M23 rebels were still fighting and advancing on one front of their offensive in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on Friday as a cease-fire came into force, civilian and military sources said. Clashes continued after the 1700 GMT deadline to cease fire near Bwiza, about 40 kilometers north of the provincial capital, Goma, local people told AFP by telephone.

More than 40 million children missed getting vaccinated against measles last year, prompting a significant setback in global efforts to eradicate the highly contagious disease worldwide, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a joint report Wednesday. Vaccination campaigns were disrupted in several countries because of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, dropping global measles-containing

KAMPALA— Witchcraft and witch doctors are ineffective against Ebola, the minister of Health of Uganda, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, said.    She added that ignorance and carelessness are responsible for the spread of the disease in this East African country, where 55 people have died since the outbreak of the disease in September. Fifty other suspected cases have died, but it

KAMPALA— Uganda is on the right track and doing well in its fight against the Ebola epidemic, UNICEF representative in Uganda Dr Mohamed Munir Safieldin has said. “Uganda is doing well and it has the expertise, which helped in West Africa and is helping at home,” Safieldin said. In July 2014, Ugandan experts flew to Sierra Leone and Liberia to

GOMA (DR Congo)— Two days of flooding and landslides in eastern DR Congo have claimed more than 20 lives, officials and police said. At least 13 people were killed Friday at an illegal gold mine at Rubaya, in the North Kivu province territory of Masisi. “The victims were ‘diggers’ who were in wells and people who were nearby,” said Jean-Paul

International human rights groups have called for urgent global pressure on Iran to stop handing death sentences to jailed antigovernment protesters and to refrain from executing any of the detainees. Iran’s judiciary has said five people detained in the government’s crackdown on a two-month protest movement have been sentenced to death since Sunday. The five detainees, none of whom was

BEIRUT– Lebanon and Algeria condemned yesterday, the deadly bomb attack in Türkiye’s Istanbul, that killed at least six people and injured 81. In a statement, Lebanon’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, offered its condolences to the Turkish government and families of the victims, wishing “a speedy recovery for the injured.” It also expressed its “full solidarity with Türkiye in these dire

Malaria exploded this year in the Ethiopian city of Dire Dawa, which saw more than 10 times as many cases between January and May as it did in all of 2019. What made this spike in cases unusual is that it happened outside the rainy season, when malaria typically surges across Africa, and in an urban area — malaria is

Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity. It is estimated that environmental factors take the lives of around 13 million people every year. Global warming is influencing weather patterns, causing heat waves, heavy rainfall and droughts. The Greater Horn of Africa is facing an unprecedented, acute hunger and health crisis driven by climate change, and compounded by

As of 8 November 2022, the worst flooding in years affected 5.9 million people in 20 countries in West and Central Africa. Heavy rains and floods continued to take a significant toll on human life, property, farmlands, and livestock, killing 1,132 people, injuring 4,005, and displacing 1.8 million. Nigeria, Chad, Niger, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo,