Africa | Pakistan

Pakistan has intensified screening measures at airports across the country, along with other precautionary steps, amid the recent Ebola virus outbreak in Africa, the health ministry said on Saturday. In a handout, the minister said Health Minister Mustafa Kamal had directed authorities to implement precautionary screening protocols at all airports to prevent the possible spread of the virus. The spread of the recent Ebola virus outbreak is limited to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda, and the risk to Pakistan is extremely low due to limited travel links with the affected countries, the health ministry said. The ministry added that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) office in Pakistan were continuously monitoring the situation. The ministry directed all provinces and the Border Health Services to remain on alert. The ministry also noted that Pakistan possessed the capacity to diagnose Ebola and said directives had been issued to ensure all necessar...

Ethiopia has confirmed an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in the south of the country, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Saturday. The Marburg virus is one of the deadliest known pathogens. Like Ebola, it causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and has a 21-day incubation period. Also like Ebola, it is transmitted via contact with bodily fluids and has a fatality rate of between 25 and 80 percent. The head of the World Health Organization, Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed on Friday that at least nine cases had been detected in southern Ethiopia, two days after Africa CDC was alerted to a suspected haemorrhagic virus in the region. “Marburg virus disease (MVD) has been confirmed by the National Reference Laboratory (in Ethiopia),” Africa CDC said. “Further epidemiological investigations and laboratory analyses are underway and the virus strain detected shows similarities to those previously identified in East Africa.” It said Ethiopian...

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Stargazers will have a chance to see a “Blood Moon” on Sunday night during a total lunar eclipse visible across Asia, as well as swathes of Europe and Africa. When the Sun, Earth and Moon line up, the shadow cast by the planet on its satellite makes it appear an eerie, deep red colour that has astounded humans for millennia. People in Asia, including India and China, will be best placed to see Sunday’s total eclipse, which will also be visible on the eastern edge of Africa as well as in western Australia. The total lunar eclipse will last from 1730 GMT to 1852 GMT (10:30pm PKT to 11:52pm PKT). Stargazers in Europe and Africa will get a brief chance to see a partial eclipse just as the Moon rises during the early evening, while the Americas will miss out. The Moon appears red during lunar eclipses because the only sunlight reaching it is “reflected and scattered through the Earth’s atmosphere”, said Ryan Milligan, an astrophysicist at Northern Ireland’s Queen’s University Belfast. Blue wavelengths of light are...