Companies’ use of employee-monitoring software can have negative effects
Some bosses might want all their workers back in the office, but a clear majority of U.S. workers crave the flexibility of remote or hybrid jobs. And studies have found that such work, if managed well, will not harm a company’s culture or capability to innovate. But some companies concerned about productivity are using software to monitor employees working from home. Maxim Adams has the story. Camera: Aleksandr Bergan
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50 years on, Harlem Week shows how a New York City neighborhood went from crisis to renaissance
NEW YORK — In 1974, Harlem’s deserted streets and tumbledown tenements told the story of a neighborhood left behind. Decades of disinvestment had culminated in a mass exodus known as urban flight and residents watched as their wealthier, more educated counterparts left the New York City neighborhood in droves.
But the tide turned when Percy Sutton, then the Manhattan borough president and New York City’s highest-ranking Black elected official, launched a campaign to bring back vitality to the historically African American neighborhood that had been known as a global Black mecca of arts, culture and entrepreneurship.
It became known as Harlem Week and would go on to draw back those who had departed. On Sunday, organizers celebrated Harlem Week’s 50th anniversary after 18 days of free programming that showcased all the iconic neighborhood has to offer.
Harlem Week stands as “the constant line through the last 50 years of America’s most historic Black neighborhood,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network is headquartered in the neighborhood. “The dream of Percy Sutton and his peers in government, arts, the church and other elements of Harlem lives on, stronger than ever.”
In the 1970s, Harlem demanded more than an ordinary festival, if it wanted a resurrection. Those who remained in Harlem during urban flight — mostly low-income, Black families — would turn on their televisions to constant despair: crime reports, bleak statistics and reporters who called their home a “sinking ship.”
Sutton knew Harlem was due for a revitalizing, uplifting moment.
That summer, Sutton rallied religious, political, civic and artistic leaders that included Tito Puente, Max Roach, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Lloyd Williams. Together, they devised an event that would pivot the spotlight from Harlem’s troubles to its vibrant legacy: Harlem Day.
Radio disc jockeys Hal Jackson and Frankie Crocker produced a concert at the plaza of the Harlem State Office Building, while actor Ossie Davis cut a ribbon at 138th street and 7th Avenue, announcing the start of the “Second Harlem Renaissance.”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony renamed 7th Avenue to Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, named for the first African American elected to Congress from New York, marking the first time a New York City street took the name of a person of color.
“About two or three weeks later, Percy Sutton called us all and said it was such a successful day,” said Lloyd Williams, one of Harlem Day’s co-founders and the current president of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce. “It meant so much to the other cities that were being deserted in Detroit and Baltimore, Washington and Chicago, that they asked if we would do it again on an annual basis.”
They did, and Harlem Day evolved into Harlem Weekend and eventually Harlem Week, which, before the pandemic, expanded to a full month of programming.
“Only in Harlem could a week be more than seven days,” said Williams, whose family has lived in Harlem since 1919.
This year’s celebration featured entertainment, including a headlining set by hip-hop artist Fabolous, a tribute to Harry Belafonte and Broadway performances. Other concerts showcased jazz, reggae, R&B and gospel traditions nurtured in Harlem, alongside hundreds of food and merchandise vendors.
Organizers also included empowerment initiatives, such as financial literacy workshops and health screenings, at Harlem Health Village and the Children’s Festival. Every child who attended received a back-to-school backpack.
Harlem Week always has been a living tribute to Harlem’s history of greats, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Augusta Savage and Aaron Douglas. It recognizes the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement and honors landmarks like the Apollo Theater and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Many historians consider the late 1960s and the 1970s to be Harlem’s darkest years.
The area had been battered by unrest, including a 1964 riot that killed an unarmed Black teenager, Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965 and the turmoil after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. Household incomes fell dramatically and infant mortality rates were high.
“The neighborhood was blighted,” recalled Malik Yoba, an actor born in the Bronx in 1967 who grew up in Harlem and spent days playing in the dirt of vacant lots. Yoba attended school in the Upper East Side with peers who had country homes upstate in the Hamptons.
“I didn’t understand why where we lived looked so dramatically different than where they lived,” he said. “I knew something was wrong.”
But Harlemites are creatives and entrepreneurs, visionaries and leaders. Where others saw decline, they saw opportunity, and the determination to match Harlem with its potential ran high.
