February 2023

Two more people in Equatorial Guinea have died of Marburg hemorrhagic fever, a cousin of the Ebola virus, bringing the toll of fatalities to 11, the authorities say.

“Two days ago, the monitoring system recorded eight notifications, including the deaths of two people with symptoms of the disease,” Health Minister Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba said in a statement issued late Tuesday.

Work is underway “to strengthen assessment of the spread of the epidemic,” said the statement, read on national television.

“Forty-eight contact cases have been documented, four of whom have developed symptoms, and three who have been quarantined in hospital,” it added.

The Marburg virus is a rare but highly dangerous pathogen that causes severe fever, often accompanied by bleeding and organ failure.

It is part of the so-called filovirus family that also includes the Ebola virus, which has wreaked havoc in several previous outbreaks in Africa.

The central African state announced on February 13 that nine people had died from Marburg between January 7 and February 7.

The U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) held an emergency session the following day.

The national authorities have declared a health alert in the remote northeastern province of Kie-Ntem province and in the neighboring district of Mongomo, which are located on the border with Cameroon and Gabon.

Measures include a lockdown plan implemented in collaboration with the WHO.

In their statement of February 13, the authorities had reported only three cases of infection in addition to the fatalities — individuals who were being isolated with “mild symptoms” in hospital.

The natural host of the Marburg virus is the African fruit bat, which carries the virus but does not fall sick from it.

But the animals can pass the virus to primates in close proximity, including humans, and human-to-human transmission then occurs through contact with blood or other bodily fluids.

Fatality rates in confirmed cases have ranged from 24 percent to 88 percent in previous outbreaks, depending on the virus strain and case management, according to the WHO.

There are currently no approved vaccines or antiviral treatments.

Potential treatments, including blood products, immune therapies and drug therapies, as well as early candidate vaccines are being evaluated, the WHO says.
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The head of a U.S. government program to fight AIDS, Dr. John Nkengasong, says that in its 20 years of existence the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has saved 25 million lives.

PEPFAR, set up in 2003 under the administration of former U.S. president George W. Bush, has transformed the trajectory of HIV/AIDS, Nkengasong told reporters Tuesday while visiting South Africa.

“Twenty-five million lives have been saved, 5.5 million children have been born free of HIV/AIDS, health systems have been strengthened in a remarkable way,” he said.

Nkengasong, who comes from Cameroon, said there was once a “sense of hopelessness” in Africa, the continent worst-hit by HIV/AIDS, but since then countries’ economies have increased and life expectancy has improved.

Some 95% of the total $110 billion spent through PEPFAR was spent on Africa as it bore the brunt of the disease, he said.

“Before PEPFAR only 50,000 people, 50,000 people on the continent of Africa who were infected, were on treatment, 50,000. Today over 20 million people are receiving life-saving anti-retroviral therapy.” he said.

Nkengasong said the infrastructure rolled out across Africa as part of the U.S. government program was also useful during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The AIDS official said he was also “very positive” about the tools in the pipeline to combat HIV, including the roll out of pre-exposure prophylactics for HIV negative people that can be injected every three months and will stop the spread of new infections.
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The U.S. ambassador to China says Beijing needs to be more forthcoming about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, a day after reports that the U.S. Energy Department concluded the outbreak likely began because of a Chinese laboratory leak.

Nicholas Burns told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event by video link Monday that China needs to “be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the COVID-19 crisis.” Wuhan is the Chinese city where the first cases of the novel coronavirus were reported in December 2019.

His comments come a day after U.S. media reported that the Energy Department determined the pandemic likely arose from a laboratory leak in Wuhan.

The department made its judgment in a classified intelligence report provided to the White House and key members of Congress, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the development, citing people who read the report.

The WSJ said the Energy Department intelligence agency was now the second U.S. intelligence agency after the FBI to conclude a Chinese lab leak was the probable cause of the pandemic, although U.S. spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby echoed that sentiment.

