Edna Bonhomme

The current Ebola outbreak was first reported in Ituri on 5 May. Ten days later laboratory analysis confirmed the presence of Bundibugyo virus, one of the four orthoebolaviruses known to cause disease in humans (two others have also been identified). Since then there have been more than 2500 confirmed cases and over a thousand deaths. This is the third known outbreak of Bundibugyo virus disease, and by far the worst. 

Among the unvaccinated, one in five people who get measles in the US will be hospitalised; one in twenty children will get pneumonia; one in a thousand will develop encephalitis, which can lead to blindness, hearing impairment and other disabilities; and one in a thousand will die. Measles can also lead to immune amnesia: that is, the virus can erase the body’s memory of how to fight all the pathogens it has previously encountered.

Preliminary data published in 2021 strongly suggested that testing positive for Covid was linked to a traumatic stress response during pregnancy and childbirth. According to a study from 2022, ‘pregnant mothers reported fear of infection, fear of vertical transmission, fear of poor birth and child outcomes, social isolation, uncertainty about their partner’s presence during medical appointments and delivery, increased domestic abuse, and other collateral damage, including vaccine hesitancy.’ During the first two years of the pandemic, maternal mortality rose in the United States (especially among Black and Hispanic communities), Japan, Australia and the Netherlands.

Uganda declared the outbreak over on 26 April. In total there had been fourteen reported cases, of whom four died and ten fully recovered. It was a public health victory which showed that Africans could co-operate to end an epidemic on their own terms.

A judge in Georgia recently struck down the six-week abortion ban. But total or near-total bans are still in place in sixteen other states. Florida, where I grew up, enacted a six-week ban in May. ‘We don’t want to be an abortion tourism destination,’ Governor Ron DeSantis said.