Epidemic
Juul to pay US state $40 million for targeting teens with e-cigarettes
Electronic cigarette giant Juul Labs Inc will pay $40m to North Carolina and take more action to prevent underage use and sales, according to a landmark United States legal settlement announced on Monday after years of accusations that the company had fueled an explosion in teen vaping. A state judge accepted the first-of-its-kind agreement with a US state. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein had sued Juul, accusing it of employing unfair and deceptive marketing practices that targeted young people to use its vaping products, which deliver addictive nicotine. As part of the agreement, Juul will not advertise to anyone under 21 in North Carolina and will limit sales amounts of Juul products online to any state residents. It will also sell its products only behind counters at retailer...
Eight killed in mass shooting at Indianapolis FedEx facility
At least eight people were dead after a shooting at the FedEx Ground Plainfield Operations Centre in Indianapolis, Indiana, late on Thursday, according to police. The gunman reportedly took his own life after firing indiscriminately. Eight of those who were shot died on the scene, while some others were hospitalised with injuries, according to Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) spokesperson Genae Cook. She told reporters that the motive for the killing was unclear, and that IMPD would work with the Indiana State Police to investigate the shooting. IMPD homicide detectives responded to the scene and began their investigation. A FedEx statement indicated that staff members were among the victims. “We are deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of our team members following th...
MSF: Maiduguri, environs record 1,158 cases of measles
Médecins Sans Frontières Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) known as Doctors Without Borders said that 1,158 cases of measles were recorded within Maiduguri and environs within the past five months. A statement on Monday by Mr Abdulkareem Yakubu, Borno Field Communication Officer of MSF, said that the cases were recorded from December 2020 to April 3, 2021. According to the statement, Zabarmari, a village near Maiduguri, has the highest cases. “So far a total of 1,158 children with measles have been recorded in Gwange Paediatric Hospital in Maiduguri. “In response, MSF strengthened the hospitalisation capacity in both Gwange and Fori health facilities, increasing the number of beds from 65 to 105 in Gwange. “MSF has also launched activities in partnership with the authorities in the town of Za...
All Chinese schools now have access to internet
Andrew Brookes/Getty Images All Chinese schools now have full access to the Internet, and 95.2 per cent of them are equipped with multi-media classrooms, according to a senior official with China’s Ministry of Education. The country has been constantly accelerating informationisation of teaching, and sees it as underpinning the modernisation of education, said Zhong Denghua, vice minister of the education ministry, at a virtual conference attended by ministers of education on the E9 Digital Learning Initiative jointly held by UNESCO and Bangladesh on April 6. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, online courses thrived across the country as a way to ensure normal teaching activities, said Zhong, adding that nearly 300 million teachers and students had learnt or taught online whi...
EU defends vaccine distribution as nations complain it is uneven
The European Commission on Saturday defended its policy of distributing COVID-19 vaccines evenly in the bloc after Austria and five other member states complained that doses were not allocated equally. In a joint letter to the Commission and the European Council, leaders of six European countries, including Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Latvia, and later Croatia, called for discussions on vaccine distribution. The Commission responded that doses have been distributed in proportion with the population of each country and taking into account epidemiological data, adding that was up to member state governments to decide how to share them. A flexible policy agreed by EU governments meant countries facing a more acute phase of the epidemic could access more doses, if some governments opte...
Brazil hospitals pushed to limit as coronavirus death toll soars
Hospitals in Brazil’s main cities are reaching capacity, health officials have warned, as the country recorded the world’s highest COVID-19 death toll over the past week, triggering tighter restrictions on Thursday in its most populous state. Intensive care wards for treating COVID-19 patients have reached critical occupancy levels over 90% in 15 of 27 state capitals, according to biomedical center Fiocruz. In Porto Alegre, the largest city in southern Brazil, there are no free intensive care units (ICUs), and occupancy has also hit 100% in two other state capitals, Fiocruz reported. The Health Ministry on Wednesday reported a record 2,286 deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, as new infections rose by 79,876. With more than 270,000 deaths, Brazil’s pandemic death toll over the past y...
Italy reports 459 coronavirus deaths on Friday – ministry
Italy reported 459 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday against 505 the day before, the health ministry said. The daily tally of new infections increased by 19,037 from 18,040 the day before, taking the total number of cases since Italy’s epidemic began to 2.02 million. Italy on Thursday became the eighth country in the world to exceed 2 million officially recorded cases. The number of swab tests carried out in the past day was 152,334 from a previous 193,777, the health ministry said. The first Western country hit by the virus, Italy has reported 71,359 deaths since its outbreak came to light on Feb. 21, the highest toll in Europe and the fifth highest in the world. Patients in hospital with COVID-19 stood at 23,402, down by 668 from the day before. The current number of intensive care pa...
Wuhan’s coronavirus survivors share lessons one year on
In late 2019, Wuhan businesswoman Duan Ling and her surgeon husband Fang Yushun began to hear snippets in hospital chat groups about a disease emerging in the city’s respiratory wards. Duan didn’t pay much attention at first. Fang had that year returned from a stint studying in the United States, and the pair, both 36-years-old, were planning a family, starting a costly round of fertility treatments. “But as more and more news came, we began to realise this was something different from previous infectious diseases,” said Duan. In just over a month, Fang would become one of the first people in the world to contract what came to be known as COVID-19, which has since infected over 74 million worldwide and killed more than 1.5 million. During the early days of the outbreak, the city’s hospital...
UNICEF: 348,000 Libyan children need humanitarian aid
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said that more than 348,000 children out of 1.2 million people, need humanitarian assistance in Libya, due to the impact of the prolonged armed conflict, political and economic crises and the COVID-19 pandemic. The post UNICEF: 348,000 Libyan children need humanitarian aid appeared first on TODAY. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
Diabetes: Novo Nordisk to offer free insulin to children in Nigeria, Ghana
Novo Nordisk, a multinational pharmaceutical company, on Saturday announced the introduction of a programme to supply free insulin to children living with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) in Nigeria and Ghana from 2021. The post Diabetes: Novo Nordisk to offer free insulin to children in Nigeria, Ghana appeared first on TODAY. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
Togo coronavirus cases surpass 1,000
Togo’s tally of COVID-19 cases reached 1,001 on Wednesday with 13 new cases reported in the last day, according to the latest report from the Health and Public Hygiene Ministry. The post Togo coronavirus cases surpass 1,000 appeared first on TODAY. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
