Day: August 31, 2024

ABUJA, Nigeria — Weeks of flooding have killed 185 people in Nigeria and washed away homes and farmlands, the country’s disaster management agency said, further threatening food supplies, especially in the hard-hit northern region.

The floods, blamed on poor infrastructure and badly maintained dams, have displaced 208,000 people in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states, the National Emergency Management Agency said in an update Friday, triggering frantic efforts to evacuate hundreds of thousands to makeshift shelters.

Nigeria records flooding every year mostly as a result of failure to follow environmental guidelines and inadequate infrastructure. The worst floods the country has seen in a decade were in 2022, when more than 600 people were killed and more than 1 million people were displaced.

However, unlike in 2022 when the floods were blamed on heavier rainfall, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency predicted delayed or normal rains in most parts of the country this year and said the current floods were more a result of human activities.

“What we are doing is causing this climate change, so there is a shift from the normal,” said Ibrahim Wasiu Adeniyi, head of the central forecasting unit. “We have some who dump refuse indiscriminately, some build houses without approvals along the waterways.”

The Nigerian disaster response agency warned the flooding could get worse in the coming weeks as the flood waters flow downwards to the central and southern states.

“People [in flood-prone areas] need to evacuate now … because we don’t have time any longer,” said its spokesperson, Manzo Ezekiel.

In Jigawa, the worst-hit state, has recorded 37 deaths. The impact of the floods there has been “devastating,” and authorities are converting public buildings and schools as shelters for those displaced, according to Nura Abdullahi, head of emergency services in the state.

The floods have so far destroyed 107,000 hectares of farmland, especially in northern states, among the most affected and where most of Nigeria’s harvests come from.

Many farmers in the region are already unable to farm as much as they would like either because of decreasing inputs as families struggle amid Nigeria’s economic hardship or as a result of violent attacks that have forced them to flee.

Nigeria has the highest number of hungry people in the world, with 32 million — 10% of the global burden — facing acute hunger in the country, according to the U.N. food agency.

Resident Abdullahi Gummi in Zamfara state’s Gummi council area said the floods destroyed his family’s farmlands, which are their source of income. “We spent around 300,000 naira [$188] on planting, but everything is gone,” Gummi said.
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Brasi­lia, Brazil — A block on Elon Musk’s X social network in Brazil started to take effect early Saturday after a Supreme Court judge ordered its suspension, according to AFP.

Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the suspension of the platform following a monthslong standoff with the tech billionaire over disinformation in South America’s largest nation.

Moraes handed down the ruling after Musk failed to comply with an order to name a new legal representative for the company.

Early Saturday access to X, formerly known as Twitter, was no longer possible for some users in the South American country, who were presented with a message asking them to reload the browser without being able to log in successfully.

Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, reacted with fury to the judge’s order, branding Moraes an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.”

“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” the billionaire, who has become increasingly aligned with right-wing politics, wrote on X.

The two have been locked in an ongoing, high-profile feud for months as Moraes leads a battle against disinformation in Brazil.

Musk has previously declared himself a “free speech absolutist,” but since he took over the platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022, he has been accused of turning it into a megaphone for right-wing conspiracy theories.

He is a vocal supporter of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to regain the White House.

Moraes ordered the “immediate, complete and comprehensive suspension of the operation of” X in the country, telling the national communications agency to take “all necessary measures” to implement the order within 24 hours.

He threatened a fine of $8,900 to anyone who used “technological subterfuges” to get around the block, such as a VPN.

The judge also demanded Google, Apple and internet providers “introduce technological obstacles capable of preventing the use of the X application” and access to the website — although he later walked back that order.

The social media platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.

Musk shut X’s business operations in Brazil earlier this month, claiming Moraes had threatened the company’s previous legal representative with arrest to force compliance with “censorship orders.”

On Wednesday, Moraes told Musk he had 24 hours to find a new representative or he would face suspension.

Shortly after the deadline passed, X said in a statement that it expected Moraes to shut it down “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”

How it started

The standoff with Musk began when Moraes ordered the suspension of several X accounts belonging to supporters of Brazil’s former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to discredit the voting system in the 2022 election, which he lost.

Brazilian authorities are investigating whether Bolsonaro plotted a coup attempt to prevent current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from assuming office in January 2023.

Online users blocked by Moraes include figures such as far-right ex-congressman Daniel Silveira, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2022 on charges of leading a movement to overthrow the Supreme Court.

In April, Moraes ordered an investigation of Musk, accusing him of reactivating some of the banned accounts.

Starlink drawn in

On Thursday, Musk’s satellite internet operator, Starlink, said it had received an order from Moraes that froze its accounts and prevented it from conducting financial transactions in Brazil.

Starlink alleged that the order “is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied — unconstitutionally — against X.”

The company said on X that it intended “to address the matter legally.”

Musk is also the subject of a separate judicial investigation into an alleged scheme in which public money was used to orchestrate disinformation campaigns in favor of Bolsonaro and those close to him.