Yoba, now 56, built a career as an actor showcasing Harlem to audiences across the nation. His experiences with housing inequality also fueled his passion for real estate.
Yoba combats the effects of redlining through his company Yoba Development, which provides young people of color access to the industry and has active projects in Baltimore and New York City.
“When you grow up in disenfranchised and divested communities, you can’t see the forest through the trees,” Yoba said. “You can grow up believing that walking by burnt-down buildings is your birthright, as opposed to understanding that building is a business.”
Hazel Dukes, 92, a prominent New York civil rights activist and Harlem resident of 30 years, has spent her life fighting discrimination in housing and education. She lived in the same Harlem building as Sutton and organized alongside him, later becoming a national president of the NAACP in 1989.
“I know what it feels to be denied,” said Dukes, who was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, and endured Jim Crow segregation. She moved to New York City with her parents in the 1950s.
Today, property in Harlem is coveted, driven by gentrification and its enduring cultural appeal.
“There was a waiting list, because everybody wanted to live in Harlem,” Dukes said. “People want to come to Harlem before they transition from this world.”
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Cholera outbreak in Sudan has killed 22 people, health minister says
Cairo — Sudan has been stricken by a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly two dozen people and sickened hundreds more in recent weeks, health authorities said Sunday. The African nation has been roiled by a 16-month conflict and devastating floods.
Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim said in a statement that at least 22 people have died from the disease, and that at least 354 confirmed cases of cholera have been detected across the county in recent weeks.
Ibrahim didn’t give a time frame for the deaths or the tally since the start of the year. The World Health Organization, however, said that 78 deaths were recorded from cholera this year in Sudan as of July 28. The disease also sickened more than 2,400 others between Jan. 1 and July 28, it said.
Cholera is a fast-developing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and possible death within hours when not treated, according to WHO. It is transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.
The cholera outbreak is the latest calamity for Sudan, which was plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and a powerful paramilitary group exploded into open warfare across the country.
The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields, wrecking civilian infrastructure and an already battered health care system. Without the basics, many hospitals and medical facilities have closed their doors.
It has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation, with famine already confirmed in a sprawling camp for displaced people in the wrecked northern region of Darfur.
Sudan’s conflict has created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of those fled to neighboring countries.
The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the U.N. and international rights groups.
Devastating seasonal floods in recent weeks have compounded the misery. Dozens of people have been killed and critical infrastructure has been washed away in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to local authorities. About 118,000 people have been displaced due to the floods, according to the U.N. migration agency.
Cholera is not uncommon in Sudan. A previous major outbreak left at least 700 dead and sickened about 22,000 in less than two months in 2017.
Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for WHO, said the outbreak began in the eastern province of Kassala before spreading to nine localities in five provinces.
He said in comments to The Associated Press that data showed that most of the detected cases were not vaccinated. He said the WHO is now working with the Sudanese health authorities and partners to implement a vaccination campaign.
Sudan’s military-controlled sovereign council, meanwhile, said Sunday it will send a government delegation to meet with American officials in Cairo amid mounting U.S. pressure on the military to join ongoing peace talks in Switzerland that aim at finding a way out of the conflict.
The council said in a statement the Cairo meeting will focus on the implementation of a deal between the military and the Rapid Support Forces, which required the paramilitary group to pull out from people’s homes in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
The talks began Aug. 14 in Switzerland with diplomats from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations attending. A delegation from the RSF was in Geneva but didn’t join the meetings.
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French actor Alain Delon dies at 88, French media report
paris — French actor Alain Delon, who melted the hearts of millions of film fans whether playing a murderer, hoodlum or hitman in his postwar heyday, has died, French media reported on Sunday. He was 88.
Delon had been in poor health since suffering a stroke in 2019, rarely leaving his estate in Douchy, in France’s Val de Loire region.
With his striking blue eyes, Delon was sometimes referred to as the “French Frank Sinatra” for his handsome looks, a comparison Delon disliked. Unlike Sinatra, who always denied connections with the Mafia, Delon openly acknowledged his shady pals in the underworld.
In a 1970 interview with The New York Times, Delon was asked about such acquaintances, one of whom was among the last “Godfathers” of the underworld in the Mediterranean port of Marseille.
“Most of them, the gangsters I know … were my friends before I became an actor,” he said. “I don’t worry about what a friend does. Each is responsible for his own act. It doesn’t matter what he does.”