“There has not been a definitive conclusion and consensus in the U.S. government on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Kirby told reporters Monday when asked about the WSJ report.

The Energy Department assessment was made with “low confidence,” while the FBI conclusion was determined with “moderate confidence,” according to the WSJ. Four other U.S. agencies have reportedly determined with “low confidence” that the virus was transmitted naturally through animals, while an additional two agencies remain undecided.

The reports again bring national attention to the question of what caused the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Energy Department’s conclusion marks a change from its earlier position that it was undecided on how the virus began. U.S. officials did not disclose what new intelligence brought about the change. The Energy Department’s analysis came from its network of national laboratories, giving it a perspective different from more traditional intelligence assessments.

On Sunday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN that “there is a variety of views in the intelligence community.”

“Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other,” he said.

Scientists have also been divided on the issue, with some pointing to the live animal market in Wuhan as the most probable place the virus emerged, noting that animal-to-human transmission has been the pathway for many previously unknown pathogens. Other scientists, however, have given credence to the lab leak theory, noting that no animal source has been found and that Wuhan is a major site of coronavirus research.

The question of how the virus began has also exacerbated political divisions in the U.S., with Republicans more likely to back the lab leak hypothesis.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton was one of the first high-profile politicians to voice the theory that the virus originated in a lab setting, commenting in February 2020, when the predominant view was the virus had been transmitted from bats and spread at a food market in Wuhan.

After a growing number of scientists urged for both hypotheses to be seriously considered, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered an intelligence review into the origins of COVID-19 in May 2021.

A declassified intelligence assessment in October 2021 stated that both hypotheses were plausible but that intelligence agencies remained divided over which theory was correct. The report said there was consensus among intelligence agencies that the pandemic was not the result of a Chinese biological weapons program.

China has repeatedly denied that a lab leak occurred in Wuhan. It has placed limits on World Health Organization investigations to determine the origin of the virus.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.
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The Ghana Health Service says a shortage of routine vaccines for children blamed for a measles outbreak that infected 120 will be resolved within weeks. Health officials said the shortage of vaccines against polio, hepatitis B, and measles was caused by the depreciation of Ghana’s currency, the cedi. The Pediatric Society of Ghana warned childhood diseases could quickly spread if the vaccines were not soon made available. 

For months, nursing mothers have been complaining of shortage of vaccines meant for babies from birth to at least 18 months.

The situation became worse in February after major health facilities in 10 out of the 16 administrative regions of Ghana kept turning nursing mothers away due to erratic supply.

Vivian Helemi said her baby girl missed one of the key vaccinations last month and the situation has not changed after combing three health centers on Monday. Like other mothers, Helemi is worried the shortage of the essential vaccines for infants will pose a threat to her child.

“It has been frustrating moving from one hospital to another,” she told VOA. “I don’t know what could happen to my baby because she is yet to receive her second vaccination. I am confused because no one is telling me when the vaccines will be ready.”

Timely vaccination of children, according to UNICEF, is a proven method for saving lives from vaccine-preventable diseases. It can also help attain some targets like the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 3, which aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all.

UNICEF’s Ghana office says on its website that the country has seen a significant fall in deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. For example, since 2003, there has been no death caused by measles, while in 2011, Ghana was certified as having attained elimination status for maternal and neonatal tetanus.

Dr. Agyeiwaa Bonuedie, a member of the Pediatric Society of Ghana, said the government must act now in order not to erode the gains made so far.

“It’s the first time I am hearing of such widespread shortages. We do have shortages from time to time, however, those are in very limited circumstances. The problem this time is that it has gone over for several months. This should actually be a thing of the past. The government should be encouraged to do what we call ring-fenced funding such that budgetary allocations for vaccines are actually protected, no matter what other dire or pressing needs the country has, the children should be secured in that light,” said Bonuedie.

The director-general of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said the situation will change by the end of March.

