives and show it has a different approach to issues from the previous one.”

A doctor at Mpilo, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “We are not going back to work until the authorities address us.”

Source: Presstv

Nigeria is battling on two fronts against an unprecedented outbreak of Lassa fever, a cousin of Ebola, that has already killed 110 people this year.

Even as doctors are grappling to contain the threat, health watchdogs are struggling to understand why the deadly virus has spread so dramatically.

The Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) has confirmed 353 Lassa cases since January 1, compared with 143 cases for the whole of 2017.

But the possible reasons for this surge are many, said NCDC Director Chikwe Ihekweazu.

“The harder you look, the more you find,” he said, citing a change in the virus’s environment, viral mutation — and better reporting of cases by the public in response to awareness campaigns.

Lassa fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic disease that can be transmitted to humans from infected rat faeces or urine.

Like the notorious — but thankfully somewhat less contagious — it can also be passed from one person to another via contact with infected bodily fluids.

Full protective gear for medical personnel is vital and isolation is essential.

Overstretched facilities

A visit to the Lassa fever isolation ward at the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital in southern Edo State — the only such unit in a country of 190 million people — provides a snapshot of the practical difficulties in tackling the peril.

Before the unit was built in 2008, suspect blood samples were sent to South Africa for an accurate diagnosis — but when the results came back it was already too late, doctors say.

Despite its unique status, the Lassa facility, staffed by a dozen Nigerian employees and a handful of European tropical medicine specialists, is struggling.

In normal times, it treats just a couple of dozen patients each year. But since the start of 2018, the unit has already admitted more than 150.

“Now we have just below 30 patients,” said director Ephraim Ogbaini-Emovon. “We never recorded this (in previous years). Facilities are overstretched.”

Dead rats in jars of formaldehyde decorated the corridors of the small clinic. Inside the isolation ward, the temperature was stifling at above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

Kevin Ousman, who specializes in combating viral risks at the World Health Organization (WHO), spends his days reminding people of basic protection.

“Change your gloves!” Ousmane orders. “Throw away this water! Don’t put this bag on the floor.”

In front of the hospital, surgical gloves and syringes spill out of the trash bins onto the grass.

“Given the situation we’re living here, we are going right down to the basics,” Ousmane tells AFP as doctors come and go clad from head to toe in protective suits.

Family care

A striking sight is that of relatives trying to care for their loved ones. Many come wearing just flip-flops and a simple facemask when they visit a patient in the isolation ward.

“It’s a tradition in Africa for families to take care of their sick,” a WHO employee remarks. “But we have to put a stop to that, it’s much too risky.”

Wilson Oherein had heard only vaguely of Lassa fever before his wife contracted the disease, to die of it a few days ago. Their three-year-old daughter was also contaminated by Lassa fever and she was being cared for in the isolation ward at Irrua.

Oherein usually spends his days at his daughter’s bedside and feeds her. He also takes her soiled garments and washes them in a bucket. But this afternoon, he is resting in a half-finished building behind the hospital, with other family members of patients.

He is lying, exhausted, on a mat on the floor. “I will be fine,” he tries to convince himself, his forehead beaded with sweat. “I’m just anxious for my daughter and the mourning of my wife. It knocks me down.”

(Source: AFP)

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it had suspended work in the Nigerian town Rann and evacuated national and international staff after a deadly raid.

Suspected Boko Haram militants killed at least 11 people including three aid workers in an attack on a military barracks in north-eastern Borno state on Thursday, according to two security reports.

“Following a violent attack in Rann, Borno state, on Thursday March 1, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) suspended medical activities in the town and evacuated 22 national and international staff,” MSF said in a statement.

“It is unclear how many people were killed and injured but before leaving, MSF medical staff treated nine wounded patients,” it added.

Source: Reuters

Nigeria is suffering its worst outbreak of Lassa fever, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, as local health officials said 72 people had died since the start of this year.

Lassa fever, named after the town in northern Nigeria where it was first identified in 1969, is endemic but the number of confirmed cases “has never reached” this level before, it added.

“Nigeria’s Lassa fever outbreak has reached record highs, with 317 laboratory confirmed cases,” the WHO said in a statement, quoting figures from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

On February 6, 31 people were reported to have died from the disease, which is caused by a virus of the same family as Marburg and Ebola.

But in an update, the NCDC said: “Since the onset of the 2018, 325 cases have been classified as: 317 confirmed cases, eight probable cases with 72 deaths.”

Fourteen health workers have been affected by the virus in six states.

The WHO said a total of 2,845 people who have come into contact with patients have been identified and were being monitored.

Worst-hit by the virus is Edo state, in the south, where Crusoe Osagie, a media aide to the state government, said mostly rural areas were affected.

“Edo state is the only state with Lagos to have a special treating hospital for this disease, which is in Irrua,” he told AFP. “People come here from all over. ”

The federal-owned facility usually deals with about a hundred cases each year but has already handled that number in the last two months, he added.