Delon shot to fame in two films by Italian director Luchino Visconti, Rocco and His Brothers in 1960 and The Leopard in 1963.
He starred alongside venerable French elder Jean Gabin in Henri Verneuil’s 1963 film Melodie en Sous-Sol (Any Number Can Win) and was a major hit in Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 Le Samourai (The Godson). The role of a philosophical contract killer involved minimal dialogue and frequent solo scenes, and Delon shone.
Delon became a star in France and was idolized by men and women in Japan, but never made it as big in Hollywood despite performing with American cinema giants, including Burt Lancaster when the Frenchman played apprentice-hitman Scorpio in the eponymous 1973 film.
In the 1970 film Borsalino, he starred with fellow French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, playing gangsters who come to blows in an unforgettable, stylized fight over a woman.
Crowning moments also included 1969 erotic thriller La Piscine (The Swimming Pool), where Delon paired up with real-life lover Romy Schneider, in a sultry French Riviera saga of jealousy and seduction.
Troubled man
Born just outside Paris on November 8, 1935, Delon started life on the back foot: he was put in foster care at age 4 after his parents divorced.
He ran away from home at least once and was expelled several times from boarding schools before joining the marines at 17 and serving in then-French-ruled Indochina. There, too, he got into trouble over a stolen jeep.
Back in France in the mid-50s, he worked as a porter at the Paris wholesale food market Les Halles and spent time in the red-light Pigalle district before migrating to the cafes of the bohemian St. Germain des Pres area.
There he met French actor Jean-Claude Brialy, who took him to the Cannes Film Festival, where he attracted the attention of an American talent scout who arranged a screen test.
He made his film debut in 1957 in Quand la femme s’en mele (Send a Woman When the Devil Fails).
Sulphurous friends
Delon was a businessman as well as an actor, leveraging his looks to sell branded cosmetics and dabbling in racehorses with old underworld friends. He invested in a racehorse stable with Jacky “Le Mat” Imbert, a notorious figure in a thriving Marseille crime scene.
Delon’s more louche friendships exploded to the surface when a former bodyguard-cum-confidant, a young Yugoslav called Stefan Markovic, was found dead in a bag, with a bullet in his head, discarded in a rubbish dump near Paris.
The actor was interrogated and cleared by police but the “Markovic Affair” snowballed into a national scandal.
The man police charged with the Markovic murder — he was later acquitted — was Francois Marcantoni, a Corsican cafe owner and friend of Delon who thrived in the hustle and bustle of the Pigalle district in the aftermath of World War II.
Outspoken
Delon was outspoken offstage and courted controversy when he did so — notably when he said he regretted the abolition of the death penalty and spoke disparagingly of gay marriage, which was legalized in France in 2013.
He publicly defended the far-right National Front and telephoned its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, an old friend, to congratulate him when the party did well in local elections in 2014.
Delon’s lovers included Schneider and German model-turned-singer Nico, with whom he had a son. In 1964, he married Nathalie Barthelemy and fathered a second son before ending the marriage and embarking on a 15-year relationship with Mireille Darc. He had two more children with Dutch model Rosalie van Breemen.
In a January 2018 interview, Delon told Paris Match he was fed up with modern life and had a chapel and tomb ready for him on the grounds of his home near Geneva, and for his Belgian shepherd dog, called Loubo.
“If I die before him, I’ll ask the vet to let us go together. He will give the dog an injection so he can die in my arms.”
Delon’s last major public appearance was to receive an honorary Palme d’or at the Cannes film festival in May 2019.
In his last years, Delon was the center of a family feud over his care, which made headlines in French media.
In April 2024 a judge placed Delon under “reinforced curatorship,” meaning he no longer had full freedom to manage his assets. He was already under legal protection over concerns over his health and well-being.
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Mongolia courts tourists by making it easier to visit
ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — With its reindeer sleigh rides, camel racing and stunning landscapes with room to roam, Mongolia is hoping to woo visitors who are truly looking to get away from it all.
Like most countries, its tourism industry was devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has launched a “Welcome to MonGOlia” campaign to win people back. The government has added flights and streamlined the visa process, offering visa-free visits for many countries.
At least 437,000 foreign tourists visited in the first seven months of this year, up 25% over the same period last year, including increasing numbers from Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Visitors from South Korea nearly doubled, thanks in part to the under-four-hour flight.
