All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Indian Government Responds To Reported Nipah Outbreak In Kerala

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/nipah/Global_NiphaandHendraRisk_20090510.png?ua=1

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The Nipah virus – normally carried by fruit bats common to S.E. Asia – was only first identified 20 years ago after an outbreak in Malaysia, which spread from bat to pigs – and then from pigs to humans – eventually infecting at least 265 people, killing 105 (see Lessons from the Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia).

Similar to Australia’s Hendra virus – Nipah – because of its high mortality and (limited) human-to-human transmissibility – has garnered a reputation among researchers as having at least some pandemic or bio-terrorism potential.

  • In Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 pandemic thriller `Contagion’, technical advisor Ian Lipkin – director of Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity in New York – painstakingly created a fictional MEV-1 pandemic virus based on a mutated Nipah virus. 
  •  In 2015’s Blue Ribbon Study Panel Report on Biodefense a bi-partisan panel described a fictional biological attack on Washington D.C.  using a genetically engineered Nipah virus as part of their presentation. 
  • Just last week, in the Johns Hopkins Clade X exercise, a genetically altered Nipah virus (spliced onto a parainfluenza backbone) was the cause of their fictional pandemic.  
  • And earlier this year, in WHO List Of Blueprint Priority Diseases, we saw Nipah and Henipaviral diseases listed among the 8 viral threats in need of urgent accelerated research and development.    

Overnight, India media (and now Western media) have been reporting on an outbreak of Nipah in Kozhikode, in India’s southern Kerala state (see Crof’s blog Kozhikode: 11 die of suspected Nipah virus infection; medical officials say no need to panic).

While the Indian media is known for its hyperbole, and the exact number of cases and/or deaths vary between accounts – other reports – such as the BBC’s  Deadly Nipah virus claims victims in India at least confirm the main points of the story.

The only official statement I’ve found (the MOH website remains typically silent) has been the following brief press release from the Press Information bureau.

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare           21-May, 2018 13:51 IST

Shri J P Nadda assures all support to Kerala Government to manage Nipah Virus; Sends a multi-disciplinary Central team to investigate the outbreak

In view of the rising number of cases and reported deaths due to Nipah Virus in Kozhikode, Kerala, Shri J P Nadda, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare has assured all support to the Kerala Government and has directed a multi-disciplinary Central team from National Centre for Disease Control to immediately visit the district, and assist the State and closely monitor the situation. The team will reach Kerala today.

“We are closely monitoring the situation. I have spoken to Shri Alphons and Smt K Shailaja, Health Minister, Kerala and assured them all support of the Central government. I have also dispatched a Central team to assist the State government and initiate required steps,” the Union Health Minister said in a statement from Geneva.

On the directions of the Health Minister, Smt. Preeti Sudan, Secretary (HFW) has also spoken to the Principal Health Secretary of Kerala and reviewed the situation.

The Central team includes Dr Sujeet K Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control, Dr S K Jain, Head Epidemiology, NCDC, Dr P Ravindran, Director, Emergency Medical Relief (EMR), Dr Naveen Gupta, Head Zoonosis, NCDC along with two clinicians and one expert from Ministry of Animal Husbandry.

Over the past decade nearly all of the reported Nipah outbreaks have come out of Bangladesh, often linked to date palm sap collection (see Bangladesh: Nipah Update).

Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family have a preference for roosting in the tops of trees rather than caves, which allows them to contaminate date juice collection jars with their virus laden urine and feces

Once infected via a zoonotic exposure, humans can transmit the virus on to others, albeit not terribly efficiently (see EID Journal Person-to-Person Transmission of Nipah Virus in a Bangladeshi Community).

While outbreaks of Nipah have tended to be limited in size, we’ll be following the events in Kozhikode (pop. 550,000) closely, as our knowledge of the virus is limited as well.

Stay tuned. 