WHO said it was supporting the NCDC effort to contain the disease and treat those affected in treatment centres across the country.

“The ability to rapidly detect cases of infection in the community and refer them early for treatment improves patients’ chances of survival and is critical to this response,” said the world body’s representative in Nigeria, Wondimagegnehu Alemu.

Lassa fever is spread through contact with food or items contaminated with rats’ urine or faeces or after coming into direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.

It can be prevented by enhanced hygiene and avoidance of all contact with rats.

More than 100 people were killed in 2016 in an outbreaks affecting 14 of the 36 states, including Lagos and the capital Abuja.

Source: Africa News

A cholera outbreak in Malawi described as “very difficult to contain” has claimed nine lives and affected a total of 541 people nationwide, health officials said on Tuesday.

The outbreak began in November near the landlocked southern African nation’s northern border with Tanzania and has since spread to other regions of the country.

UNICEF’s representative to Malawi Johannes Wedenig told local media that “as long as people in Malawi don’t change the behavior of using unsafe water, it’ll be very difficult to contain”.

He urged Malawians to follow strict sanitation rules and stressed the importance of hand-washing before eating or preparing food.

Cholera is a water-borne diarrhoeal disease that can kill within hours if left untreated, but is easily cured with oral rehydration, intravenous fluids and antibiotics.

Clean water and hygiene standards are critical to controlling transmission.

The country has also received 216,000 oral cholera treatment packs from the World Health Organization which are being distributed in the badly-affected northern region, health ministry spokesman Joshua Malango told AFP.

Another 450,000 doses are expected to arrive soon for distribution in the rest of the country, added Malango, confirming the current toll.

Health officials have begun a media blitz to educate people about the risk of cholera and what steps they can take to avoid contracting it.

(Source: AFP)

A Southern Cameroons physician in Bamenda the chief city in the North of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Dr Veh Dinga-Nyoh of PMI Nkwen , was shot on the back this morning on her way to work by troops loyal to the Biya regime.  Giving an account of the incident to our London editorial office, CIR’s Sama Ernest reported that she has been transferred to the regional hospital for urgent surgical intervention.

Dr Veh Dinga-Nyoh was shot on the lower part of the back on the right side. We understand she was in a taxi heading to work this morning when a gendarme opened fire. Dr Veh was alone in the taxi with the driver who was not hurt.

Urgent surgical intervention is to be carried out to remove the bullet and to verify if any damages have been caused in her internal organs especially as the bullet hole is so close to the kidney.

The disgraced long-time USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar has been sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing young female gymnasts.

Following days of testimony in a Michigan courtroom from about 160 of Nasser’s victims, including Olympic gold medalists, the Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina made the ruling on Wednesday.

“I just signed your death warrant,” Aquilina told Nassar in imposing the penalty, after delivering a searing rebuke of his years of abuse.

“It is my honor and privilege to sentence you because you do not deserve to walk outside of a prison ever again,” she added.

Nassar, 54, pleaded guilty in November to seven counts of first-degree sex assault in Ingham County, as well as three additional charges in Eaton County, where he will be sentenced next week. He is already serving a 60-year sentence in federal prison for child pornography convictions.

Before the sentence was announced, Nassar apologized to his victims, telling them, “I will carry your words with me for the rest of my days.”

Women in the US and the UK have recently been coming forward to share accounts of sexual harassment and assault in workplaces, including in the media, entertainment industry, and political environments.

An avalanche of sexual misconduct allegations were made last year in October against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. The scandal has rippled in a wide range of industries.

Source: Presstv

Dangerously cold temperatures have been blamed for at least a dozen deaths in the central and eastern United States.

The bitter cold prompted officials to shut down schools and local attractions in several regions on Tuesday out of safety concerns.

Warming centers were opened in the Deep South with authorities demanding that neighbors, especially those who are elderly, sick or who live alone be checked.

“It’s important that people look out for anyone in need of shelter,” St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson warned.

Temperatures in St. Louis have dipped 30 degrees below normal.

Freeze warnings were also issued for areas from South Texas to Canada and from Montana to Maine.

In Atlanta, Grady Memorial Hospital emergency room doctors were forced to raise a patient’s body temperature almost once a day or every other day using warm fluids, blankets or other measures.

“We have a group of patients who are coming in off the street who are looking to escape the cold — we have dozens and dozens of those every day,” Emergency Care Center assistant medical director Dr. Brooks Moore told the Associated Press.

“You thought you were cold last year. You thought you were cold last month. But you weren’t cold. Now you’re cold,” said Jeanne Rivera, of Crystal Lake, Illinois, who was in Chicago on Tuesday to visit an art exhibit. “It hurts. It hurts the face.”

Slippery roads have resulted in numerous car accidents with a crash, which involved more than a dozen vehicles, forcing the closure of the Schuylkill Expressway in Pennsylvania.

In Indiana, the current freezing weather is unusual because of how long it has lasted, according to experts.

“It has just been relentlessly cold since Christmas,” said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private Weather Underground.

Source: Presstv