Tag: GHANA

Ghana declares end to Marburg virus outbreak: WHO

ACCRA, Ghana (AFP) – Ghana has declared the end of a Marburg virus disease outbreak that was confirmed nearly two months ago and caused two deaths, the World Health Organization said on Friday. The health ministry made the announcement after no new cases of the Ebola-like disease were reported over the previous 42 days, the WHO said in a statement. No vaccine treatment exists for Marburg, which is almost as deadly as Ebola. Symptoms included […]

Ghana reports two suspected cases of Marburg virus

  ACCRA, Ghana (AFP) — Ghana has reported two suspected cases of the Marburg virus, which belongs to the same family as Ebola, in the country’s southern Ashanti region, health authorities said on Friday. No treatment or vaccine exists for Marburg, which is somewhat less deadly than Ebola, with symptoms including high fever and internal and external bleeding. Preliminary findings from blood samples for the two cases suggest Marburg virus and the samples have been […]

17 killed, 59 injured by explosion in western Ghana

ACCRA, Ghana (AFP) — At least 17 people were killed and 59 injured Thursday in a devastating explosion in a western Ghana town after a truck carrying explosives intended for a mine collided with a motorcycle, the government said. The blast left a huge crater and reduced dozens of buildings to dust-covered piles of wood and metal in Apiate, near the city of Bogoso some 300 kilometers (180 miles) west of the mineral-rich West African […]

Pirates seize 4 Koreans, 1 Filipino crew off Benin

ACCRA, Ghana (AFP) — Pirates kidnapped four Koreans and one Filipino crew member from a tuna-fishing vessel close to Benin in the Gulf of Guinea earlier this week, Ghanaian police said. The Gulf of Guinea, a key shipping route extending from Senegal to Angola, accounted for the vast majority of maritime crew abductions last year, with pirates targeting commercial vessels. The Ghana-registered boat was attacked on Tuesday although the Ghana navy recovered the vessel and […]

Ghana president receives world’s first free Covax jab

ACCRA, Ghana (AFP) — Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo on Monday became the world’s first recipient of a coronavirus vaccine from Covax, a global scheme to procure and distribute inoculations for free for poorer countries. Richer countries have surged ahead with inoculating their population, but many poorer countries are still awaiting their first vaccine doses. “It is important that I set the example that this vaccine is safe by being the first to have it, so […]

Death toll in Ghana church collapse rises to 21

ACCRA, Ghana (AFP) — The death toll in the collapse of a three-storey church building in eastern Ghana rose to 21, rescue officials said on Friday, as more bodies were pulled from the rubble. “The deceased include 12 women and nine men,” the National Disaster Management Organisation said in a statement, upping the toll from 17 dead on Thursday. It said eight people had been rescued alive at the scene since rescue workers began combing […]

Gold-hunting diggers destroy Sudan’s priceless past

by Sammy Ketz Agence France-Presse JABAL MARAGHA, Sudan (AFP) — When a team of archaeologists deep in the deserts of Sudan arrived at the ancient site of Jabal Maragha last month, they thought they were lost. The site had vanished. But they hadn’t made a mistake. In fact, gold-hunters with giant diggers had destroyed almost all sign of the two millenia-old site. “They had only one goal in digging here — to find gold,” said shocked […]

‘We can get it done here’: Africa’s tech scene tackles virus

by Fran BLANDY and AFP Africa bureaus PICTURES BY SIMON MAINA AND NIPAH DENNIS Agence France-Presse NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP)— Watching from afar as much of the world was brought to its knees by the coronavirus, African scientists, engineers and innovators have turned to homegrown solutions to prepare for the worst case scenario. By the time the virus hit Africa, where cases have risen relatively slowly, images of overwhelmed hospitals and stories of health workers strapped for […]

Ghana flooding kills 34 during heavy rains

ACCRA, Ghana (AFP) — At least 34 people have died in northern Ghana during flooding caused by heavy rains and waters spilling from a dam in neighbouring Burkina Faso, relief agency officials said Thursday. Bagre Dam is located on the White Volta river that begins in Burkina Faso and which converges with the Black Volta downstream and feeds into Lake Volta in southern Ghana. The authorities open the dam’s spillways during annual rains, but the […]

Deadliest bus accidents in the past five years

PARIS, France (AFP) — The bus fire in Kazakhstan in which 52 people were killed Thursday is among of the deadliest bus accidents in the world over the past five years. Here are some of the others. 2018 Peru: Fifty-two people die in January when a bus plunges 100 meters (330 feet) over a seaside cliff after colliding with a truck on a precarious stretch of road known as the “devil’s curve.” The accident is […]

Turning e-waste into art at Ghana’s toxic dump

by Stacey Knott Agence France-Presse ACCRA, Ghana (AFP) — Joseph Awuah-Darko sits on a stool at one of the world’s largest electronic waste dumps, watching polystyrene and insulation cables burn on the blackened ground. “It’s survival and dystopia,” says the 21-year-old British-born Ghanaian, surveying the stretch of wasteland around him as dense plumes of acrid smoke rise into the air. Awuah-Darko and his university friends have ambitious plans for the sprawling Agbogbloshie dumping ground in […]

Ghanaian teen builds video search engine to rival YouTube

ACCRA, Ghana (Reuters) — Ghanaian university student Gabriel Opare wanted to build a search engine that could challenge the dominance of YouTube. The 19-year-old taught himself how to code by taking online courses in his free time. He is currently a full-time student of Sociology at the University of Ghana, in Accra. In his quest to rival Google – the world’s most popular search engine, Opare developed Mudclo – a free search engine for videos. […]