Saturday, September 11, 2021

IN the NEWS - Prince of Persia Pounding the Vulnerable: Guinea

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. Matthew 24:7

I: Marbug Virus on heels of Ebola
"Health authorities in Guinea today confirmed a case of Marburg
virus
disease in the southern Gueckedou prefecture. This is the first time Marburg, a highly infectious disease that causes haemorrhagic fever, has been identified in the country, and in West Africa.

Marburg, which is in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola, was detected less than two months after Guinea declared an end to an Ebola outbreak that erupted earlier this year. Samples taken from a now-deceased patient and tested by a field laboratory in Gueckedou as well as Guinea’s national haemorrhagic fever laboratory turned out positive for the Marburg virus. Further analysis by the Institut Pasteur in Senegal confirmed the result.


The patient had sought treatment at a local clinic in Koundou area of Gueckedou, where a medical investigation team had been dispatched to probe his worsening symptoms.

An initial team of 10 WHO experts, including epidemiologists and socio-anthropologists is on the ground helping to investigate the case and supporting the national health authorities to swiftly step up emergency response, including risk assessment, disease surveillance, community mobilization, testing, clinical care, infection prevention as well as logistical support.

Cross-border surveillance is also being enhanced to quickly detect any cases, with neighbouring countries on alert. The Ebola control systems in place in Guinea and in neighboring countries are proving crucial to the emergency response to the Marburg virus.

Marburg is transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads among humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, surfaces and materials.

Illness begins abruptly, with high fever, severe headache and malaise. Many patients develop severe haemorrhagic signs within seven days. Case fatality rates have varied from 24% to 88% in past outbreaks depending on virus strain and case management.

Although there are no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat the virus, supportive care – rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids – and treatment of specific symptoms, improves survival. A range of potential treatments, including blood products, immune therapies and drug therapies, are being evaluated." WHO
 

II: Political Chaos
"Guinea’s first elected president came to power more than a decade ago promising to stand up to global mining giants and improve the

lives of the poor in the resource-rich west African country. But this week, people celebrated on the street as the one-time political exile and democratic activist Alpha Condé was ousted in a military coup

Their charge: Guinea had become a mining powerhouse on his watch but their lives had barely changed. To cap it all, he had tried to extend his rule for a third term. “I didn’t know him very well, but I knew [him as a] political leader who seemed like a man who in his heart wanted to turn Guinea into a real democracy,” said Cellou Dalein Diallo, the opposition leader who lost to Condé in three elections, which were rife with irregularities. So I was very disappointed when I saw how he acted because it was the

opposite of what I expected. “Alpha Condé himself created the crisis that swept him away,” Diallo added. “[He] would not have met such a tragic end” if he had not changed the constitution last year in order to run for a third term. 

The push by Condé, 83, to cling to power prompted widespread protests. International powers, including the African Union and the UN, condemned the coup. But the strongest reaction came from the commodities market, where the price of aluminium rose to its highest level in a decade out of fear supply would be disrupted. Condé in 2010 inherited a dysfunctional state, ruled for decades by Lansana Conté, its mineral wealth exploited in a haphazard fashion and the source of political and legal strife." FinancialTimes