LONDON (Reuters) – Stuck at home with the kids? Meryl Streep, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Cate Blanchett may be able to help. Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi has lined up some of his Hollywood friends by videolink from their living rooms for a ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists examining the genomes of West Africans have detected signs that a mysterious extinct human species interbred with our own species tens of thousands of years ago in Africa, the latest evidence of humankind’s complicated genetic... More »
(This August 21 story corrects to make clear Kiva a nonprofit organisation, not charity, paragraph 1.) By Cooper Inveen (Reuters) – Kiva, a San Francisco-based tech nonprofit organization, is using blockchain to create an online ID database in Sierra Leone all... More »
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Sierra Leone have been disqualified from the preliminaries for the 2019 African Nations Cup finals, confirming places for Kenya and Ghana at the continental championship next June-July. Sierra Leone’s fate was decided by the Confederation... More »
MBANDAKA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – In the city of Mbandaka in northwest Congo, Mbombo Roge does not shake hands with friends anymore: Ebola changed all that. Roge simply bowed when he met a group of friends on Saturday afternoon, obeying one of... More »
GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization has been given the go-ahead by officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo to import and use an experimental Ebola vaccine in the country, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday. “We ha... More »
GENEVA (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo reported 39 suspected, probable or confirmed cases of Ebola between April 4 and May 13, including 19 deaths, the World Health Organization said on Monday. It said 393 people who identified as contacts of Ebola pa... More »
Ibrahim Tommy (L), head of the Centre for Accountability and the Rule of Law, and Yusuf Kabbah, head of Sierra Leone Association of Ebola Survivors, attend a news conference in Freetown, Sierra Leone December 15, 2017. REUTERS/Umaru Fofana FREETOWN (Reuters) –... More »
Sierra Leone hopes to raise millions of dollars for development projects by auctioning a huge uncut diamond, believed to be one of the world's largest, in New York in December. More »
Democratic Republic of Congo declared its two-month Ebola outbreak officially over on Saturday after 42 days without recording a new case of the disease. More »
FILE PHOTO: A health worker sprays a colleague with disinfectant during a training session for Congolese health workers to deal with Ebola virus in Kinshasa October 21, 2014. REUTERS/Media Coulibaly The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Sunday a sec... More »
Health experts have identified two more suspected cases of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo, a day after the government declared an outbreak of the disease that has killed one man, the U.N. health agency said on Saturday. More »
At least one person has died from the Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo, the Health Ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, signaling a new outbreak of the disease which killed thousands in West Africa. More »
An undated picture released March 16, 2017 of a 706-carat diamond discovered by pastor Emmanuel Momoh in eastern Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone State House/Handout via Reuters A Christian pastor has found one of the world’s largest uncut diamonds – weighing 706 ca... More »
MONROVIA A five-year-old boy tested positive for Ebola in Liberia just days after his mother died of the virus in the second flare-up to hit West Africa in recent weeks, the health ministry said on Sunday. A 30-year-old woman died of Ebola in Monrovia last wee... More »
CONAKRY/MONROVIA Guinea will soon vaccinate people who have come into contact with more than 500 men who have recovered from Ebola, a senior health official said, the first time it has vaccinated the contacts of survivors. The decision reflects research that i... More »
LONDON A Scottish nurse, who recovered from Ebola but then suffered life-threatening complications from the virus persisting in her brain, was discharged from hospital in London on Sunday. The Royal Free Hospital said in a statement that Pauline Cafferkey was ... More »
FREETOWN More than 100 people have been quarantined in Sierra Leone after coming in contact with a woman who died of Ebola last week, highlighting the potential for the disease to spread, just as the deadliest outbreak on record appeared to be over. The World ... More »
DAKAR A one-month-old baby girl who was Guinea’s last reported Ebola case left hospital on Saturday, delighting medical staff and putting the country on course to be declared free of the deadly virus. Guinea will become officially Ebola-free after 42 days if n... More »
LONDON, The World Health Organization’s failure to sound the alarm until months into West Africa’s Ebola outbreak was an “egregious failure” which added to the enormous suffering and death toll, global health experts said on Monday. A specialist panel convened... More »
MONROVIA Liberia has placed 153 people under surveillance as it seeks to control a new Ebola outbreak in the capital more than two months after the country was declared free of the virus, health officials said. Three Ebola cases emerged in Liberia on Friday. T... More »
UNITED NATIONS Liberia needs two years to regain its economic footing after it was battered by the Ebola epidemic, as it moves to boost access to electricity and infrastructure and diversify the economy, Liberia’s president said in an interview on Saturday. Li... More »
FREETOWN Sierra Leone released its last confirmed Ebola patient from hospital on Monday and began a 42-day countdown to being declared free of the virus, medical sources said. The world’s worst known Ebola epidemic has raged in West Africa for more than 18 mon... More »
LONDON/GENEVA The world is on the verge of being able to protect humans against Ebola, the World Health Organization said on Friday, as a trial in Guinea found a vaccine to have been 100 percent effective. Initial results from the trial, which tested Merck... More »
UNITED NATIONS Some $3.4 billion in pledges were made at the United Nations on Friday to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea stamp out Ebola and begin rebuilding health systems and economies devastated by the worst outbreak on record of the deadly hemorrhagi... More »
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Religious groups are an under-used health resource that could help achieve universal healthcare and accelerate the medical response to disease outbreaks, health experts said on Tuesday. Faith-based organizations such as th... More »
DAKAR Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone need a further $696 million in donor funding to rebuild their battered health services over the next two years in the wake of the deadly Ebola epidemic, senior World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Monday. WHO... More »
CONAKRY Guinea has seen a spate of new Ebola cases due to transmissions at funerals, a worrying sign for the African nation as it seeks to stamp out a year-long epidemic that has killed over 11,000 people across the region, a health official said on Friday. Ac... More »
GENEVA With Ebola nearly stamped out in West Africa, vaccine trials will probably fail to provide enough useful data on how well they protect people against the deadly virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. Liberia was declared free from E... More »