رمضانيات ٤ : تنافس الواقع مع المسلسلات Reality competes with TV Drama

English follows

نادية حرحش

رمضانيات ٤

تنافس الواقع مع المسلسلات

مسلسل هيفاء وهبي تركني معلقة بالتساؤلات ، ليس مصادفة انه علق بذهني ، ولماذا اتابعه، اولا لأنه يبدو وأنه سهل المشاهدة ، فيخرج لي على اليوتيوب سريعا ، وثانيا والاهم هو انني بالفعل اشاهد الحلقة كلها بمعدل خمس لسبع دقائق. كانت تشبه احدا ما ، هذا ما جعلني افكر اكثر من تلك نصف الساعة لمشاهدة الحلقات ، الكل يحاول ان يشبه هيفاء وهبي بينما هيفاء تحاول تقليد الاخريات. وبعد تمحيص تذكرت من تشبه هيفاء في حلتها الجديدة. كيم كارديشيان. حتى مبتدئة مثلي في عالم الصرعات استطاعت ان ترى ذلك . المؤخرة تلك ليست طبيعية في ظهورها بهذا الوضوح، مع تركيز هيفاوي كيماوي على الصدر . ولكن لم تكتفي معبودة الجماهير هيفاء بذلك ولكن تأكدت من اطلالات كيم في شعرها المختلف الالوان والتسريحات وملابسها .

لنعود الى الواقع خارج تلفزيون الواقع المشوه من خلال المسلسلات الرمضانية.

أحاول جاهدة الا اكون سوداوية وجالدة للذات كما يمكن…

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Further arrests of Saudi women’s rights activists in escalating crackdown

two-faced leaders who are still afraid of women.

Ten leading campaigners reportedly held as media denounce women as ‘traitors’ for supporting end to ban on female drivers

At least 10 prominent Saudi activists, mostly women’s rights campaigners, have now been reported to have been arrested in what appears to be an escalating clampdown ahead of the much-vaunted lifting of the prohibition on women driving in the kingdom on 24 June.

The arrests, with more feared by human rights campaigners, come amid a high-profile campaign in Saudi media outlets and on social media denouncing the women as “traitors”.

Continue reading…

رمضانيات ٣: مهاترات رمضانية

نادية حرحش

كالهاوي الذي يشاهد مباريات كأس العالم ، في المباريات الاولى يتحمس ويتابع ويتعرف على فرق وأسماء تتحول الى ايقونات في عالم الكرة، ثم يعود لممارسة حياته بمتابعة الاهم من المباريات حتى الربع النهائي او النص النهائي ، يعتمد هذا على شهرة فريق الدولة المتأهلة.

وهكذا حياتنا في رمضان . موسم تخالطت عليه الاحداث المهمة ، اراب ايدول والفويس في توقيت واحد .

رمضان وطقوسه من صيام وما تشتهيه العين والنفس من أطعمة وحلوى وما طاب من مسلسلات وسهرات رمضانية . وغزة بمسيراتها نحو العودة لفك الحصار ورفض نقل السفارة الامريكية. الى القدس. والعالم المحيط والبعيد الذي يؤازر الشعب الفلسطيني في قضاياه الحقة، حصار غزة وقتل اهلها ، وتهويد القدس ونقل السفارة الامريكية لها وما يتبعها من دول.

لأننا في رمضان ، ستبقى المسلسلات متصدرة للمشهد بقيادة رامز السخيف المأجور (على حسب اجماع كل المشاهدين المجتمعين بانتظار حلقته)، تتلوها ترصدات لحركة المسلسلات ، العشرات منها ، لا يمكن متابعة الجميع ولا…

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F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims – The New York Times

In fact, F.B.I. agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign. The informant, an American academic who teaches in Britain, made contact late that summer with one campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, according to people familiar with the matter. He also met repeatedly in the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page, who was also under F.B.I. scrutiny for his ties to Russia. The role of the informant is at the heart of the newest battle between top law enforcement officials and Mr. Trump’s congressional allies over the F.B.I.’s most politically charged investigations in decades. The lawmakers, who say they are concerned that federal investigators are abusing their authority, have demanded documents from the Justice Department about the informant.

