KAKANKA: TWO AMERICANS GET A SECRET SERUM TO FIGHT EBOLA

KAKANKA: TWO AMERICANS GET A SECRET SERUM TO FIGHT EBOLA: After  weeks of discouraging news of the Ebola outbreak , the first reports of patients possibly fending off the disease have arrived: Two ...

Nigeria girl faces murder trial over forced marriage

Gezawa (Nigeria) (AFP) - A Nigerian court on Monday postponed the murder trial of a 14-year-old girl accused of poisoning the 35-year-old man she was forced to marry, a case that has thrown the spotlight on the influence of Islamic law in region.

Wasila Tasi'u has also been charged with the murder of three others who allegedly ate the food laced with rat poison that she prepared and served in April this year, a week after her marriage to Umaru Sani.

"Wasila was to appear today," but the case has been postponed indefinitely because of a backlog caused by a judicial staff strike, said Salisu Yakubu, registrar at the High Court in town of Gezawa.

Police say Tasi'u confessed to poisoning Sani and his guests at the wedding party in the village of Unguwar Yansoro village, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) outside Nigeria's second city of Kano.

"She did it because she was forced by her parents to marry a man she did not love," Kano state police spokesman Musa Magaji Majia told AFP.

Her lawyer Hussaina Aliyu rejects claims that her client made a legally valid confession.

She said Tasi'u was questioned by police without a parent or lawyer present and so any comments she may have made are inadmissable in court.

Aliyu, who works with International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), has sought to have the case transferred to a juvenile court, a bid rejected by justice officials in Kano.

"All we are saying is do justice to her. Treat the case as it is. Treat her as a child," Aliyu said.

The marriage of teenage girls to much older men is rampant in deeply conservative, mainly Muslim northern Nigeria, especially in poorer rural areas.

The region has since 2000 been under sharia Islamic law which some say does not prohibit the marriage of underage girls.

Under Nigeria's marriage act, which applies nationwide, a woman under the age of 21 who wants to marry must have the consent of her parents.

With that consent there is no minimum marrying age, including in the Christian south, "which is very, very unfortunate," said human rights lawyer Festus Keyamo.

But cases of underage marriage are rare in the south, and the Tasi'u case has called attention to the confusing hybrid legal system in the north, where the secular criminal code is unevenly applied as police and prosecutors try to strike a balance with sharia provisions.

TWO AMERICANS GET A SECRET SERUM TO FIGHT EBOLA

After weeks of discouraging news of the Ebola outbreak, the first reports of patients possibly fending off the disease have arrived: Two Americans, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, aid workers who were in Liberia with Samaritan's Purse, received an experimental “secret serum” and have showed progress in their conditions, reported CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

But what exactly is the secret serum? It’s a question  practically  everyone’s  been asking. The answer: Something the National Institutes of Health and Mapp, the biopharmaceutical firm that manufactured it, are largely keeping mum about. As far as we know, Gupta has the most details regarding the serum’s effect and what it does. As he put it in his CNN report:

The medicine is a three-mouse monoclonal antibody, meaning that mice were exposed to fragments of the Ebola virus and then the antibodies generated within the mice's blood were harvested to create the medicine. It works by preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells.

In other words, the serum, named ZMapp, is a cocktail of antibodies, all proven to have effectively battled Ebola out of mice, that have been extracted for further testing. But before the serum got there, the outbreak occurred, resulting in its use now. Even without FDA approval, Gupta writes, the serum may have been given under the Agency's "compassionate use" regulation, allowing it to be administered in a time of emergency.

But ultimately, despite the serum's success, it’s only being used on the Americans, two victims who could be transported away from the outbreak. The rest of West Africa remains in a dire situation: TheWHO puts the latest estimate at 887 deaths and 1,603 cases. Without further testing and understanding of experimental solutions, doctors will continue to battle the outbreak using simply containment.

The serum, therefore, is a temporary solution: It isn't the end to Ebola, but it could be the beginning.

Female suicide bomber, two students killed in Kano Poly blast

AGAIN, a female bomber Wednesday detonated a bomb killing herself and two students at Kano State Polytechnic, Central administration, along BUK road. 

