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THE World Health Organization said on Friday that two existing treatments dramatically reduced deaths from
Ebola and should be given to people of all ages suffering from the often-fatal haemorrhagic disease. Publishing its first-ever guidelines on which therapeutics to use against Ebola, the UN health agency strongly recommended using two monoclonal antibodies, mab114, also known as Ansuvimab or Ebanga, and REGN-EB3, or Inmazeb.
Studies had showed that the two treatments significantly “reduced mortality,” Janet Diaz, lead of the clinical management unit in the WHO’S Health Emergencies programme, told reporters in Geneva. Depending on the standard of care, she said they could save between 230 and 400 lives for every 1,000 people infected.
Ebola is an often-fatal viral haemorrhagic fever that was first identified in central Africa in 1976. The disease was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then known as Zaire. |
WILDFIRES, which killed at least 38 people and left a trail of destruction in eastern Algeria this week, are now under control, a civil defence official said on Friday. “All of the fires have been completely brought under control,” said fire brigade Colonel Farouk Achour, of the civil defence department.
Since the beginning of the month, almost 150 blazes have destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest in Africa’s largest country. Deadly fires have become an annual problem in Algeria, where climate change has turned large areas of forest into a tinderbox in the blistering summer months.
The justice ministry launched an inquiry after Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud suggested some of the fires were started deliberately, and authorities on Thursday announced four arrests of suspected arsonists. |
PERU said it was breaking diplomatic ties with the partially-recognised Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Western Sahara in favour of improved ties with Morocco.
The break came this week, just 11 months after diplomatic relations were re-established under leftist President Pedro Castillo.
The decision followed a “recent telephone conversation” between Peru’s foreign minister, Miguel Rodriguez Mackay, and Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita, the foreign ministry said. The two nations decided to “strengthen their bilateral relations”.
Morocco controls some 80% of the Western Sahara and has long insisted it must retain sovereignty there, pitting it against the Polisario movement demanding a referendum on independence for the region. |