Doctor who treated more than 100 Ebola patients also died

 The Sierra Leonean doctor who treated more than 100 Ebola patients has also died. Dr Sheik Umar Khan (pictured above), who was hailed as a national hero for disregarding his own health and helping sick patients, died today July 29th from the disease after being diagnosed with the virus last week. He contacted the virus despite wearing protective gear when treating patients.

In an interview last month, the 39yr old doctor had expressed fears for his life because of his constant contact with Ebola patients.


"I am afraid for my life. Health workers are prone to the disease because we are the first port of call for somebody who is sickened by the disease. Even with the full protective clothing you put on, you are at risk" He told Reuters
His death comes days after a senior doctor at Liberia's largest hospital, Samuel Brisbane, died on Saturday at an Ebola treatment centre in Monrovia. 3 nurses working in the same Ebola treatment centre alongside Khan also died from the disease last week. Several other medics have been infected.

Australia issues arrest warrants over Syria severed head photos

 Australia has issued arrest warrants for a pair of Australian citizens believed to be fighting in Syria, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported on Tuesday, after images emerged of the two holding the severed heads of Syrian soldiers.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) counter-terrorism chief Neil Gaughan told the ABC in an interview that warrants had been issued for Australians Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar on terrorism offences.
A Twitter account linked to al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State last week published grizzly pictures of the beheaded corpses and heads of five soldiers killed in Syria's Raqqa province, saying the soldiers were from the 17th division.
Sharrouf and Elomar traveled to Syria and Iraq late last year, the ABC reported, and late last week a Twitter account purported to belong to Sharrouf showed pictures of Elomar handling severed heads.
"As soon as they set foot on Australian soil they will be taken into custody," Gaughan said.

Australia has raised the alarm about the number of its citizens believed to be fighting alongside insurgents overseas, including an Australian suicide bomber who killed three people in Baghdad this month.
That has added to concern about radicalized fighters launching attacks when they return home, a threat the government has used to justify a package of major new intelligence legislation.
Last week, Attorney General George Brandis announced sweeping national security reforms that would make it easier to track Australian citizens believed to have fought overseas both while they were abroad and after they returned home.
Brandis told the ABC that concrete evidence had now emerged to support those concerns.
"There is evidence that they are trained in terrorist tradecraft to perform acts of domestic terrorism in the event that they return either to their home countries or go elsewhere after they have been in theater," Brandis said.
"So that is a new and very alarming development."

Keypoints to Know about EBOLA

To help provide a better understanding of the dreaded Ebola virus which claimed its first victim in Nigeria last week, the U.S. State Department, in consultation with medical specialists at the Embassy, with guidelines from the centre for Disease Control and the World Health Organisation, WHO, issued an EBOLA ALERT to allay people’s fears

• The suspected reservoirs for or carriers of Ebola are fruit bats.

• Transmission of Ebola virus to humans is thought to originate from infected bats or primates that have become infected by bats.

• Undercooked infected bat and primate (bush) meat transmits the virus to humans.

• Human to human transmission of Ebola virus is only achieved by physical contact with a person who is acutely and gravely ill from the Ebola virus or their body fluids.


• Transmission among humans is almost exclusively among caregiver family members or health care workers tending to the very ill.

• The virus is easily killed by contact with soap, bleach, sunlight, or drying. A washing machine will kill the virus in clothing saturated with infected body fluids.

• A person can incubate the virus without symptoms for 2-21 days, the average being 5-8 days before becoming ill.

.Carriers of Ebola virus ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS until they are acutely ill.

• Only when ill does the viral load express itself first in the blood and then in other bodily fluids (to include vomit, feces, urine, breast milk, semen and sweat).

• If you are walking around you are not infectious to others.

• There are documented cases from Kikwit, DRC of an Ebola outbreak in a village that had the custom of children never touching an ill adult,

. Children living for days in small one room huts with parents who died from Ebola did not become infected.

• You cannot contract Ebola virus by handling money, buying local bread or swimming in a pool.

Courtesy U.S. Department of State

Osun Campaign

 Muiscian Lagbaja over the weekend reportedly turned down an offer by the Iyiola Omisore Campaign Organisation to perform at the grand finale rally & reception for Pres. Jonathan scheduled to hold in Osogbo, Osun State, next week.

According to The Nation, Lagbaja was approached to entertain supporters of Omisore, the candidate of PDP in the up-coming governorship election in Osun State, but he declined the offer, saying;


"Though the court of the land discharged and acquitted you (Omisore) in the murder case against the former Minister of Justice in Nigeria, the late Cicero of Esa-Oke & foremost nationalist, Chief Bola Ige, I have deep-rooted innermost conviction that you are culpable in the death of my mentor and benefactor. If you offer me all the allocation of Osun State during your four-year-tenure peradventure you win (which I seriously doubt), I will not perform for Iyiola Omisore governorship election.”