“Any citizen from anywhere in the world who has investments in Brazil is subject to the Brazilian Constitution and laws,” Lula told a local radio station on Friday. “Who does [Musk] think he is?”
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LONDON — Polio was eliminated from most parts of the world as part of a decadeslong effort by the World Health Organization and partners to wipe out the disease. But polio is one of the world’s most infectious diseases and is still spreading in a small number of countries. The WHO and its partners want to eradicate polio in the next few years.

Until it is gone from the planet, the virus will continue to trigger outbreaks anywhere children are not fully vaccinated. The recent polio infection in an unvaccinated baby in Gaza is the first time the disease has been reported in the territory in more than 25 years.

What is polio?

Polio is an infection caused by a virus that mostly affects children younger than 5. Most people infected with polio don’t have any symptoms, but it can cause fever, headaches, vomiting and stiffness of the spine. In severe cases, polio can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis within hours, according to the WHO. The U.N. agency estimates that 1 in 200 polio cases results in permanent paralysis, usually of the legs. Among children who are paralyzed, up to 10% die when their breathing muscles are paralyzed.

The virus spreads from person to person, entering the body though the mouth. It is most often spread by contact with waste from an infected person or, less frequently, through contaminated water or food.

Just how bad was polio in the past?

Very bad. Polio has existed for centuries; ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics show children walking with canes, with the wasted limbs characteristic of polio victims.

Before the first vaccine was developed in the 1950s, polio was among the most feared diseases. An explosive 1916 outbreak in New York killed more than 2,000 people, and the worst recorded U.S. outbreak in 1952 killed more than 3,000. Many people who survived polio suffered lifelong consequences, including paralysis and deformed limbs. Some people whose breathing muscles were paralyzed required “iron lung” chambers to help them breathe.

When did the eradication campaign begin?

WHO passed a resolution to eradicate polio in 1988, spurred on by the success of eliminating smallpox eight years earlier. Their original target was to wipe out polio by 2000. The WHO — along with partners including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF and Rotary International — boosted the production of an oral vaccine and rolled out widespread immunization campaigns. Polio cases dropped by more than 99%.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries where the spread of polio has never been stopped. There are also outbreaks in more than a dozen other countries, mostly in Africa. WHO and partners now aim to wipe out polio by 2026.

Why has it taken so long?

It’s extraordinarily difficult. Stopping polio outbreaks means vaccinating at least 95% of the population everywhere, including in conflict-ridden countries and poor regions with broken health systems and other priorities.

The oral vaccine is cheap, easy to use and is better at preventing entire populations from becoming infected. But it contains weakened, live polio virus and in very rare cases can spread and cause polio in unvaccinated people. In even rarer instances, the live virus from the vaccine can mutate into a new form capable of starting new outbreaks.

Health authorities have become more successful in reducing the number of cases caused by the wild polio virus. Vaccine-related cases now cause the majority of infections worldwide.

“The problem with trying to eradicate polio is that the need for perfection is so great and there are so many weak links,” said Scott Barrett, a Columbia University professor who has studied polio eradication. “The technical feasibility is there, but we live in a vastly imperfect world.” 
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geneva — The head of the World Health Organization believes mpox outbreaks in Africa might be stopped in the next six months, and he said Friday that the agency’s first shipment of vaccines should arrive in Congo within days. 

To date, Africa has received a small fraction of the vaccines needed to slow the spread of the virus, especially in Congo, which has the most cases — more than 18,000 suspected cases and 629 deaths. 

“With the governments’ leadership and close cooperation between partners, we believe we can stop these outbreaks in the next six months,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing. 

He said that while mpox infections have been rising quickly in the last few weeks, there have been relatively few deaths. Tedros also noted there were 258 cases of the newest version of mpox, with patients identified in Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Sweden and Thailand. 

Earlier this month, WHO declared the mpox outbreaks in Africa a global emergency, hoping to spur a robust global response to the disease on a continent where cases were spreading largely unnoticed for years, including in Nigeria. In May, scientists detected a new version of the disease in Congo that they think could be spreading more easily. 

Mpox, formerly called monkeypox, is related to smallpox but typically causes milder symptoms, including fever, headache and body aches. In severe cases, people can develop painful sores and blisters on the face, chest, hands and genitals. Mpox is typically spread via close skin-to-skin contact. 

WHO estimated about 230,000 vaccines could be sent “imminently” to Congo and elsewhere. The agency said it was also working on education campaigns to raise awareness of how people could avoid spreading mpox in countries with outbreaks. 

Maria Van Kerkhove, who directs WHO’s epidemic and pandemic diseases department, said the agency was working to expedite vaccine access for affected countries — given the limited supply available. 

Scientists have previously pointed out that without a better understanding of how mpox is spreading in Africa, it may be difficult to know how best to use the shots. 

Earlier this week, the head of Africa’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the continent was hoping to receive about 380,000 doses of mpox vaccines promised by donors, including the U.S. and the European Union. That’s less than 15% of the doses authorities have said are needed to end the mpox outbreaks in Congo. 
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China’s naval hospital ship, called the Peace Ark, is on a 13-nation tour of mostly African countries to provide free health care for locals. Over the past week, it was docked off the South African coast where the Western Cape province has a backlog of about 80,000 surgeries. Vicky Stark reports.
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