Despite the gains, Mongolia’s government is still short of its goal of 1 million visitors per year from 2023-25 to the land of Genghis Khan, which encompassed much of Eurasia in its 13th-century heyday and is now a landlocked nation located between Russia and China.
With a population of 3.3 million people, about half of them living in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, there’s plenty of open space for the adventure tourist to explore, said Egjimaa Battsooj, who works for a tour company. Its customized itineraries include horseback trips and camping excursions with the possibility of staying in gers, the felt-covered dwellings still used by Mongolia’s herders.
There’s little chance of running across private property, so few places are off-limits, she said.
“You don’t need to open a gate, you don’t need to have permission from anyone,” she said, sitting in front of a map of Mongolia with routes marked out with pins and strands of yarn.
“We are kind of like the last truly nomad culture on the whole planet,” she added.
Lonely Planet named Mongolia its top destination in its Best in Travel 2024 report. The pope’s visit to Mongolia last year also helped focus attention on the country. Its breakdancers became stars at last year’s Asian Games. And some local bands have developed a global following, like The Hu, a folk-metal band that incorporates traditional Mongolian instruments and throat singing with modern rock.
Still, many people know little about Mongolia. American tourist Michael John said he knew some of the history about Genghis Khan and had seen a documentary on eagles used by hunters before deciding to stop in Ulaanbaatar as part of a longer vacation.
“It was a great opportunity to learn more,” the 40-year-old said.
Tourism accounted for 7.2% of Mongolia’s gross domestic product and 7.6% of its employment in 2019 before collapsing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the World Bank. But the organization noted “substantial growth potential” for Mongolia to exploit, with “diverse nature and stunning sceneries” and sports and adventure tourism possibilities.
Mongolia tourism ads focus on those themes, with beautiful views of frozen lakes in winter for skating and fishing, the Northern Lights and events like reindeer sledding and riding, camel racing and hiking.
Munkhjargal Dayan offers rides on two-humped Bactrian camels, traditional archery and the opportunity to have eagles trained for hunting perch on a visitor’s arm.
“We want to show tourists coming from other countries that we have such a way of life in Mongolia,” he said, waiting for customers by a giant statue of Genghis Kahn on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar.
Outside the lively capital, getting around can be difficult in summer as the steppes become waterlogged, and there is limited infrastructure, a shortage of accommodation and a deficit of skilled labor in tourism destinations.
It is also easy for foreigners to get lost, with few signs in English, said Dutch tourist Jasper Koning. Nevertheless, he said he was thoroughly enjoying his trip.
“The weather is super, the scenery is more than super, it’s clean, the people are friendly,” he said.
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Magnitude 7 earthquake strikes off coast of Russia’s Kamchatka region
moscow — A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Russia’s far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula early Sunday morning local time, according to the regional earthquake monitoring service.
The local emergencies ministry said tremors were felt along the coast including in the region’s capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
“Operational teams of rescuers and firefighters are inspecting buildings,” the regional branch of Russia’s emergencies ministry in the Kamchatka region said on Telegram.
The earthquake struck at a depth of nearly 50 kilometers just after 7 a.m. local time, some 90 kilometers east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the United States Geological Survey reported.
The U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center had initially issued a tsunami threat, but later said the threat had passed. Local authorities never issued a tsunami alert.
Several aftershocks were recorded after the initial quake, but of lower intensity, the Kamchatka branch of Russia’s Unified Geophysical Service reported on its website.
“Most of the aftershocks are imperceptible,” the regional emergency authority said on Telegram.
The peninsula lies on a seismically active belt surrounding most of the Pacific Ocean known as the “Ring of Fire,” and is home to more than two dozen active volcanoes.
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Rare deep-sea oarfish found in California, scientists want to know why
SAN DIEGO — A rarely seen deep-sea fish resembling a serpent was found floating dead on the ocean surface off the San Diego coast and was brought ashore for study, marine experts said.
The silvery, 12-foot-long (3.6-meter) oarfish was found last weekend by a group of snorkelers and kayakers in La Jolla Cove, north of downtown San Diego, in the U.S. state of California, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said in a statement.
It’s only the 20th time an oarfish is known to have washed up in California since 1901, according to institution fish expert Ben Frable.
Scripps noted that oarfish have a mythical reputation as predictors of natural disasters or earthquakes, although no correlation has been proven.
