MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

“MAROUA, CAMEROON (BNO NEWS) — A major cholera epidemic in parts of Cameroon has already claimed nearly 500 lives so far this month while more than 13,000 others have been sickened this year, CNN reported on Wednesday.

Public health officials said more than 50 people have died so far in August in the Far North region alone, the hardest-hit area. Residents in the Logone and Chari divisions of the region told CNN that the majority of people infected with the disease are children under the age of five and women.

Prof. Gervais Ondobo Andze, the director of disease control at the Ministry of Public Health, told journalists on Monday that nine of the country’s 10 regions are affected by cholera, an intestinal infection caused by ingestion of bacteria-contaminated food or water. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 80 percent of cases can be cured by rehydrating the patient.

In Maroua, the capital of the Far North region, 1,380 cases of cholera have been reported so far this year, according to officials. Dr. Valentine Ndikum, a senior public health official, said the number could double in the coming days due to poor sanitary and hygienic conditions because of what he said was a slow government response.” Read more.

By Scott Harper – “They have become sad summer rites in local waters that feed the Chesapeake Bay: algae blooms, also known as red tides or brown tides. And once again, they have arrived to stain creeks and rivers, frighten swimmers and threaten fish and oyster stocks.

On Friday, the blooms thrived in patches across much of the Lafayette River in Norfolk – great swaths of mahogany and brick-red streaks, looking like someone either spilled oil or dropped a huge load of paint overboard.

And then, suddenly, the unhealthy coloring stopped and the water again turned its normal shade of light green – healthy and sick, side by side, even touching.

From a boat piloted by Chris Moore, a scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Lafayette almost seemed its normal self on an August afternoon, with people out fishing, sailing and tending to their riverfront yards.

But Moore knows better.

‘This is a sign that we need to improve our water quality,’ Moore said after cruising through an especially red and thick blanket, just off Colonial Place, a low-lying waterfront neighborhood.

Blooms are modern phenomenons that typically occur in the lower Chesapeake in July or August, then hang around until fall, unwelcome and unpredictable. The state Health Department warns swimmers and fishermen to avoid darkly colored waters.” Read more.

“KRYLOVSKAYA, Russia, Aug. 8 (UPI) — A district in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Region has declared a state of emergency due to a swine fever outbreak, emergency response officials say.

The emergency was declared Sunday for the region after 50 pigs died because of the disease, RIA Novosti reported.

The virus was discovered near the village of Krylovskaya at a private farm where 15 pigs were found dead.

The area covered in the state of emergency is home to 11,839 pigs, the regional emergencies center said.” Read more.

“SANTO DOMINGO – THE DOMINICAN Republic’s death toll in the cholera epidemic that spread from Haiti has risen to 87 out of more than 13,000 suspected cases, authorities said on Friday.

The country shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, where the epidemic has killed more than 5,500 people.

The Dominican health ministry reported that the death toll had risen by 16 since July 8 to 87.

According to the ministry, there have been 773 new cases in the past week, for a total of 13,200 since the beginning of the epidemic, which spread to the Dominican Republic from Haiti in November 2010.

An epidemiological study published at the end of June by the US Centers for Disease Control established that UN troops from Nepal were responsible for the epidemic.” Read more.

“GENEVA — United Nations officials say outbreaks of measles in Ethiopia and Kenya have killed dozens of children and sickened thousands of others.

UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado said Friday at least 17,584 measles cases, including 114 deaths, have been reported by Ethiopian health officials in the first half of the year.

World Health Organization spokesman Tarek Jasarevic says at least 462 cases of measles, including 11 deaths, have been confirmed in recent months among Somali refugee children in the Kenyan refugee complex known as Dadaab.

He says 2 million children in Ethiopia are at risk of contracting measles.” Read more.

“CEBU, Philippines – The 81 cases of typhoid fever reported in one barangay of the town of Alegria in the southwestern side of Cebu have puzzled health officials.

The Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) is trying to find out what caused the outbreak in Barangay Valencia.

Alegria has a total of 9 barangays, but only residents of Valencia have been affected.

Provincial Health Officer Cristina Giango said that of the 81 cases, 27 are confined at the Badian District Hospital and in Reinhard Hospital in Alegria.

She said that their personnel are already in Alegria since last Saturday to distribute medicine and conduct health education.

Jen Lerio, head nurse of the Alegria Rural Health Unit, told The FREEMAN that typhoid fever is a waterborne disease which is usually acquired when one drinks contaminated water.

Octavios Acebo, the municipal sanitary inspector, said that they conducted a water test on July 5 and the result showed it was negative of Escherichia coli or Ecoli bacteria.

Ecoli bacteria are commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms including humans. These bacteria can cause serious illness, which eventually lead to death if not treated immediately.” Read more.

“A team of researchers announced Monday it has discovered a completely new strain of gonorrhea that is resistant to all currently available antibiotics.

The international research team has dubbed the superbug strain of Neisseria gonorrhoeae H041. They say the strain could transform gonorrhea from what was once an easily treatable sexually transmitted infection into a serious public health threat.

‘This is both an alarming and a predictable discovery’ said Swedish researcher Dr. Magnus Unemo of the Swedish Reference Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria in a statement.

He and his team announced the discovery Monday, at the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Disease Research conference in Quebec City.

The researchers say H041 is highly resistant to cephalosporin antibiotics — the only class of drugs that are still effective in killing off gonorrhea bacteria, analysis shows.

Unemo says the development of a fully resistant strain was predictable because gonorrhea has shown a remarkable ability to adapt.

‘Since antibiotics became the standard treatment for gonorrhea in the 1940s, this bacterium has shown a remarkable capacity to develop resistance mechanisms to all drugs introduced to control it,’ said Unemo.” Read more.