Meningitis outbreak in Nigeria escalates as 489 killed by the disease

The alarming rate of the meningitis outbreak in Nigeria rises by the day

The death toll from Nigeria’s meningitis outbreak has reached 489 as authorities race against time to raise over a billion dollars to import vaccines to stop its spread, Health Minister Isaac Adewole said on Tuesday.

Adewole told an emergency meeting of village heads and top politicians in northwestern Kaduna state the disease had so far escalated to 26 out of the country's 36 states and that at least 21 million people were in grave need of the vaccine.

“So far, 489 deaths have been confirmed in 4,637 cases recorded as of April 10. We call on the traditional institutions and leaders to help circulate the message that our people must come forward to be vaccinated,” he said.

“All aspects of the mass media must be engaged to educate the people on the safety measures,” he added.

The minister said the U.K. government had delivered some 823,000 doses of the vaccine for type-C meningitis while a million doses for type A meningitis have been received from the World Health Organization.

Meningitis is the swelling of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord known as the meninges, and is usually caused by an infection of the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord.

The latest outbreak is identified as largely from type C meningitis -- the first time such a strain has ravaged Nigeria.

Experts say the most common symptoms of the highly infectious disease are fever, headache and neck stiffness.

Nigeria’s Center for Disease Control said meningitis is airborne, and can also be contacted through respiratory secretions, advising people to ensure proper ventilation and preserve good personal hygiene.

A total of 33 were reported killed  in 2016 from the disease, while 131 died in 2015 across 28 states and the capital city, Abuja.

Nigeria falls in what is known as the meningitis belt in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Man slits daughter’s throat for spending time on Facebook

How would slitting the throat of your daughter stop her from spending time on the internet

 41 year old man, identified as Joi has been apprehended in Phatthalung, Thailand for inflicting serious injuries on his 13-year-old daughter.

The incident occured after argument ensued between Joi and his daughter over the amount of time she was spending on Facebook and other social media platforms.

The suspect slit her throat and then locked her in a rented apartment in Phetchaburi’s Muang district.

According to Komchadluek, Joi was arrested at a checkpoint in Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Thap Sakae district while trying to escape with his youngest daughter.

When interrogated, Joi told police he attacked the girl out of anger after they argued about her spending too much time on Facebook and other social media sites.

However, Joi’s 44-year-old wife said her husband did not like the girl spending a lot of time on social media for fear it would influence negatively on her school work.


She, however, denied the allegation that the attack was as a result of sexual abuse.

She added that her husband was naturally aggressive and had hit the girl before over her social med
ia activities.

She also said that Joi had before now, threatened to kill all the family members as he was jealous and paranoid that she would go back to her former lover.

She said her daughter is recovering in hospital under close medical supervision.

Police said the husband had earlier been declared wanted under a court-issued arrest warrant in connection with a murder case in Trang’s Muang district on August 14, 2007.

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Tilting your phone device can allow hackers to get your pin

Take security measures in order no to allow criminals to hack your device

Experts in the Cyber world at Newcastle University recently discovered that criminals use motion sensors in phones to track hand and finger movements to hack users’ PINs and passwords.

The increase in the popularity of gaming and fitness apps has contributed to smartphones and other Internet of Things devices being equipped with as many as 25 sensors, from cameras to gyroscopes that track tapping, clicking and scrolling and are able to spot unique motion patterns. 

“Many of these sensors are used in apps without asking for permission from users,” Maryam Mehrnezhad, a cyber expert at the university, told news a soursce. “This leaves the door open for hackers.” Cameras and GPS are usually the only sensors that allow  permission, she added.

The scientists warn that background apps and web pages could host hacking codes able to access the motion sensors on your phone to obtain patterns that lead to your private information .

So apps should be closed when not in use. They also advise that PINs and passwords should be reset  regularly, and operating systems and apps should constantly be updated. 

The researchers discovered that users were more worried about being hacked through cameras, GPS and microphones on their devices than the rest of the sensors, so-called “silent sensors”. The study shows that users believed cameras could use face recognition to spy on them, or they might say their PIN out loud and the microphone could pick it up. 

However, the team found out that risk levels for motion sensors are much higher. Such sensors can decipher four-digit PINs with 70% accuracy on the first guess and 100% by the fifth guess from just the tilting movements of phone devices. 

But not everyone believes the research. “The amount of training required to even semi-reliably extract details doesn't make this sound like a terribly effective way to spyy on people,” said Graham Cluley, independent cyber security analyst. “If you really wanted to spy on someone, there are easier ways to do it than this.” 

The Newcastle team is confident the danger is there, though: it has even informed tech giants such as Google and Apple and is “working closely with the industry to get a solution for this problem,” said Mehrnezhad. “It is a complex problem and we want to outline a solution which keeps a good balance between security and usability.” 