Oarfish can grow longer than 20 feet (6 meters) and normally live in a deep part of the ocean called the mesopelagic zone, where light cannot reach, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Swimmers brought the La Jolla Cove oarfish to shore atop a paddleboard. It was then transferred to the bed of a pickup truck.
Scientists from NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and Scripps planned a necropsy Friday to try to determine the cause of death.
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Eswatini turns to nuclear technology to transform agriculture, health care, energy
Manzini, Eswatini — Eswatini has launched an initiative to achieve sustainable development by harnessing the power of nuclear technology in such sectors as agriculture, health and energy planning. The plan was developed with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The aim of the Country Program Framework, or CPF, launched two weeks ago by Eswatini Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Prince Lonkhokhela, is to leverage nuclear technology for social and economic development. Its key focus areas are energy security, food security and human health, aligning with the country’s National Development Plan and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.
Bongekile Matsenjwa, a chemical engineer and engineering manager for the Eswatini National Petroleum Company, believes the partnership between Eswatini and the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, can help the country make well-informed decisions about its energy future.
“Access to clean, affordable and safe, reliable energy is an important ingredient for the sustainable development of the country,” he said. “I believe that this partnership can help Eswatini to make knowledgeable decisions on energy supply options with the help of energy planning so the country … can independently chart our national energy future.”
Sonia Paiva, a sustainable agriculture expert and advocate for nuclear technology, who was a panelist at the COP28 U.N. Climate Change Conference, believes Eswatini’s focus on nuclear technology is happening at the perfect moment, as the country has already established policies around the topic and is now moving toward implementation.
“The whole world is looking to see how we can make our planet a better place to live in,” she said.
In addition to its potential benefits in agriculture and energy, Dr. Mduduzi Mbuyisa, a medical doctor, believes this technology has immense potential to improve the health care system in Eswatini.
“Nuclear medicine has a potential to ensure our diagnostic capabilities such that it helps us to take clearer pictures and help us in advanced imaging because we [are] using what we call PET or SPECT, which help to improve the care and overall health care system,” he said. It will also … help develop new skills and open up new career opportunities.”
Eswatini’s venture into nuclear technology is part of a larger trend of African countries seeking to harness the benefits of this technology. Against the backdrop of rising energy demands and climate change concerns, nuclear energy is increasingly seen as a potential solution.
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Nigeria records mpox cases amid global health emergency
ABUJA, NIGERIA — Barely 48 hours after the World Health Organization declared mpox a global health emergency, Nigeria went on high alert Friday, announcing new mpox cases and raising concerns about the country’s ability to contain the outbreak.
The Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention, or NCDC, said it has recorded 39 cases of mpox so far this year amid a surge in infections across Africa. No deaths have been recorded in Nigeria.
Bayelsa, Cross River, Ogun and Lagos states are the most affected by the outbreak.
Speaking at a news conference, NCDC lead Dr. Olajide Idris said that the nation is ramping up its response to manage the spread of the virus and prevent the disease from being imported.
Mpox is a rare viral zoonotic disease, meaning it is primarily an animal disease that can be transmitted to humans. It is endemic in several African countries, with over 2,800 cases reported across 13 countries this year, claiming more than 500 lives.
Symptoms include fever, body aches, weakness, headaches and rashes.
With a more lethal strain emerging, Idris said that vaccination plans are being considered for high-risk populations.
“The Nigerian government is making effort to make vaccines available to the public, especially for the hotspot areas,” he said. “These vaccines have been shown to have a favorable safety profile. They are not yet in the country, but they are on their way.”
Olayinka Badmus, deputy project director for Global Health Security, Breakthrough Action Nigeria, said the new strain poses a higher risk.
“This particular strain is new, and anything new requires new learning. The things that we have seen related to this particular strain is the fact that it is spreading quite fast, the presenting symptoms — especially the rash — are widespread,” she said, meaning that the rash is all over the body.
“We are also seeing more children affected with mpox compared to the other strains,” Badmus said.
Another cause for concern, she said, is that this strain has “a higher human-to-human transmission at an accelerated rate.”
Idris stressed the need for public awareness in containing the spread and urged people to seek medical attention if they experience symptoms.
“We encourage everybody feeling feverish, muscle pain, sore throat to please visit the nearest health care facility,” he said.
Public health experts are also urging people to adhere to preventive measures such as avoiding contact with potentially infected animals and practicing good hygiene.
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Fire at London’s Somerset House threatens works by Van Gogh, Cezanne
LONDON — A fire broke out Saturday at Somerset House, a large arts venue on the River Thames in central London.
