Guinea celebrates with song as victory over Ebola nears
Conakry: Thousands of Guineans have celebrated the country reaching the final stages of the battle with the deadly Ebola epidemic at a concert featuring artists from across Africa.
The tropical virus has killed more than 11,000 people in west Africa – 2,500 of them in Guinea – since it emerged in the country’s southern forests in December 2013.
But with Liberia declared free of transmission, and Guinea and Sierra Leone registering just three and six cases respectively in September, life is returning to normal in all three countries. Entitled “Ebola:
All Together towards victory”, the free open-air concert yesterday in the capital Conakry featured around a dozen Guinean artists including Soul Bang’s, Sia Tolno and BanlieuZ’art. Ivorian hip hop group Kiff No Beat also performed, as well as Nigerian rapper WizKid and singer Denise, from Madagascar, with the crowd predicted to peak at around 25,000. WizKid, 25, said he was singing to “encourage the healthcare warriors on the ground”, rallying the audience to “stamp out Ebola with song”.
“We are singing for humanitarianism and it’s free. We are participating in our own way to comfort families, people in tears and orphans who have no support,” Denise said.
The event, broadcast on Guinean television, was staged by Paris-based international media group Vivendi, which owns a number of businesses including French TV channel and movie producer Canal+. “Vivendi wants to pay tribute to remarkable efforts from the Guinean government and the World Health Organization in their continuous fight against the Ebola outbreak,” the company said ahead of the concert.
Earlier in September Guinea notched up a week without a single new case of Ebola, its first since March 2014, and the country has been able to announce presidential elections for October 11.
Despite positive signs that an end to the epidemic is within reach, the United Nations has repeatedly warned against complacency, however, including in the international community.
The outbreak “is not finished by a long shot”, Bruce Aylward, the head of the UN’s response to the epidemic, told reporters in Geneva earlier this month.
He added that vigilance in the three hardest-hit countries would be essential through to the end of 2016, as the virus is embedded within the area’s animal population. (AFP)
Oldest case of renal tuberculosis discovered in Egyptian Mummy
London: Researchers have discovered what may be the oldest recorded case of renal tuberculosis in a 2,800-year-old Egyptian mummy.
The renal disorder made it possible for researchers in Portugal to observe the kidney in the radiological analysis, marking the first time a kidney has been spotted in X-rays on an ancient Egyptian mummy.
The discovery was radiological outline of a kidney in the ancient Egyptian mummy. Kept at the National Museum of Archaeology in Lisbon, Portugal, the mummy, of unknown provenance, dates back to some 2,800 years. “It’s a male named Irtieru.
We do not know exactly what he did in life, but the quality of his cartonnage links him to an elite family,” researchers said. The white cartonnage decorated in polychrome, on which Irtieru’s name is painted vertically, is typical of the Twenty-Second Dynasty (about 945–712 BC). X-Rays (radiography and CT scans) showed Irtieru rests in his coffin with his arms lying alongside his body and with his hands crossed over his body.
He was tall for his time, about 5.61 feet, and died between 35 and 45 years of age. Researchers also observed a small, bean-shaped structure at the left lumbar region.
They believe this is the first time a kidney has been depicted in X-Rays. “This kidney display only happened as a consequence of a pathologic preservation, since Irtieru was affected by an end-stage renal tuberculosis,” Carlos Prates, a radiologist at Imagens Medicas Integradas in Lisbon, told ‘Discovery News’.
The diagnosis for kidney turberculosis is supported by the anatomical location, and morphologic and structural analysis of the organ.
“If this diagnosis is correct this would be the oldest recorded case of this disease,” the researchers wrote in The International Journal of Paleopathology. Irtieru’s renal disorder is the reason his kidney was visible in the radiological analysis, researchers said.
Kidneys were usually not removed in ancient Egyptian mummies, because they were considered unimportant and difficult to extract through the embalming cut, according to Greek historian Diodorus Siculus.
It is possible that kidneys exist in more mummies but simply have gone unnoticed, researchers said. (PTI)
Most people in UK, US believe aliens exist: survey
Washington:More than one in two people in the UK, Germany and the US believe there is intelligent life out there in the universe, a new survey has found.
Fifty-six per cent of Germans, 54 per cent of Americans and 52 per cent of people from the UK believe that living creatures who have the ability to communicate and do not come from Earth exist. Between those who say they believe in alien intelligence and those who say they are not sure whether it exists, the alien nonbelievers are in the minority, according to the survey by the marketing research firm YouGov.
Only 12 per cent of Germans, 22 per cent of Americans and 20 per cent of people from the UK said they do not believe intelligent aliens exist, ‘Live Science’ reported. Among UK respondents, 46 per cent said a digital message should be sent into space in the hopes that it reaches intelligent aliens.
Another 33 per cent said no message should be sent, and 21 per cent said they were not sure. The survey also asked those who believed in extraterrestrial life why they thought aliens had not yet made contact.
More than half (58 per cent) said intelligent aliens are too far away to contact Earth. Fifty-seven per cent agreed with the notion that human technology is not advanced enough for people to reach out to aliens.
The survey also found that men are more likely to believe in intelligent aliens than are women, and also more likely to say humanity should reach out.
A majority of men (54 per cent) said humans should try to contact aliens, while only 40 per cent of women agreed. (PTI)