“We have had some delays in procuring some of those vaccines for which polio, MR [Measles-Rubella], and BCG [bacille Calmette-Guerin] are in short supply. It was also because the ministry’s budget to procure them are in cedis, and at the time it was due for procurement, because of exchange differences it was very difficult to procure, so now we have done it… we hope that within the next three weeks we will address it,” he said.

Parliament has summoned the West African country’s health minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu to discuss the vaccine shortage. The next few weeks are crucial for many children, especially those who live in inner cities and dense parts of urban areas and are exposed to vaccine-preventable diseases at an early age.
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Two experts appointed by the World Health Organization to investigate allegations that some of its staffers sexually abused women during an Ebola outbreak in Congo have dismissed the U.N. agency’s own efforts to excuse its handling of such misconduct as “an absurdity.”

Some of the victimized women say — nearly four years later — they are still waiting for WHO to fire those responsible or be offered any financial compensation.

In October 2020, Aichatou Mindaoudou and Julienne Lusenge were named by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to head a panel investigating reports that some WHO staffers sexually abused or exploited women in a conflict-ridden region of Congo during the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak.

Their review found there were at least 83 perpetrators of abuse who worked for WHO and partners, including complaints of rape, forced abortions and the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl, in the biggest known sex abuse scandal in the U.N. health agency’s history.

The panel also found that three WHO managers mismanaged a sexual misconduct case first reported by the Associated Press, involving a U.N. doctor signing a contract to buy land for a woman he allegedly impregnated.

A confidential U.N. report submitted to WHO last month concluded that the managers’ handling of that case didn’t violate WHO’s sexual exploitation policies, because the woman wasn’t considered a “beneficiary” of WHO aid, since she didn’t receive any humanitarian assistance.

“The restrictive approach favored by WHO is an absurdity,” Mindaoudou and Lusenge said in a statement, adding that beneficiaries of WHO “should only be interpreted in favor of potential victims of sexual exploitation and abuse, with the view of maintaining accountability.”

Anifa, a Congolese woman who worked at an Ebola clinic in northeastern Congo, said she was offered a job at double her salary in exchange for sex with a WHO doctor and was still traumatized by the experience.

“How many times do I have to speak before [the doctors] at WHO responsible for the sexual abuse are punished?” she asked. “If WHO does not take radical measures, we will conclude that the organization has been made rotten by rapists.”

Anifa, who didn’t share her last name for fear of reprisals, said she didn’t expect any financial compensation from WHO, explaining that “money will not erase the wounds I have in my heart.” She reported the alleged misconduct to WHO in 2019, but never received a response.

Mindaoudou, a former government minister in Niger and Lusenge, a human rights activist in Congo, also slammed WHO for its failure to punish any senior staffers linked to the abuse, saying there was a “culture of impunity” at the organization.

When allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation surfaced in the press in September 2020, Tedros said he was “outraged” and that anyone found to be involved would face serious consequences. WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan claimed the agency had “absolutely no details” of the abuse.

But the internal U.N. report noted that Tedros was informed of sexual abuse allegations in 2019 and that some cases of alleged misconduct were discussed by senior WHO staff shortly after they occurred. Tedros himself travelled to Congo 14 times during the outbreak and said he was personally responsible for WHO’s Ebola response.

To date, no senior managers at WHO linked to the sexual misconduct have been fired; Tedros said last month that because the U.N. report found there was no evidence managers acted improperly, three suspended officials returned to work.

WHO has refused to comment on the internal U.N. report, but Tedros has said repeatedly that he has “zero tolerance” for sexual abuse and exploitation, pointing to the creation of a new department to prevent misconduct. Dr. Gaya Gamhewage, who heads that work, told U.N. investigators that prior to being appointed, “sexual exploitation and abuse were not familiar terms to her.”

Tedros said earlier this month that the agency has established a $2 million fund to help survivors of sexual abuse in Congo, but it’s unclear how many women have obtained assistance.