Smoke billowed from the building and flames could be seen coming from the roof as firefighters on tall ladders showered it with water.
The cause of the fire was not yet known, the London Fire Brigade said. Fifteen engines and about 100 firefighters were deployed.
Somerset House said all staff and the public were safe and the site was closed. The venue had been scheduled to host a breakdancing event.
The neoclassical building, which is nearly 250 years old, houses the Courtauld Gallery that features works by Van Gogh, Manet and Cezanne.
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DR Congo’s humanitarian crisis helped mpox spiral into a global health emergency
GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Sarah Bagheni had a headache, fever, and itchy and unusual skin lesions for days, but she had no inkling that her symptoms might have been caused by mpox and that she might be another case in a growing global health emergency.
She also has no idea where to go to get medical help.
She and her husband live in the Bulengo displacement camp in eastern Congo, a region that is effectively ground zero for a series of mpox outbreaks in Africa.
This year’s alarming rise in cases, including a new form of the virus identified by scientists in eastern Congo, led the World Health Organization to declare it a global health emergency on Wednesday. It said the new variant could spread beyond the five African countries where it had already been detected — a timely warning that came a day before Sweden reported its first case of the new strain.
In the vast central African nation of Congo, which has had more than 96% of the world’s roughly 17,000 recorded cases of mpox this year — and some 500 deaths from the disease — many of the most vulnerable seem unaware of its existence or the threat that it poses.
“We know nothing about this,” Bagheni’s husband, Habumuremyiza Hire, said Thursday about mpox. “I watch her condition helplessly because I don’t know what to do. We continue to share the same room.”
Millions are thought to be out of reach of medical help or advice in the conflict-torn east, where dozens of rebel groups have been fighting Congolese army forces for years over mineral-rich areas, causing a huge displacement crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people like Bagheni and her husband have been forced into overcrowded refugee camps around Goma, while more have taken refuge in the city.
Conditions in the camps are dire and medical facilities are almost nonexistent.
Mahoro Faustin, who runs the Bulengo camp, said that about three months ago, administrators first started noticing people in the camp exhibiting fever, body aches and chills — symptoms that could signal malaria, measles or mpox.
There is no way of knowing how many mpox cases there might be in Bulengo because of a lack of testing, he said. There haven’t been any recent health campaigns to educate the tens of thousands of people in the camp about mpox, and Faustin said he’s worried about how many people might be undiagnosed.
“Just look at the overcrowding here,” he said, pointing to a sea of ramshackle tents. “If nothing is done, we will all be infected here, or maybe we are already all infected.”
Around 70% of the new mpox cases in the Goma area in the last two months that were registered at a treatment center run by Medair were from displacement camps, said Dr. Pierre Olivier Ngadjole, the international aid group’s health advisor in Congo. The youngest of those cases was a month-old baby and the oldest a 90-year-old, he said.
In severe cases of mpox, people can develop lesions on the face, hands, arms, chest and genitals. While the disease originated in animals, the virus has in recent years been spreading between people via close physical contact, including sex.
Bagheni’s best hope of getting a diagnosis for her lesions is a government hospital that’s a two-hour drive away. That’s likely out of the question, given that she already struggles with mobility having previously had both her legs amputated.
Seven million people are internally displaced in Congo, with more than 5.5 million of them in the country’s east, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Congo has the largest displacement camp population in Africa, and one of the largest in the world.
The humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo has almost every possible complication when it comes to stopping an mpox outbreak, said Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of Duke University’s Global Health Institute.
That includes war, illicit mining industries that attract sex workers, transient populations near border regions, and entrenched poverty. He also said the global community missed multiple warning signs.
“We’re paying attention to it now, but mpox has been spreading since 2017 in Congo and Nigeria,” Beyrer said, adding that experts have long been calling for vaccines to be shared with Africa, but to little effect. He said the WHO’s emergency declaration was “late in coming,” with more than a dozen countries already affected.
Beyrer said that unlike COVID-19 or HIV, there’s a good vaccine and good treatments and diagnostics for mpox, but “the access issues are worse than ever” in places like eastern Congo.
In 2022, there were outbreaks in more than 70 countries around the world, including the United States, which led the WHO to also declare an emergency that lasted until mid-2023. It was largely shut down in wealthy countries within months through the use of vaccines and treatments, but few doses have been made available in Africa.
