19, August 2020
Makossa: Marthe Zambo at death’s door amid a battle with diabetes 0
Renowned Cameroonian musician Marthe Zambo is suffering from chronic diabetes and does not have the means to afford medication including paying her rents. Marthe Zambo made her current plight public in an interview with state radio and television CRTV on Wednesday, August 19, 2020.
The Makossa icon has lost weight and after numerous signals she incessantly flashed out to her fans all over the world, it is now evidently clear the woman with the nightingale voice is simply waiting to die.
The singer’s setbacks don’t only stop with her illness and her inability to foot her medical bills. In the next few days, she could be evicted from her home for unpaid rents.
“I have too many problems. We call it Nanga Boko in our local Cameroonian parlance! I don’t know where to go from here! I’m left to myself. I can’t pay my rents anymore,” she confessed.
It is vital to include in this report that on Saturday, August 17, 2019, Marthe Zambo and the late Mama Nguea, who died of diabetes, had received financial support from the Ministry of Culture following an appeal for help that the two artists had launched at the time. But it would appear that the token from the Biya regime was not enough to enable Marthe Zambo to take care of her basic needs.
By Rita Akana
27, August 2020
Africa now free of polio 0
The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday declared that Africa was now free of the virus that causes polio, a landmark in a decades-long campaign to eradicate the notorious disease around the world.
“Today is a historic day for Africa,” said Prof. Rose Gana Fomban Leke, whose commission certified that no cases had occurred on the continent for the past four years, the threshold for eradication of poliovirus.
Poliovirus now joins smallpox in the list of viruses that have been wiped out in Africa, the WHO said.
Since 1996, eradication efforts “have prevented up to 1.8 million children from crippling life-long paralysis and saved approximately 180,000 lives,” the agency said.
Poliomyelitis — the medical term for polio — is an acutely infectious and contagious virus which attacks the spinal cord and causes irreversible paralysis in children.
It was endemic around the world until a vaccine was found in the 1950s, though this remained out of reach for many poorer countries in Asia and Africa.
In 1988, when the WHO, UNICEF and Rotary launched the worldwide campaign to eradicate the disease, there were 350,000 cases globally. In 1996, there were more than 70,000 cases in Africa alone.
Thanks to a global effort and financial backing — some $19 billion over 30 years — only Afghanistan and Pakistan have recorded cases this year: 87 in total.
Poliovirus is typically spread in the feces of an infected person and is picked up through contaminated water or food.
Vaccinating people to prevent them from becoming infected thus breaks the cycle of transmission and eventually eradicates the virus in the wild.
The last case of polio in Africa was detected in 2016 in Nigeria, where vaccination efforts had been hampered by the Boko Haram terrorist group.
More than 20 workers involved in the campaign lost their lives.
“This is a momentous milestone for Africa. Now future generations of African children can live free of wild polio,” said Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa.
“This historic achievement was only possible thanks to the leadership and commitment of governments, communities, global polio eradication partners and philanthropists,” Moeti said.
“I pay special tribute to the frontline health workers and vaccinators, some of whom lost their lives, for this noble cause.”
(Source: AFP)