Jeanette, a woman who says she was impregnated by a WHO doctor while working at an Ebola center in Butembo, said she was pressured into having an abortion, which nearly killed her. She said she is waiting for WHO to punish the doctor responsible for her pregnancy and has had no offers of financial compensation.

“I don’t have the strength to work since the abortion,” she said. “WHO should know that their staffers are flatterers, freeloaders and liars.”
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The big beasts of the telecom industry kicked off their most important annual get-together in Barcelona on Monday, promising to lead a “tsunami of innovation”, as they try to shrug off a major slump across the technology sector.

Some 80,000 delegates are expected at the four-day Mobile World Congress (MWC), which is back to near full strength following years of pandemic-related disruption.

Industrial titans like Huawei, Nokia and Samsung are set to showcase their latest innovations, flanked by smartphone makers like Oppo and Xiaomi and network operators like Orange, Verizon and China Mobile.

“We are at the doors of a new change of era driven by the intersection of Telco, Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Web3,” said Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, boss of Spanish operator Telefonica and current chairman of industry body GSMA, which organizes the Barcelona event.

He promised the telecoms industry would be at the forefront of the “tsunami of innovation”, adding: “Without telcos there is no digital future.”

But many of the firms are more concerned with finding a path back to profit as the global economy stutters and the wider tech sector slashes thousands of jobs.

In the first clear sign that the ills of the wider tech sector are reaching telecoms, equipment maker Ericsson announced 8,500 layoffs last week.

Overall sales of smartphones last year slumped by 11.3 percent compared with 2021, according to the IDC consultancy.

Research firm Gartner reckons sales of smartphones, tablets and computers will fall again by four percent this year.

And network operators are still struggling to make 5G pay, years after they spent billions in government auctions for the right to use the bandwidth.

‘Unsustainable situation’ 

A hugely popular idea for many at the show is to get the owners of bandwidth-hungry platforms like YouTube, Netflix and Facebook to pay network operators a “fair share”.

Christel Heydemann, boss of French operator Orange, said the five largest users — which she did not name — account for 55% of daily traffic on European networks, costing telecoms firms 15 billion euros ($16 billion) a year.

She said it was an “unsustainable situation” and welcomed a public consultation launched by EU commissioner Thierry Breton last week.

But Breton told the MWC on Monday that it was not a “binary choice” or a battle between telecoms and big tech.

He said the idea was for everyone to make sure Europe had the best possible network by 2030 and warned that telecoms firms “will have to adapt to survive”.

Critics of the “fair share” narrative point out that customers already pay the operators for use of their networks.

Netflix boss Greg Peters, who is unlikely to be enthusiastic about the fair share proposal, is expected at the MWC on Tuesday.

Huawei center stage 

The organizers are trumpeting the return of Chinese delegates as a vital boon to the event.

Chinese firms heavily sponsor the MWC and Huawei is once again getting pride of place, this time hosting the biggest dedicated pavilion in the event’s decades-long history.

The Chinese tech giant was the second biggest smartphone maker in the world in 2020 but retreated after US regulators accused it of being controlled by Beijing.

The firm is now under pressure in Europe, where Breton and other commissioners are pushing for its equipment to be removed from 5G network infrastructure.

Huawei boss Eric Xu said before the event he would use the MWC to display products that would “help carriers meet evolving demand and unleash more opportunities for new growth”.

In total, GSMA said the four-day show would host almost 750 operators and manufacturers and 2,000 exhibitors.
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NASA and SpaceX postponed a planned Monday launch of a four-member crew to the International Space Station due to a ground systems issue.

The decision came less than three minutes before the spacecraft was due to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A backup launch date had been set for Tuesday, but NASA said due to expected unfavorable weather conditions the next launch attempt will be March 2. 

The four-person crew includes two Americans, one Russian and one astronaut from the United Arab Emirates.

NASA said their planned six-month mission includes a range of scientific experiments including studying how materials burn in microgravity, collecting microbial samples from outside the space station and “tissue chip research on heart, brain, and cartilage functions.”
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