2006 yet 100 die in the Congo from the plague
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as many as a hundred people have died in a suspected outbreak of pneumonic plague in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Nineteen of the deaths were in the northeast Ituri district, an area known to be the most active area of human plague in the world with some 1,000 cases each year.
The WHO says some cases of bubonic plague have also been reported, but as yet there are no figures.
The outbreak began there in mid-May; both strains of the plague are spread mostly by fleas, causing an infection in the lungs which slowly suffocates the victim.
If treated promptly with antibiotics, survival is usually assured, but when left untreated, the pneumonic strain which can also be spread from human to human via respiratory droplets, has a very high fatality rate.
news-medical.net
AK-47s known as “credit cards” in lawless Congo
BUNIA, Congo (Reuters) – Some fight in flip-flops, others hope potions will turn their enemy’s bullets into water and most take little time to aim, trusting in the theory: “He who makes most noise wins”.
But the government soldiers, militia fighters and bush bandits in eastern Congo all have one thing in common – an AK-47 assault rifle.
“At $20 to $50 each, it’s pretty easy to get your hands on an AK out here,” explains a source close to the militia groups in Democratic Republic of Congo’s lawless Ituri district.
“There is no shortage of weapons, there are plenty of them,” the source added. “Of course ammunition is needed, but that comes in from Uganda easily.”
Ituri is a particularly bloody corner of Congo, a mineral-rich but shattered country where four million people have been killed, mostly from war-related hunger and disease, since 1998.
Far removed from central government authority, Ituri has long porous borders with countries coveting its natural resources and a thinly stretched body of United Nations peacekeepers. The region highlights the challenges of controlling the flow of arms around Africa’s Great Lakes.