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Thailand confirms first Asian case of new Mpox strain

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Thailand has announced its first confirmed case of a new, potentially deadlier strain of Mpox – the first in Asia, and second outside of Africa.

According to Thailand’s Department of Disease Control, the infected 66-year-old European man arrived in Bangkok from an unnamed African country on 14 August.

He began displaying symptoms the next day, and immediately went to hospital. It has since been confirmed he had contracted Mpox, and in particular the strain known as Clade 1b.

At least 450 people have died from Mpox in an outbreak centred in the Democratic Republic of Congo which started last year.

It has since spread to a number of nearby countries – including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, all of which were previously unaffected by Mpox.

Now a more worrying strain of Mpox called Clade 1b has been identified in the east of the DRC, which is being spread along the border and into neighbouring countries.

Sweden was the first place outside of the African continent to confirm a case of Clade 1b a week ago. The infected man had also recently travelled to an unnamed African country, Sweden’s public health ministry said at the time.

The infection in Thailand is the first confirmed case of Clade 1b in Asia.

Mpox is transmitted through close contact, such as sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person – but it is nowhere near as infectious as other viruses like Covid and measles.

But the spread of the new variant and its high fatality rate in parts of Africa has sparked concern among scientists, and led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a public health emergency of international concern.

Outbreaks can be controlled by spreading awareness of the disease, tracking close contacts and preventing infections with vaccines, though these are usually only available for people at risk or those who have been in close contact with an infected person.

Vaccines in Africa are in short supply, but there are plans for millions of doses to arrive in the DRC in the next week or so.

In Thailand, the Department of Disease Control has tracked down some 43 patients who were sitting in the rows near the unidentified man, and those who met him after he landed.

They will all be monitored for 21 days.

Thailand is also requiring people travelling from 42 “risk countries” to test on arrival.

Mpox causes flu-like symptoms and skin lesions. For most people, it’s a mild illness but it can be fatal.

The new strain spreading in central Africa is thought to be more deadly than previous ones – with four in 100 cases leading to death. Mpox is most common in the tropical rainforests of West and Central Africa and there are thousands of infections every year.

Another strain – Clade 2 – which is far milder, caused a global public health emergency in 2022. There are still cases of that Mpox strain in many countries.

(BBC News)

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Funeral of Pope Francis, today

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Dozens of world leaders and thousands of mourners are gathering for the funeral of Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday aged 88.

The service will begin at 10:00 local time (09:00 BST) in front of St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

More than 250,000 people came to pay their respects to the late pontiff over the three days he was lying in state, the Vatican says.

Preparations have begun for the conclave, the process by which cardinals will elect the next Pope.

In Sri Lanka, the government has declared today a national day of mourning in honour of the funeral of His Holiness Pope Francis.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism – Vijitha Herath will represent the Government of Sri Lanka at the funeral.

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TikTok astrologer arrested for predicting new Myanmar quake

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Myanmar authorities have arrested an astrologer for causing panic by predicting a new earthquake in a viral TikTok video.

John Moe The posted his prediction on 9 April, just two weeks after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake killed 3,500 people and destroyed centuries-old temples in the South East Asian nation.

He was arrested Tuesday for making “false statements with the intention of causing public panic”, Myanmar’s information ministry said.

John Moe The had warned that an earthquake would “hit every city in Myanmar” on 21 April. But experts say earthquakes are impossible to predict due to the complexity of the factors involved in such disasters.

In his video, which got more than three million views, John Moe The urged people to “take important things with you and run away from buildings during the shaking.”

“People should not stay in tall buildings during the day,” read its caption.

A Yangon resident told AFP that many of her neighbours believed in the prediction. They refused to stay in their homes and camped outside the day John Moe The said the earthquake would happen.

His now-defunct TikTok account, which has more than 300,000 followers, claims to make predictions based on astrology and palmistry.

He was arrested during a raid on his home in Sagaing, central Myanmar.

The areas of Mandalay and Sagaing were hit especially hard by the earthquake on 28 March, which prompted a rare request from the Myanmar junta for foreign aid.

That earthquake was felt some 1,000km away in Bangkok, where a building collapsed at a construction site, killing dozens.

(BBC News)

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China shares rare moon rocks with US despite trade war

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China will let scientists from six countries, including the US, examine the rocks it collected from the Moon – a scientific collaboration that comes as the two countries remain locked in a bitter trade war.

Two Nasa-funded US institutions have been granted access to the lunar samples collected by the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said on Thursday.

CNSA chief Shan Zhongde said that the samples were “a shared treasure for all humanity,” local media reported.

Chinese researchers have not been able to access Nasa’s Moon samples because of restrictions imposed by US lawmakers on the space agency’s collaboration with China.

Under the 2011 law, Nasa is banned from collaboration with China or any Chinese-owned companies unless it is specifically authorised by Congress.

But John Logsdon, the former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told BBC Newshour that the latest exchange of Moon rocks have “very little to do with politics”.

While there are controls on space technology, the examination of lunar samples had “nothing of military significance”, he said.

“It’s international cooperation in science which is the norm.”

Washington has imposed tariffs Chinese goods that go up to 245%, while Beijing has hit back with 125% tariffs on US goods.

US President Donald Trump previously hinted at a de-escalation in the trade war, but Beijing has denied that there were negotiations between the two sides.

In 2023, the CNSA put out a call for applications to study its Chang’e-5 moon samples.

What’s special about the Chang’e-5 Moon samples is that they “seem to be a billion years younger” than those collected from Apollo missions, Dr Logsdon said. “So it suggests that volcanic activity went on in the moon more recently than people had thought”.

Space officials from the US and China had reportedly tried to negotiate an exchange of moon samples last year – but it appears the deal did not materialise.

Besides Brown University and Stony Brook University in the US, the other winning bids came from institutions in France, Germany, Japan, Pakistan, the UK.

Shan, from the CNSA, said the agency will “maintain an increasingly active and open stance” in international space exchange and cooperation, including along the space information corridor under the Belt and Road Initiative

“I believe China’s circle of friends in space will continue to grow,” he said.

(BBC News)

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