51 dead in Angola yellow fever outbreak
LUANDA • Fifty-one people have now died in a yellow fever outbreak in Angola, less than two months after it started spreading in the capital, said the country's director of health.
Health experts say the outbreak has been exacerbated by a breakdown in sanitation services and rubbish collection in Luanda and other cities, leading to an increase in the mosquitoes that carry the disease.
A total of 240 people were now infected, the southern African country's top health civil servant Adelaide de Carvalho told a forum over the weekend. More than 450,000 people had been vaccinated in the capital, out of a target of nearly 1.6 million, she added.
REUTERS
Ukraine bars entry of Russian trucks
KIEV • Ukraine has banned the transit of Russian trucks across its territory in a tit-for-tat response to an escalating trade war between the feuding former Soviet states.
The Ukrainian government said its decision was taken because Russia had "violated the World Trade Organisation's rules and procedures and bilateral intergovernmental agreements... by unilaterally halting the movement of Ukrainian trucks".
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
EU medical corps for emergencies
BRUSSELS • The European Union yesterday launched its own medical corps to respond faster to emergencies such as the recent Ebola outbreak, with the capacity to act both within and outside the bloc.
"The aim of the European Medical Corps is to create a much faster and more efficient EU response to health crises when they occur," said the EU's Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Mr Christos Stylianides, who hosted the inauguration event in Brussels.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Car bomb kills Somali ex-defence minister
MOGADISHU • Somalia's former defence minister Muhidin Mohamed was killed in a car bomb yesterday, the latest in a string of attacks in the capital Mogadishu, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast in the central K4 district of the city, but Al-Qaeda- linked Al-Shabaab insurgents have carried out similar bombings in the past.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