The new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox was first detected this year in a mining town in eastern Congo, about 450 kilometers south of Goma. It’s unclear how much the new strain is to blame, but Congo is now enduring its worst outbreak yet and at least 13 African countries have recorded cases, four of them for the first time.
The outbreaks in those four countries — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda — have been linked to Congo’s, and Doctors Without Borders said Friday that Congo’s surge “threatens a major spread of the disease” to other countries.
Salim Abdool Karim, an infectious disease expert who chairs the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s emergency committee, said the Congo outbreak has a particularly concerning change, in that it’s disproportionately affecting young people. Children under 15 account for 70% of cases and 85% of all deaths in the country, the Africa CDC reported.
Unlike the 2022 global outbreak, which predominantly affected gay and bisexual men, mpox now appears to be spreading in heterosexual populations.
All of Congo’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases, according to the state-run news agency. But Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said Thursday that the country doesn’t have a single vaccine dose yet and he pleaded for “vigilance in all directions from all Congolese.”
Dr. Rachel Maguru, who heads the multi-epidemic center at Goma’s North Kivu provincial hospital, said they also don’t have drugs or any established treatments for mpox and are relying on other experts such as dermatologists to help where they can. A larger outbreak around the city and its numerous displacement camps already overburdened with an influx of people would be “terrible,” she said.
She also noted a pivotal problem: poor and displaced people have other priorities, like earning enough money to eat and survive. Aid agencies and stretched local authorities are already wrestling with providing food, shelter and basic health care to the millions displaced, while also dealing with outbreaks of other diseases like cholera.
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Europe warned to prepare for mpox as Pakistan reports first case
Stockholm — Health authorities warned Friday that Europe must be ready for more cases of a deadly strain of mpox that has killed hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The World Health Organization urged pharmaceutical firms to ramp up vaccine production and China said it would screen travelers for the disease after the first cases of the more deadly strain to be recorded outside Africa were announced in Sweden and Pakistan.
France’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said his country was on the “highest alert” and would implement “new recommendations” for travelers to risk areas.
Mpox is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by animals but can also spread human-to-human through close physical contact.
It causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.
The WHO on Wednesday declared the rapid spread of the new Clade 1b strain an international public health emergency — the agency’s highest alert.
This follows the spread of the more deadly mpox from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to other African countries.
“We do need the manufacturers to really scale up so that we’ve got access to many, many more vaccines,” WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris told reporters.
The WHO is asking countries with vaccine stockpiles to donate them to countries with outbreaks.
Harris said mpox was “particularly dangerous for those with a weak immune system, so people who maybe have HIV or are malnourished,” and was also dangerous for small children.
The United States has said it will donate 50,000 doses of an mpox vaccine to DRC and Attal said France would also send vaccines to risk countries.
Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said Thursday it would be ready to make up to 10 million doses of its mpox vaccine by 2025 but that it needed contracts to start production.
The Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said the overall risk in Europe was “low.” But it warned that “effective surveillance, laboratory testing, epidemiological investigation and contact tracing capacities will be vital to detecting cases.”
“Due to the close links between Europe and Africa, we must be prepared for more imported clade I cases,” ECDC director Pamela Rendi-Wagner said in a statement.
Hundreds killed in DRC
The virus has swept across DRC, killing 548 people so far this year, the government said Thursday.
Nigeria has recorded 39 mpox cases this year, but no deaths, according to its health authorities. Previously unaffected countries such as Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have reported outbreaks, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sweden’s Public Health Agency announced Thursday it had registered a case of Clade 1b.
The patient was infected during a visit to “the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox Clade 1,” epidemiologist Magnus Gisslen said in a statement.
The mpox strain in the Pakistan case was not immediately known, the country’s health ministry said in a statement.
It said the patient, a 34-year-old man, had “come from a Gulf country.”
China announced it would begin screening people and goods entering the country for mpox over the next six months.
People arriving from countries where outbreaks have occurred, who have been in contact with mpox cases or display symptoms should “declare to customs when entering the country,” China’s customs administration said.
Vehicles, containers and items from areas with mpox cases should be sanitized, it added in a statement.
Vaccination drive
Mpox has two subtypes: the more virulent and deadlier Clade 1, endemic in the Congo Basin in central Africa; and Clade 2, endemic in West Africa.
A worldwide outbreak beginning in 2022 involving the Clade 2b subclade caused some 140 deaths out of about 90,000 cases, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.
