Global Health

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 07: Vivek Murthy, U.S. surgeon general, speaks while participating in a roundtable discussion on the impacts of climate change on public health at Howard University with U.S. President Barack Obama, not pictured, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. President Obama is warning that climate change will start affecting Americans health in the near future and he's recruiting top technology companies to help prepare the nation’s health systems. (Photo | Pool via Getty Images)

CLICK HERE - STUDY - EPA - Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action

CLICK HERE - REPORT - The Lancet - Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health

huffingtonpost.com - by Kate Sheppard - June 24, 2015

WASHINGTON -- Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said Tuesday that climate change presents a "serious, immediate and global threat to human health," calling the danger a "sobering truth."

A man walks through tour buses at a parking lot after schools cancel excursions due to concerns over the spreading of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 25, 2015. South Korea's finance ministry said Thursday that economic growth will slow this year as the outbreak of MERS saps spending and tourism. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

bigstory.ap.org - by Youkyung Lee - June 25, 2015

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's finance ministry said Thursday that economic growth will slow this year as the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome saps spending and tourism.

The ministry cut its forecast for South Korea's growth to 3.1 percent from 3.8 percent. Asia's fourth-largest economy grew 3.3 percent last year.

The outbreak that began last month is having a bigger effect on South Korea's economy than a deadly ferry disaster last year that plunged the country into mourning.

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Health workers put on protective gear before entering a quarantine zone at a Red Cross facility in the town of Koidu, Kono district in Eastern Sierra Leone December 19, 2014.  REUTERS/BAZ RATNER

Cases found in a densely populated slum

time.com - Alexandra Sifferlin - June 22, 2015

Two new cases of the deadly Ebola virus have been recorded in Sierra Leone’s capital city of Freetown, about three weeks after the most recent new cases were found, underscoring the difficulty of ridding the region of the disease.

“This is worrisome because we had already closed all Ebola quarantine structures in Freetown since we had gone for weeks without a case,” Sidi Yahya Tunis, a spokesman for the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) told Reuters. The cases were found in a densely populated slum called Magazine.

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ALLAFRICA  by Mae Azango                                                                   June 10, 2015

Children in Gorlu, Salayea District Lofa County, are only in school two hours a day, or not in school at all. The reason? Their teachers are either running behind their salaries, or volunteer teachers are trying to get their names on the government's payroll.

Matthew Gahndolo, the school's principal laments, "The government of Liberia says, free and compulsory primary education, but what is the use when the children come to school by 8:00 a.m. and leave the class room after 10:00 a.m. to go on the farms, because their teachers are running behind salaries"

The situation of teachers leaving the classrooms and running behind salaries, and lack of qualified teachers to teach the children in rural Liberia, is not only restricted to Lofa County, but nearly all of the fifteen counties in Liberia. With the situation becoming increasingly alarming and dreadful, the government has also witnessed aggrieved health workers also on the streets demanding the Ebola risk benefits as well.

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http://allafrica.com/stories/201506100717.html