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Health Check: The Latest on the New Ebola Outbreak in Central Africa

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Nurses working with the WHO (World Health Organization) administer the Ebola vaccine

2018/08/08 GMT

The Latest on the New Ebola Outbreak in Central Africa

BBC World Service - Health Check, The Latest on the New Ebola Outbreak in Central Africa

Preparations for Ebola vaccinations in DRC.

Conflict in central Africa will hamper efforts to control Ebola outbreak; music to calm the beating heart; a new form of immunotherapy offers hope to hayfever sufferers.

Just weeks after the outbreak of Ebola was declared over in the west of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a new outbreak has emerged in the east of the country. The World Health Organization has responded rapidly to the emergency – having learned lessons from the west Africa outbreak which killed more than 11,000 people. The WHO’s Deputy Director of Emergency Preparedness Peter Salama says the current outbreak will be much trickier to contain because of conflict in North Kivu province. 

Music can soothe or excite people – sending our hearts racing or slowing them down. Scientists in London wondered if music could also help control irregular heart rhythms known as arrhythmias. So patients with the condition have had their hearts monitored during a special live music performance. 

Runny nose, itchy eyes and uncontrollable sneezing are all symptoms of hayfever – an allergy to grass and tree pollen which affects up to one in five people in high income countries. Anti-histamine drugs can help but they don’t work for everyone. A new form of allergen immunotherapy – created from tiny fragments of the grasses that cause the reaction – may offer hope to people with hayfever.

(Photo: Ebola vaccinations. Credit: JUNIOR D. KANNAH/AFP/Getty Images)

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