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By Kang Jin-kyu SEOUL, March 11, 2024 (AFP) – South Korea said Monday it had started procedures to suspend the medical licences of 4,900 junior doctors who have resigned and stopped working to protest government medical training reforms, causing healthcare chaos. The walkout, which started February 20, is over government plans to sharply increase the number of doctors, which it says is essential to combat shortages and serve South Korea’s rapidly ageing population. Medics argue […]
SEOUL, March 5, 2024 (AFP) – South Korea said Tuesday it would start notifying striking trainee doctors that their medical licences would be suspended, as it moves to punish medics who have quit hospitals in protest at training reforms. Thousands of junior doctors handed in their resignation notice and stopped working two weeks ago to protest against an increase in medical school admissions from next year which the government says is meant to help combat […]
KANO, Nigeria, Feb 28, 2024 (AFP) – A meningitis outbreak in Nigeria has killed at least 20 boarding school students and infected hundreds more, the education commissioner in northeastern Yobe state said on Wednesday. “We have recorded an outbreak of meningitis in six secondary schools in the state which led to the death of 20 students out of the 473 infected,” Mohammed Sani Idriss said. The epicentre of the outbreak is the city of Potiskum […]
BANGKOK, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) – Bangkok city employees have been told to work from home to avoid harmful air pollution, as a layer of noxious haze blanketed the Thai capital on Thursday. City authorities asked for cooperation from employers to help workers in the city of some 11 million people avoid the pollution, which is expected to last into Friday. The air monitoring website IQAir ranked Bangkok among the 10 most polluted cities in […]
LOS ANGELES, Feb 14, 2024 (AFP) – Officials in the US state of Oregon have said they are dealing with a rare human case of bubonic plague that was likely transmitted by a pet cat. The disease, which killed at least a third of Europe’s population in the Middle Ages during a pandemic known as the “Black Death,” is uncommon in developed countries and can now be treated, but remains potentially dangerous. The identity of […]
CLARK, Philippines, Feb 9, 2024 (AFP) – NASA has kicked off a series of marathon flights in Asia with the world’s biggest flying laboratory, in an ambitious mission to improve the models that help to forecast and fight air pollution. Millions of deaths each year are linked to air pollution, and improving the ability to identify its sources and behaviour can lead to more accurate warning systems for the public. Starting this week in the […]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 6, 2024 (AFP) – Sao Paulo opened an emergency operations center Tuesday to deal with a surge in dengue fever cases that has hit Brazil and South America just as millions of tourists arrive for carnival celebrations. Cases of the mosquito-borne disease have also risen sharply in Argentina, where a record 10,000 cases were reported in the first three weeks of the year. Paraguay has meanwhile declared a health emergency over […]
LAHORE, Pakistan, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – In a Pakistan paediatric ward, a chorus of infant coughs and straining lungs is the toll of a frigid winter, compounded by choking smog and lagging vaccination rates. “Please pray for him,” the mother of four-month-old pneumonia patient Ibrahim begs a nurse in Lahore, delicately arranging a blanket around ventilator tubes piping air in and out of his heaving chest. The eastern megacity is blanched every winter by […]
GENEVA, Feb 1, 2024 (AFP) – The number of new cancer cases will rise to more than 35 million in 2050 — 77 percent higher than the figure in 2022, the World Health Organization’s cancer agency warned Thursday. The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) cited tobacco, alcohol, obesity and air pollution as key factors in the estimated rise. “Over 35 million new cancer cases are predicted in 2050”, a statement said, a […]
SOA, Cameroon, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – Cameroon on Monday launched the first malaria vaccination programme to be offered nationwide and as a matter of routine, AFP journalists saw, in a step the WHO has described as “historic”. The mosquito-borne disease kills more than 600,000 people a year, mainly in Africa, according to the World Health Organization. Children under five years old account for more than 80 percent of deaths on the continent. Following a […]
LONDON, Jan 17, 2024 (AFP) – The Princess of Wales is facing up to two weeks in hospital and several months’ recuperation after undergoing successful abdominal surgery, Kensington Palace announced on Wednesday. The 42-year-old wife of William, Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne, was admitted to a private clinic in central London on Tuesday, a statement said. “The surgery was successful and it is expected that she will remain in hospital for ten […]
MADRID, Jan 5, 2024 (AFP) – The Spanish government on Friday called for the wearing of masks to be obligatory in medical facilities as cases of flu and Covid-19 surge with the onset of winter. With the increase in respiratory infections, “we are calling” for the return of obligatory mask-wearing in hospitals and health centres, Health Minister Monica Garcia said on X, formerly Twitter. The minister said she would bring up the subject on Monday […]