‘Open up or we’ll tase you’: Police arrest activists protesting Gaza violence | +972 Magazine

“The fact that the protests took place in downtown Haifa is no coincidence. This is the same place where Arab residents were kicked out of so it could be turned into a recreational area with bars. Since 2013, there has been an increase in the mistreatment of political activists – in terms of numbers arrested, release conditions, preventative arrests, etc.” “Ultimately, this is foolish behavior. They do not have the tools to influence us. They still believe that arresting three or four organizers will stop people from going into the streets, as if they are puppets. They are unable to understand that we have a political demand. They won’t be able to stop that.”

Source: ‘Open up or we’ll tase you’: Police arrest activists protesting Gaza violence | +972 Magazine

New York Times Columnist Says Kevin Cooper May Have Been Framed, Urges DNA Testing That Could Prove His Innocence

Citing extensive evidence that California death-row prisoner Kevin Cooper (pictured) may have been framed, New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof has urged Governor Jerry Brown to permit advanced DNA testing of evidence that could potentially prove Cooper’s innocence. In a column electronically posted by the Times on May 17, 2018 and scheduled to appear in the paper’s May 20 Sunday print edition, Kristof joins a former FBI agent, the American Bar Association, and Judge William A. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in calling for closer review of the case. In his column, Kristof calls Cooper’s case “a failure at every level,” and says that he believes Cooper was framed by the San Bernardino‘s sheriff’s office, which had a history of planting and mishandling evidence. Cooper, who is Black, became the lead suspect in the 1983 killings of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica Ryen, and 11-year-old neighbor Chris Hughes, in spite of statements by 8-year-old Josh Ryen, the sole survivor of the attack, who twice told investigators that three White men had committed the murders. The four victims had been stabbed or slashed a combined 140 times with an ice pick, a hatchet, and at least one knife—an assault, Kristof said, that a single perpetrator, much less the 155-pound Cooper, was unlikely to have been able to carry out. Multiple witnesses saw three White men driving a vehicle fitting the description of the Ryens’ car—which had been stolen from their home—near the time of the murders. Other witnesses reported three White men in bloody clothes acting strangely at a nearby bar the night of the crime. When the car was found 30 miles away, Kristof writes, it “inconveniently had blood on the driver’s seat, the front passenger seat and the back seat—suggesting at least three killers.” Cooper came under suspicion because he had escaped from a local prison, where he had been incarcerated for robbery, and had hidden in an empty house near the Ryen family’s home. An initial police search of Cooper’s hideout turned up no evidence, but the day after they identified him as a suspect, police “found” the sheath of a hatchet and a bloody prison-uniform button in a room they claimed—falsely, Kristof says—to have not previously searched. The hatchet itself was found in a different direction, near the path the Ryens’ vehicle took the night of the murder, and the button later turned out to be a different color from the uniform Cooper had been wearing. Numerous leads pointed to an alternative suspect, a recently released convicted murderer whom Kristof identifies only as “Lee,” but police destroyed key evidence—a pair of bloody coveralls given to police by Lee’s girlfriend—before any testing took place. In 2004, Cooper was allowed to test a blood sample from a tan T-shirt that was found near the murder scene. The shirt was the same color, size, and brand as a T-shirt Lee’s girlfriend said she had recently bought for him and that he had been wearing earlier on the day of the murders. The testing found Cooper’s blood on the shirt, but his blood was contaminated with a chemical used in preserving blood samples, indicating that it had likely been planted on the shirt. The lab then tested the sample of Cooper’s blood held by the sheriff’s office and found multiple blood types, suggesting that Cooper’s sample had been topped off with someone else’s blood. Testing of other evidence, including the murder weapon and strands of hair found at the scene, could prove Cooper’s claim that he is innocent. Kristof said, “[I]f we execute a man in so flawed a case without even bothering to test the evidence rigorously, then a piece of our justice system dies along with Kevin Cooper.”

(Nicholas Kristof, Was Kevin Cooper Framed for Murder?, The New York Times, May 17, 2018.) See Innocence.

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