Guinea-Bissau has recorded three cases of Zika, becoming the second country in West Africa where the dangerous viral disease has been detected, the government said on Saturday. “Three cases of contamination by Zika virus have been confirmed,” a statement quoted Health Minister Domingos Malu as saying. The cases occurred in the Bijagos archipelago, a group of 88 islands of which 23 are inhabited, Malu told a cabinet meeting on Friday.
By Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India's health ministry has ordered government agencies to enforce a new rule for bigger health warnings on cigarette packs, stepping up a fight against the country's $10 billion cigarette industry that has shut down its factories in protest. The health ministry's action highlights a growing conflict between the tobacco industry and the federal government which wants manufacturers to cover 85 percent of a cigarette pack's surface in health warnings, up from 20 percent. India's biggest cigarette maker ITC Ltd, part-owned by British American Tobacco, has not implemented the government order, saying it contradicts a parliamentary committee's recommendation for warnings to cover half a cigarette pack.
India's top cigarette maker ITC Ltd, part-owned by British American Tobacco, said it was not ready to print bigger health warnings on its packs as mandated by the government and will keep its factories shut until clarity emerges on the new rules. ITC's comments highlight the latest tussle between India's $10 billion cigarette industry and the government after new rules kicked in on Friday mandating health warnings should cover 85 percent of a pack's surface, up from 20 percent now. “The industry was led to believe that the government would renotify new health warnings after considering the committee's recommendations,” ITC said in its statement.
Two people from the same family have died from Ebola in Guinea, the government said Thursday, as the WHO declared a flare-up of the virus in neighbouring Sierra Leone over. The cases are the first in Guinea since the country was declared Ebola free at the end of last year, and the UN health agency warned that a recurrence of the tropical disease — which has claimed 11,300 lives since December 2013 — remained a possibility. WHO declared that flare-up officially over on Thursday after no new cases were seen for 42 days — the length of two Ebola incubation cycles.
Britain will introduce a sugar levy on soft drinks in two years' time to tackle a growing obesity crisis, Chancellor George Osborne said in a surprise announcement on Wednesday, hitting share prices in drinks and sugar firms. Just months after the government ruled out a sugar tax, Osborne said the planned levy, which would be imposed on companies and based on the sugar content in drinks, would raise 520 million pounds. “Of course, some may choose to pass the price onto consumers and that will be their decision, and this would have an impact on consumption too,” Osborne told parliament during his annual budget speech.
South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-Ahn on Tuesday declared the deadly outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was over, Yonhap news agency reported. Thirty-six people died out of the 186 infected in the MERS outbreak, the biggest of the virus outside Saudi Arabia, following the first diagnosis on May 20. “After weighing various circumstances, the medical personnel and the government judge that the people can now be free from worry,” Hwang said in a meeting with government officials, Yonhap reported.
South Korean health officials on Sunday reported 14 more cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, bringing the total in the country’s outbreak to 64, and said a fifth person infected with the virus had died. South Korea’s outbreak of the often-deadly MERS virus, first reported on May 20, is the largest outside the Middle East, prompting public fear and questions over the government’s initial response. The patient who died was a 75-year-old man who had been in the same Seoul hospital emergency room where a total of 17 people, including two medical staff, are believed to have been infected with MERS, South Korea’s health ministry said.