Kano state Police Commissioner Adenrele Shinaba who confirmed the blast at the scene noted that a young female dress in dark hijab rammed into scored of graduating students who were checking their NYSC posting list detonated herself, killing two and injured 10 others.

Kano State Police Public Relations Officer, Magaji Majiya, confirmed that the bomb explosion took place at the Central Administration building of the polytechnic.

The explosion occurred as students queued to check their names on a new admission list, they added.

Bodies lay strewn at the blast site, witnesses told the BBC.

The bomber was hidden in the crowd, a witness, Isyaku Adamu, told the AFP news agency.

Egypt army destroys 13 more Gaza tunnels

A Palestinian man is lowered into a smuggling tunnel beneath the Gaza-Egypt border, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Se

 Egypt's army said Sunday it has destroyed 13 more tunnels connecting the Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip, taking to 1,639 the overall number it has laid waste to.

Cairo has poured troops into the peninsula to counter a rising insurgency since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year, and its security operation involves the destruction of these tunnels.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is the main power in Gaza, reportedly uses the tunnels to smuggle arms, food and money into the blockaded coastal enclave.

Israel has been waging a military offensive on Gaza since July 8 to halt rocket fire, and it launched a ground assault on July 17 aimed at destroying the network of tunnels.

It accuses Hamas of using the tunnels to attacks on Israel.

Ties between Hamas and Cairo have deteriorated since the Egyptian army deposed Morsi on July 3, 2013. Hamas is an affiliate of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.

Cairo also accuses of Hamas of being involved in militant attacks inside Egypt, which have multiplied since Morsi was toppled.

Militant groups say their attacks are in retaliation for a police crackdown on Morsi's supporters. The crackdown has seen more than 1,400 people killed in street clashes.

Nigeria death shows Ebola can spread by air travel

Nigerian health authorities raced to stop the spread of Ebola on Saturday after a man sick with one of the world's deadliest diseases brought it by plane to Lagos, Africa's largest city with 21 million people.

The fact that the traveler from Liberia could board an international flight also raised new fears that other passengers could take the disease beyond Africa due to weak inspection of passengers and the fact Ebola's symptoms are similar to other diseases.

Officials in the country of Togo, where the sick man's flight had a stopover, also went on high alert after learning that Ebola could possibly have spread to a fifth country.

Screening people as they enter the country may help slow the spread of the disease, but it is no guarantee Ebola won't travel by airplane, according to Dr. Lance Plyler, who heads Ebola medical efforts in Liberia for aid organization Samaritan's Purse.

"Unfortunately the initial signs of Ebola imitate other diseases, like malaria or typhoid," he said.

The aid organization on Saturday said a U.S. doctor working with Ebola patients in Liberia had tested positive for the deadly virus. A Samaritan's Purse news release said Dr. Kent Brantly was being treated at a hospital in Monrovia, the capital.

Ebola already had caused some 672 deaths across a wide swath of West Africa before the Nigeria case was announced. It is the deadliest outbreak on record for Ebola, and now it threatens Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. An outbreak in Lagos, Africa's megacity where many live in cramped conditions, could be a major diisaster.

"Lagos is completely different from other cities because we're talking about millions of people," said Plan International's Disaster Response and Preparedness Head, Dr. Unni Krishnan.

Nigerian newspapers describe the effort as a "scramble" to contain the threat after the Liberian arrived in Lagos and then died Friday.

International airports in Nigeria are screening passengers arriving from foreign countries for symptoms of Ebola, according to Yakubu Dati, the spokesman for Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria.

Health officials are also working with ports and land borders, he said. "They are giving out information in terms of enlightenment, what to do, what to look out for."

And Nigerian airports are setting up holding rooms to ready in case another potential Ebola victim lands in Nigeria.

Airports in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three other West African countries affected by the current Ebola outbreak, have implemented some preventive measures, according to officials in those countries. But none of the safeguards are foolproof, say health experts.

Doctors say health screens could be effective, but Ebola has a variable incubation period of between two and 21 days and cannot be diagnosed on the spot.

Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for the Liberian Ministry of Finance arrived in Nigeria on Tuesday and was immediately detained by health authorities suspecting he might have Ebola, Plyler said.

On his way to Lagos, Sawyer's plane also stopped in Lome, Togo, according to the World Health Organization.

Authorities announced Friday that blood tests from the Lagos University Teaching Hospital confirmed Sawyer died of Ebola earlier that day.

Sawyer reportedly did not show Ebola symptoms when he boarded the plane, Plyler said, but by the time he arrived in Nigeria he was vomiting and had diarrhea. There has not been another recently recorded case of Ebola spreading through air travel, he added.

Nearly 50 other passengers on the flight are being monitored for signs of Ebola but are not being kept in isolation, said an employee at Nigeria's Ministry of Health, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Sawyer's sister also died of Ebola in Liberia, according to Liberian officials, but he claimed to have had no contact with her. Ebola is highly contagious and kills more than 70 percent of people infected.

Ebola is passed by touching bodily fluids of patients even after they die, he said. Traditional burials that include rubbing the bodies of the dead contribute to the spread of the disease, Krishnan added.

There is no "magic bullet" cure for Ebola, but early detection and treatment of fluids and nutrition can be effective, said Plyler in Liberia. Quickly isolating patients who show symptoms is also crucial in slowing the spread of the disease.

West African hospital systems have weak and "often paralyzed" health care systems, he added, and are not usually equipped to handle Ebola outbreaks. International aid organizations like his and Doctors Without Borders have stepped in, but they also lack enough funding and manpower. "We need more humanitarian workers," he said. "We need resources."

Nigeria government confirms Ebola case in megacity of Lagos

Dr. Jide Idris, Lagos' state commissioner for Health, speaks during a news conference on the death 

Extra precaution was taken at the hospital because the patient was suffering from "symptoms associated with Ebola," she added.
Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for the Liberian finance ministry in his 40s, collapsed on Sunday after flying into Lagos, a city of 21 million people, and was taken from the airport and put in isolation in a local hospital. Nigeria confirmed earlier on Friday that he had died in quarantine.

"His blood sample was taken to the advance laboratory at the Lagos university teaching hospital, which confirmed the diagnosis of the Ebola virus disease in the patient," Chukwu told a press conference on Friday. "This result was corroborated by other laboratories outside Nigeria."

However, at a separate press conference held by the Lagos state government at the same time, the city's health commissioner, Jide Idris, said that they were only "assuming that it was Ebola" because they were "waiting for a confirmative test to double check" from a laboratory in Dakar.

Paul Garwood, spokesman for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, said the U.N. health agency was also still waiting for test results.

"We're still waiting for laboratory-confirmed results as to whether he died of Ebola or not," he said.

It could not be immediately determined why there was a contradiction in the comments from central government and city officials.

If confirmed, the man would be the first case on record of one of the world's deadliest diseases in Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy and with 170 million people, its most populous country. Ebola has killed 660 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since it was first diagnosed in February.

Sawyer was quarantined on arrival and had not entered the city, a Nigerian official told Reuters.

"While he was quarantined he passed away. Everyone who has had contact with him has been quarantined," the official said.

Liberia's finance minister Amara Konneh said Sawyer was a consultant for the country's finance ministry.

"Our understanding is that the cause of death was Ebola," Konneh told Reuters.

The victim's sister had died of the virus three weeks previously, and the degree of contact between the two was being investigated by Liberian health ministry officials, he said.

Earlier on Friday, WHO spokesman Paul Garwood said: "I understand that he was vomiting and he then turned himself over basically, he made it known that he wasn't feeling well. Nigerian health authorities took him and put him in isolation."

Nigeria has some of the continent's least adequate healthcare infrastructure, despite access to billions of dollars of oil money as Africa's biggest producer of crude.

Some officials think the disease is easier to contain in cities than in remote rural areas.

"The fear of spread within a dense population would be offset by better healthcare and a willingness to use it, easier contact tracing and, I assume for an urban population, less risky funerary and family rites," Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading in Britain, said.

"It would be contained more easily than in rural populations."

There have been 1,093 Ebola cases to date in West Africa's first outbreak, including the 660 who have died, according to the WHO.