Liberia

Biden Administration Announces $55 Billion Gift for Africa

The White House on Monday announced $55 billion in economic aid, health care, and security support for Africa. President Joe Biden hosted a meeting for African leaders that began on Tuesday, during which the White House promised more details of the massive benefits package would be divulged.

CARBIS BAY, CORNWALL - JUNE 12: US President Joe Biden talks with South Africa's President

Families Steal Ebola Patients from Hospital in DR Congo

International public health authorities confirmed 52 cases and 22 deaths in the ongoing outbreak of Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo this week, where locals’ fear that medical professionals are intentionally spreading the disease has triggered at least two cases of families stealing patients out of hospitals.

Ebola patients flee hospital in DR Congo, says MSF

At Least 19 Dead in Latest Ebola Outbreak in DR Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo has documented 19 deaths and 39 potential or confirmed cases of Ebola beginning on April 4, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which deployed extensive medical assets to the country this week in the hope of preventing a devastating outbreak on the scale of the one that ravaged West Africa in 2014.

Ebola graveyard

Liberia Considers Allowing Non-Blacks to Become Citizens

In his first annual message to the legislature in January – roughly equivalent in ceremonial significance to a State of the Union address – Liberian President George Manneh Weah called for eliminating the “unnecessary, racist, and inappropriate” constitutional clause that bars non-blacks from becoming full citizens of his nation. Liberia’s top Muslim cleric responded this week by warning that black citizens would be marginalized and oppressed if the rules are changed.

Liberians voted for a new president in the country's first democratic transition of p

Meryl Streep Joins Michelle Obama for Ramadan Feast in Morocco

Actress Meryl Streep and First Lady Michelle Obama joined Princess Lalla Salma in Morocco on Tuesday night for a traditional dinner to break the fast of Ramadan, after the three spent the afternoon speaking with local high school girls about the importance of female education and empowerment.

StreepAP2

Kenya Legalizes Medical Advertising to Curb the Witch Doctor Business

In west Africa, trust in traditional herbalists significantly worsened the outlook in the unprecedented Ebola outbreak of 2014-2015. In Tanzania, authorities banned witch doctors entirely after years of attacks on the nation’s “magical” albino population. Now Kenya has taken a bold new move in eradicating the practice of unlicensed medicine: letting certified physicians advertise their services in public.

Kenyan witch-doctor John Dimo, who claims to be 105 years old, interprets the result after

Ebola Panic Returns: Rwanda Reinstates Airport Checks

The government of Rwanda has reinstated mandatory Ebola screening and self-reporting procedures at its airports, as Liberia imposes regular temperature checks at school to monitor any new potential cases following the death of 15-year-old Nathan Gbotoe of the disease in late November.

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Study: Male Survivors Can Carry Ebola for up to Nine Months

A new study by the World Health Organization has found that the Ebola virus can live in the semen of survivors for at least nine months, dramatically increasing the risk of sexual transmission of the disease in west Africa, where an outbreak that began in March 2014 has not yet been fully contained.

ebola-victim Abbas DullehAP

Chains, Witch Doctors Care for Africa’s Mentally Ill

As west Africa struggles to recover from an ongoing Ebola crisis and the continent’s poorest nations work to develop medical infrastructures, The New York Times warns that mental health treatment in much of nations like Togo and Ghana amounts to constraining patients with chains and taking them to spiritual consultants.

CHARLES ONIANS/AFP/Getty

The Last Frontier in Africa’s Ebola War: Sex Among Survivors

The World Health Organization is warning that the time frame in which male Ebola survivors can spread the virus through their semen may be longer than previously anticipated, keeping an outbreak that began in February 2014 alive as those who are considered free of the disease engage in sexual activity.

AFP PHOTO / ZOOM DOSSO