That’s not the only cyber risk to our phones. Using public WiFi hotspots for shopping and banking transactions can also "lead to cyber criminals stealing your information," said David Emm, principal security researcher at cyber security company Kaspersky Lab. Emm added that using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in public places that "create a personal, secure tunnel for each user and ensure that online activities stay private," as well as downloading a security app for your phone. 

The researchers are now studying wearables, such as fitness trackers linked to online profiles, which could be used to interpret the user’s wrist movements and other actions, to see what cyber security threats they creat.  

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Trump, US to cut the tentacles of terror of Boko Haram as it sells attack planes to Nigeria

Terror of Boko Haram to end as US sells attack Plane to Nigeria

The US under the Donald Trump administration is thrusting to sell 12 high-tech aircraft to Nigeria for its campaign against the terror attacks of Boko Haram , according to US officials.

The officials who spoke under anonymity to a news source, said the US Congress is expected to receive formal notification within weeks, kick-starting a deal with Nigeria that Bar­rack Obama had planned to approve at the very end of his tenure in office.

One of the officials said the deal will call for Nigeria to purchase up to 12 Embraer A-29 Super Tucano aircraft with sophisticated targeting gear for nearly $600 million.

The terms of the sales were however not revealed as the officials requested anonymity to speak about internal diplomatic conversations

.

It would be recalled that Nigeria under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, had been making efforts to purchase fighter planes from the US which did not work out before he left office.

Though President Donald Trump is said to have made clear his intention to endorse the sale of the aircraft, the National Security Council is still working on the issue.

The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Bob Corker, said that he supported the A-29 deal to Nigeria. Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Armed Ser­vices Committee, also said he supports the sale.

It is expected that the A-29 sale would strenghten the U.S. relationship with Nigeria and satisfy Trump’s priorities to support nations fighting ter­rorists to cut their tentacles, boost U.S. manufacturing and create high-wage jobs at home. The A-29 aircraft, which allow pilots to spots targets at night.

When Trump called Presi­dent Muhammadu Buhari who was on medical vacation in the United Kingdom, in February, he gave assurance of the U.S. readiness to sign a new deal in helping Nigeria in terms of military weapons to combat terrorism.

A White House statement that provided a summary of the call said “President Trump expressed support for the sale of aircraft from the United States to support Nigeria’s fight against uprising and ending the threat.

Doubts over Syria attack as regard the Chemical weapon used

suspicion increases over the chemical weapon used in Syria

In defence of  President Barack Obama's resolution not to use his chemical weapons “red line” against Syria in 2013, Obama and other former officials frequently pointed to a U.S.-Russia accord to remove Syrian stockpiles as proof that the president got results without resorting to a military attack.

While it's true that some 1,300 tons of Syria's declared chemical weapons and precursors were removed under the agreement, serious concerns always subsisted that not all such armaments or production facilities were declared and destroyed .

Those concerns, expressed publicly and privately by United Nations and other officials almost since the deal was struck in September 2013 in Geneva, gained acceptance last week when President Donald Trump ordered missile strikes on a Syrian air base in retaliation for the most recent chemical weapons attack blamed on the Syrian government.

Obama administration officials, starting with the president himself, often used nuanced words in declaring the 2013 deal a success. At times, they qualified their proclamations by referring only to the removal of Syria's  stocks. Other times they have been less careful, as was Obama in a “60 Minutes” interview just five days before he left office earlier this year.

Obama: “I think it was important for me as president of the United States to send a message that in fact there is something unusual about chemical weapons,” he disclosed this in CBS program when asked about criticism of his decision not to follow through with attacks he had threatened

 Obama's comments shined over doubts expressed by his own national security team and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that Syria had truly abandoned its stocks or ability to produce more. When that group declared in June 2014 that the program to eliminate the stockpiles had been completed, Secretary of State John Kerry praised the result

Kerry also noted the continued attacks with chlorine gas, which is not an internationally banned substance but isn't supposed to be used in weapons. Chlorine was not numbered in the 2013 agreement. He added that “the international community has questions with regard to Syria's declaration that must be adequately answered.”

Those questions were never addressed and Kerry's caution was well founded. Less than three months later, Kerry gave another statement in response to chlorine attacks that pointed again to “deep concerns regarding the accuracy and completeness of Syria's declaration.” This, he said, “raises especially troubling concerns that continued chemical attacks on the Syrian people by the regime could occur.”


In an April 2016 report to Congress, the State Department went further, saying Syria was “in breach” of the Chemical Weapons Convention and  may retain chemical weapons as defined by the treaty.
More so, in a January 16 National Public Radio interview, Obama's former national security adviser, Susan Rice, presented the 2013 agreement as a success. She said the Obama administration had found a solution that actually removed the chemical weapons that were known from Syria, in a way that the use of force would never have accomplished.

Between June 2014, when the destruction and removal program was accomplished and January 30 of this year, the U.N. Human Rights Council's commission on Syria documented at least 13 occasions of chemical weapons attacks in Syria, all believed to have used chlorine. Western experts say sarin, a nerve agent, was used in the attack last week that killed more than 80 people.