COPENHAGEN: The European Commission has approved a smallpox vaccine for use against monkeypox after the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency, the Danish drugmaker that developed the jab said on Monday. “The European Commission has extended the marketing authorization for the company’s smallpox vaccine, Imvanex, to include protection from monkeypox” in line with a recommendation by the EU’s medicines watchdog, Bavarian Nordic said in a statement. “The approval... is valid in all European Union Member States as well as in Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.” On Saturday, the WHO declared the monkeypox outbreak, which has affected nearly 16,000 people in 72 countries, to be a global health emergency — the highest alarm it can sound. Imvanex has been approved in the EU since 2013 for the prevention of smallpox. It was also considered a potential vaccine for monkeypox because of the similarity between the monkeypox virus and the smallpox virus. Monkeypox is less dangerous and contagious than smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980. The first symptoms of monkeypox are fever, headaches, muscle pain and back pain during the course of five days. Rashes subsequently appear on the face, the palms of hands and soles of feet, followed by lesions, spots and finally scabs. A surge in monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic. The EMA carries out a scientific assessment of drugs and gives a recommendation on whether any medicine should be marketed or not. However, under EU law the EMA has no authority to actually permit marketing in the different EU countries. It is the European Commission which is the authorizing body and takes a legally binding decision based on EMA’s recommendation.
MADRID: Spain and Brazil reported their first monkeypox-related deaths on Friday, marking what are thought to be the first fatalities linked to the current outbreak outside of Africa. Spain is one of the world’s worst-hit countries, with 4,298 people there infected with the virus, according to the health ministry’s emergency and alert coordination center. “Of the 3,750 (monkeypox) patients with available information, 120 cases were hospitalized (3.2 percent) and one case has died,” the center said in a report. An official would not give the specific cause of death for the fatality pending the outcome of an autopsy. In Brazil a 41-year-old man died of monkeypox, local authorities said on Friday. The man, who local media said had serious immune system problems, died on Thursday in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the southeastern Minas Gerais state. He “was receiving hospital treatment for other serious conditions,” the state health ministry said in a statement. “It is important to underline that he had serious co-morbidities, so as not to spread panic in the population. The death rate is very low” for monkeypox, said Minas Gerais health secretary Fabio Baccheretti, who added that the patient was undergoing cancer treatment. Brazil’s health ministry has recorded close to 1,000 monkeypox cases, mostly in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states, which are also in the country’s southeast. Early signs of the disease include a high fever, swollen lymph glands and a chickenpox-like rash. The World Health Organization (WHO) last Saturday declared the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency. According to the WHO, more than 18,000 cases have been detected throughout the world outside of Africa since the beginning of May. The disease has been detected in 78 countries, with 70 percent of cases found in Europe and 25 percent in the Americas, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday. The disease usually heals by itself after two to three weeks, sometimes taking a month. A smallpox vaccine from Danish drug maker Bavarian Nordic, marketed under the name Jynneos in the United States and Imvanex in Europe, has also been found to protect against monkeypox.
ADDIS ABABA: Regional forces in southeast Ethiopia killed more than 150 Al-Shabab militiamen during fierce border clashes on Friday, the state news agency and a regional commander said, in the third round of fighting in nine days. The attacks add to the already complex security landscape in Ethiopia, where the central government is trying to put down an insurgency and calm paramilitary groups in two different regions, while starting peace negotiations in a third. “The terrorist group regrouped its scattered forces (last night) and tried to infiltrate into Ethiopia and carry out (an) attack in the area bordering Somalia with Ethiopia,” Tesfaye Ayalew, an Ethiopian army general told the state news agency ENA. Al Shabab have long sought to establish a base in Ethiopia and have, in recent years, broadcast messages in Afaan Oromo, a language spoken in Ethiopia. Al Shabab confirmed the fighting, claiming they had killed 103 Ethiopian police and occupied the town of Aato earlier on Friday. A commander with Ethiopia’s Somali regional forces rejected that death toll, saying only 14 regional Ethiopian fighters were killed. “It’s still in our control, it’s not a question,” the commander told Reuters, referring to Aato. A resident of Aato town who asked not to be identified said Al-Shabab attacked the town with car bombs and mortar shells in the morning but later fled. The commander said federal Ethiopian forces carried out several air strikes, hitting four Al-Shabab vehicles near the villages of Garasley and Lagalaay on the Somali side of the border, killing an unknown number of militants. An Al-Shabab leader had been killed in a mortar attack, he added. Al Shabab controls large swathes of Somalia and has killed tens of thousands of people in bombings in its fight to overthrow the Western-backed central government there and impose its own interpretation of Islamic law.
