Day: January 20, 2022

MONROVIA — A stampede at a church gathering in Liberia’s capital Monrovia killed 29 people overnight, the deputy information minister told state radio on Thursday.
The incident occurred during an all-night Christian worship event at New Kru Town, a neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital, Jalawah Tonpo said.
“The doctors said 29 persons died and some are on the critical list,” Tonpo said, calling into state radio from a nearby hospital. “This is a sad day for the country.”
Exodus Morias, a resident who attended the event, told Reuters the stampede began after a group of armed men rushed the crowd in an attempt to stage a robbery.
“We saw a group of men with cutlasses and other weapons coming toward the crowd,” Morias said. “While running, some people dropped and others fell on the ground and walked over them.”
Bands of Liberian street gangs known as Zogos commonly commit robberies with machetes and other small weapons.
Police spokesman Moses Carter declined to comment on what caused the incident. He said an investigation is under way.
President George Weah, who is expected to visit the site on Thursday afternoon, declared a three-day period of national mourning and said the Liberian Red Cross and Disaster Management Agency had been called in to assist victims, his office said.

Source: Voice of America

The U.S. government says it is sanctioning four Ukrainians “engaged in Russian government-directed influence activities to destabilize Ukraine.”
“The individuals we are targeting, two of whom are members of Ukraine’s parliament, act at the direction of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and support Russia’s destabilizing and dangerous influence operations, which undermine not just Ukraine but also the fundamental principles of democracy,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
The U.S. accuses the four Ukrainians of helping Russia “gain access to sensitive information” and “create instability in Ukraine.”
Those sanctioned are Taras Kozak, Oleh Voloshyn, Volodymyr Oliynyk and Vladimir Sivkovich.
“Russia has used hybrid tactics, including disinformation and other influence campaigns, to destabilize Ukraine for years,” Blinken said. “In 2020, Kremlin officials launched a comprehensive information operation plan designed in part to degrade the ability of the Ukrainian state to independently function; the individuals designated today played key roles in that campaign.”
Blinken said the sanctions are “separate and distinct from the broad range of high impact measures the United States and its allies and partners are prepared to impose in order to inflict significant costs on the Russian economy and financial system if it were to further invade Ukraine.”
Blinken is in Berlin Thursday for consultations with key allies about the situation along the Russia-Ukraine border as he prepares for talks Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva.
Blinken is meeting with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and British Minister for Middle East and North Africa James Cleverly, before delivering an address about the crisis in Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden said at a news conference Wednesday he thinks Russia will invade Ukraine, reiterating warnings to Russian leader Vladimir Putin such actions would be met with economic sanctions and other consequences.
Russia has denied it has intentions of invading Ukraine and is seeking security guarantees, including that Ukraine is not allowed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Source: Voice of America

LONDON — More than 1.2 million people are dying every year directly from bacterial infections that are resistant to several antibiotics, according to a new study, making multiresistant bacteria far deadlier than HIV/AIDS or malaria. A further 4.95 million deaths were associated with these multiresistant bacteria.
“It is estimated that if we don’t find alternatives by 2050, millions of lives will be lost and there will be $100 trillion of lost [economic] output,” Antonia Sagona, an expert on bacterial infections at England’s University of Warwick, said in an interview with VOA.
The study, published in The Lancet and led by the University of Washington in Seattle, analyzed data from 204 countries and territories. It showed that poorer nations were worst hit by antibiotic resistance, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
“Lower respiratory infections accounted for more than 1.5 million deaths associated with [antibiotic] resistance in 2019, making it the most burdensome infectious syndrome,” the report said.
The authors cautioned there is an urgent need for more research.
“There are serious data gaps in many low-income settings, emphasizing the need to expand microbiology laboratory capacity and data collection systems to improve our understanding of this important human health threat,” they wrote.
Antibiotic misuse
Scientists say the misuse of antibiotics over decades has encouraged microorganisms to evolve into “superbugs.”
“For example, people have viral infections, and they have been prescribed antibiotics for very many years now. And this over the years has made the problem very severe, so the bacteria have become really resistant to these antibiotics,” Sagona said.
The World Health Organization last year warned that none of the 43 antibiotics in development or recently approved was enough to combat antimicrobial resistance.
New hope?
So what can be done? Sagona – along with other scientists around the world – is working on new treatments called phages.
“These are viruses that can specifically target bacteria. And they can be used in combination with antibiotics or on their own to clear bacterial infections of multiresistant strains,” she told VOA.
Despite the promising new treatments, scientists say it’s vital that existing antibiotics are not overused – to help slow down the development of the ever-deadlier superbugs.

Source: Voice of America