Africa Resilience Initiative

Solar still in water. QIAOQIANG GAN, SUNY BUFFALO

buffalonews.com - by T.J. Pignataro  - October 15, 2017

Distilling water using the sun’s rays . . . a University at Buffalo startup has found a quick way to do it . . . and it could transform how potable water gets to people in developing countries or in areas stricken by natural disasters like earthquakes or hurricanes.

The university’s Sunny Clean Water startup said its method is nearly three times as fast as the industry standard . . . 

. . . The process uses a floating solar still and a specially-engineered carbon-based cloth to capture, desalinate and purify as much as a liter of water every three hours in a prototype developed by UB associate professor of electrical engineering Qiaoqiang Gan, Singer and other university electrical engineering students.

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CLICK HERE - EcoHealth Alliance - Ebola Spreads To Major Congo Transportation Hub, Will It Spread Further?

cnbc.com - by Angelica LaVito - May 25, 2018

An Ebola outbreak is emerging in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and a nonprofit that studies infectious diseases identified where it could spread based on flight patterns. . .

. . . EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that studies outbreaks, used software to identify where Ebola could spread through infected passengers. The system used flight patterns from the airports in Mbandaka, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, those nearest to Bikoro, where the outbreak started.

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This year, the rats that carry Lassa fever may be more numerous, or more likely to harbor the virus.  Photo: Reuters/Stringer

CLICK HERE - reliefweb - Nigeria: Lassa Fever Outbreak

CLICK HERE - WHO - Nigeria - Lassa Fever

science.sciencemag.org - by Leslie Roberts - March 16, 2018

By early January, it was clear something “really, really extraordinary” was going on in Nigeria, says Lorenzo Pomarico of the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA). Cases of Lassa fever, a rare viral hemorrhagic disease, were skyrocketing across the country—more were recorded in the first 2 months of 2018 than in any previous year. Unprepared for a disease that has no vaccines or drugs and kills 20% to 30% of those it sickens, eight health care workers were infected early on and three died. “Something was going very wrong with the outbreak,” Pomarico says.

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People collect drinking water from pipes fed by an underground spring in St. James, about 25 kilometers from the city center of Cape Town.

cnn.com - by Paul P. Murphy - January 24, 2018

In Cape Town, South Africa, they're calling it "Day Zero" -- the day when the taps run dry.

A few days ago, city officials had said that day will come on April 22. This week, they moved up the date to April 12 . . . 

 . . . It's been a slow-motion crisis, exacerbated by three factors conspiring together:

The worst drought in over a century, which has pushed Cape Town's water scarcity into a potentially deadly horizon

Its population, which is 4 million and growing quickly

A rapidly changing climate

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CLICK HERE - Cape Town told to cut water use or face losing supply by 12 April