ISLAMABAD: A grenade exploded on Friday during a cricket game in Kabul, wounding 13 spectators at the stadium, an emergency hospital in the Afghan capital said. The Italian-run Emergency Hospital in Kabul said on Twitter that 12 of the wounded were hospitalized while one other patient was treated and discharged. No one claimed responsibility for the explosion at the International Cricket Stadium in Kabul, where several hundred people had gathered to watch the match between Band-e-Amir Dragons and Pamir Zalmi. The afternoon game was part of the domestic T20 Shpageza Cricket league games held every year. Cricket is a hugely popular sport in Afghanistan. The Taliban-appointed Kabul police spokesman, Khalid Zadran, said the game was briefly halted due to the grenade explosion but later continued. “The match was going on between two teams in Shpageza League, and during the match a blast happened,” said Nassib Khan, chief executive of Afghanistan Cricket Board. Lately, the Daesh group’s regional affiliate, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, has claimed attacks in Kabul and other parts of the country. The IS affiliate, which has been operating in Afghanistan since 2014, is seen as the greatest security challenge facing the country’s new Taliban rulers. Following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last August, the former insurgents have launched sweeping crackdowns against IS, which has a foothold in eastern Nangarhar province. Ramiz Alakbarov, the deputy at the UN mission in Afghanistan, condemned Friday’s attack in a statement. He was at the stadium at the time of the attack and was to address the Afghan cricket association. Alakbarov could not confirm if there were any fatalities at the stadium but wished the injured a speedy recovery. “Today’s blast is yet another harrowing reminder of the terrifying and sudden violence that the population in Afghanistan continues to be exposed to,” he said. “Sports bring people hope, inspire children and generations alike, play a crucial role in breaking down barriers and bringing communities together.” Thomas West, the US special representative for Afghanistan, said he was deeply saddened by reports of the explosion Friday during a cricket match in Kabul. “Violence serves no purpose and is not the answer for the people of Afghanistan,” said West, who succeeded Zalmay Khalilzad in the post.
MADRID: The Madrid City Council last week approved the use of land in the Spanish capital for Muslim burial spaces.
Maysoun Douas, the first and only Muslim councillor on the City Council for Mas Madrid, made a speech to highlight the problems and lack of rights faced by the Muslim community in the region.
Religious freedom includes the right to receive a dignified burial without discrimination on religious grounds, she said.
However, there is currently only one Muslim cemetery in the Autonomous Community of Madrid, in Grinon, 40 km from the center of Madrid.
In 2016, it was already full and did not even allow burials according to the Islamic rite, because municipal ordinances require the use of coffins.
The space was historically designated for Franco’s “Guardia Mora” during the Francoist dictatorship.
The Autonomous Community of Madrid has about 250 public cemeteries, 14 of which are municipal in the city of Madrid.
Of all of them, only the one in Grinon is Muslim, for about 300,000 people in the community and 100,000 in the capital who practice Islam.
All this comes under civil rights for Muslim citizens, which have been stigmatized according to Douas.
“The official interlocutors for religious issues, organizations we trusted, convinced us that we were fighting for our rights when they were actually hijacking them,” she said.
“This is a group that needs real institutional support, as organizations have done little or nothing to implement basic rights recognized for other citizens,” she added.
After decades of stagnation and paralysis of progress, only political participation and the occupation of spaces by new voices opens the way to achieve basic rights, such as the ability to bury family members under the same umbrella of rights as any other citizen, no matter what religion they profess, she said.