France reported 107 cases of the milder mpox variant between January 1 and June 30 this year.
The WHO’s European regional office in Copenhagen said the Sweden case was “a clear reflection of the interconnectedness of our world.”
But it added: “Travel restrictions and border closures don’t work and should be avoided.”
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Nigeria on ‘high alert’ amid surging cases of mpox in Africa
Abuja, Nigeria — Nigerian authorities on Thursday placed key entry points into the country on high alert following the outbreak of the mpox virus in Africa. Authorities have also put nine Nigerian states, including the commercial hub, Lagos, and the capital, Abuja, under serious surveillance.
The Nigerian Center for Disease Control and Prevention told journalists that the action is in response to surging cases of the mpox virus in Africa and to intensify coordination to limit importation and spread of the virus.
This week, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had recorded 2,863 confirmed cases of mpox, with 517 deaths, across 13 countries this year. It said there are about 17,000 suspected cases of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, in total.
So far this year, Nigeria has recorded 39 cases of mpox, with no deaths.
Jide Idris, head of the Nigerian CDC, said it’s best to be prepared.
“We’re intensifying surveillance activities by tracking cases across Nigeria to swiftly detect and respond to any new cases,” he said. “Along this line, five designated international airports, some key seaports … land and foot crossing borders have been placed in high alert. Declaration forms have been distributed to airlines where there’s an ongoing outbreak of mpox in the last 90 days.”
The Nigerian CDC said authorities are distributing diagnostic tools to states. They also have issued a public advisory on ways to prevent the spread of the mpox virus, including limiting contact with animals such as rodents and monkeys.
“We’re also considering vaccination efforts for high-risk groups, as Nigeria expects to receive about 10,000 doses of the new vaccines that have just recently been approved for emergency use,” Idris said. “We’re also meeting with collaborative agencies like Ministry of Environment and Agriculture for support and coordination efforts.”
Authorities say a new strain of the virus, which is more deadly and more easily transmitted, is responsible for the recent spread. The strain was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo and later reported in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, all previously unaffected nations.
On Tuesday, the Africa CDC declared mpox a public health emergency of international-continental concern.
Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, said, “This declaration is not merely a formality. It’s a clarion call to action. It’s a recognition that we can no longer afford to be reactive; we must be proactive and aggressive in our effort to contain and eliminate this threat.”
Mpox is a viral disease that causes pus-filled lesions resembling rashes to appear on the skin.
In 2022, the World Health Organization declared it an international health emergency after cases were found in more than 70 countries.
Health analysts say the new strain is worrisome and will need a coordinated international response to control it and save lives.
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Mpox virus now in Pakistan, health authorities say
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan’s health ministry has confirmed at least one case of the mpox virus in a patient who had returned from a Gulf country, it said on Friday, as provincial health authorities reported they had detected three cases.
A health ministry spokesperson said the sequencing of the confirmed case was under way, and that it would not be clear which variant of mpox the patient had until the process was complete.
A new form of the virus has triggered global concern because it seems to spread more easily though routine close contact.
Earlier on Friday, the health department in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said three cases had been detected in patients on arrival from the United Arab Emirates. It was not clear whether the patient confirmed by the central health ministry was among the three.
The World Health Organization has declared the recent outbreak of the disease as a public health emergency of international concern after the new variant of the virus was identified.
Health ministry spokesperson Sajid Shah said so far they had no confirmation of the new variant, but the sequencing of the sample of the confirmed patient was under way.
“Once that’s done, we will be able to say what strain is this,” said Shah.
Salim Khan, the director general of health services for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said three patients were in quarantine.
Global health officials on Thursday confirmed an infection with a new strain of the mpox virus in Sweden and linked it to a growing outbreak in Africa, the first sign of its spread outside the continent.
The WHO on Wednesday sounded its highest level of alert over the outbreak in Africa after cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo spread to nearby countries.
There have been 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths, mainly among children, in Congo since the current outbreak began in January 2023.
The disease, caused by the monkeypox virus, leads to flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. It is usually mild but can kill, with children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, all at higher risk of complications.
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Restaurant with robot servers causes excitement in Nairobi
In Nairobi, a new restaurant is generating business and buzz – not just because of the food, but because of the staff. Robots serving dishes is the main attraction of diners who flock to the Robot Cafe. Juma Majanga reports. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo.
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