Tag: Africa

Why we should all be worried about a vulture apocalypse

– July 18, 2022

A catastrophic decline of vulture populations in Africa and Asia is causing alarm among researchers, who fear that a “cascade” effect could lead to the spread of deadly old and new diseases, including plague, anthrax, and rabies.

For thousands of years, the birds have been synonymous with death and gluttony. “Where the corpse is, vultures will gather,” Jesus is quoted as saying in Matthew 24. But in reality, the birds serve us in ways that we are only just beginning to understand – helping to keep ecosystems and pathogens in check.

If the lion is the king of the savannah, the vulture is the hardworking, unsung grounds keeper. A flock of vultures can wipe a dead antelope clean in about 20 minutes, stopping the carcass from turning into a toxic soup leaking into water sources. Maggots and bacteria are the only things more effective at disposing of dead meat.

The birds’ digestive systems are thought to be tough enough to stop bacterial colonies of the plague, anthrax and botulism in their tracks. Some researchers believe vultures indirectly keep rabies infections in check by depriving rats and feral dogs of bountiful food. Certain species may even help disinfect the ground near carcasses with their highly acidic excrement.

But now, many vultures and other raptor species are diving beak first into the abyss. In the 1990s, vulture populations on the Indian subcontinent plummeted by about 99 per cent. Seven out of eleven of the species found in Africa are now on the verge of extinction.

“Vultures and other medium to large raptor species are probably the most threatened group of vertebrates on the planet,” said Shiv Kapila, director of the Naivasha Raptor Centre, 60 miles from the Kenyan capital. “The rate of decline is staggering. We still don’t know nearly enough about what all this means. We’re working on borrowed time,”

“If you screw up natural equilibriums that have developed over tens of millions of years, you can get what we call a trophic cascade effect,” he added, reaching up and giving Yusef, a seven-year-old Rüppell’s vulture with a broken wing, a helping hand down from the ledge.

“If you get rid of a hugely important component of an ecosystem – like a vulture which hoovers up dead meat – diseases can proliferate because they’re not being kept in check,” Mr  Kapila said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk

Ebola persists in survivors’ brains for years, re-emerging to spread & kill – study

RT – February 11, 2022

One of the deadliest infectious diseases on the planet, which is caused by Ebola virus (EBOV), may relapse, researchers have warned. A study, published on Wednesday and dubbed “groundbreaking” by the scientific community, has found that Ebola may be hiding in the brain of those thought to have recovered years ago following an antibody treatment.

Such persistent infections in survivors make them spread the virus again, “potentially causing a new outbreak,” according to researchers.

The study was conducted by a team at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). Having linked some recent Ebola outbreaks in Africa to persistent infection in patients who had previously survived the disease, researchers aimed to discover where exactly the virus could be sitting in the body, avoiding antibodies. To locate the hiding virus, they used a nonhuman primate model, which most closely recapitulates Ebola virus disease in humans.

They discovered “severe inflammation and massive Ebola virus infection” in the brains of about one in five macaque monkeys that had received monoclonal antibody (mAb) treatment. The virus persisted specifically in the brain ventricular system, in which cerebrospinal fluid is produced, circulated, and contained. Despite being cleared from all other organs with effective therapeutics, the virus was able to re-emerge to cause lethal disease, while also severely damaging brain tissues.

“These findings have implications for long-term follow-up efforts to reduce the individual (disease relapse/recrudescence) and public health (reignition of outbreaks) consequences of viral persistence in survivors of EBOV infection,” the authors warned.

https://www.rt.com

A “Biblical” Invasion Of Locusts Threatens To Cause Widespread Famine In The Horn Of Africa

– February 21, 2021

The locusts are back, and they are hungry.  Last year, an unprecedented plague of locusts devastated crops in eastern Africa, across the Middle East and throughout much of Asia.  Many were hoping that it would just be a one year phenomenon, but now the locusts have returned and one British news source is using the world “biblical” to describe this second wave.  At this moment, the Horn of Africa is being hit the hardest, and the UN is warning that this new infestation “threatens the livelihoods of more than 39 million people”…

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the next generation of locusts threatens the livelihoods of more than 39 million people in Ethiopia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya. Over recent months, the pests have been combated on 1.3 million hectares of land in the Horn of Africa. However, in northern and central Kenya, more than 15 districts, including many new areas, have already been severely affected by the second wave of locusts. Around 1.9 million people were already living in a precarious nutrition situation, which could now dramatically worsen.

One reporter recently had the opportunity to fly with a pilot that is tracking locust swarms in Kenya, and he was stunned when they came across a “swarm about twice the size of the City of London ready to devour every bit of vegetation in its wake”.

Can you imagine what it must be like for local farmers when millions upon millions of locusts suddenly show up in their area?

These locusts can literally wipe out an entire farm in as little as 30 seconds, and these swarms are capable of traveling vast distances in a single day…

Swarms can fly up to 150 kilometres a day with the wind, and a single square kilometre swarm can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

Apocalyptic footage shows huge swarm of locusts turning sky black – ‘No tree survived’

Alessandra Scotto di Santolo – December 17, 2020

A NEW generation of locust swarms is threatening to wipe out the livelihoods of farmers and herders across eastern Africa – deepening a food crisis in a region where 35 million people are already hungry, the United Nations warned on Wednesday.

From January to August, massive desert locust swarms swept across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, ravaging crops and decimating pasture in the worst outbreak in decades. Governments, supported by U.N. agencies and international charities, responded with large-scale aerial and ground spraying of pesticides to destroy the swarms, which scientists have linked to climate change.

But widespread rains in Ethiopia and flooding caused by a cyclone in Somalia last month have created favourable breeding conditions, allowing locust infestations to increase, said the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

“We have achieved much, but the battle against this relentless pest is not yet over,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu in a statement.

“We must not waver. Locusts keep growing day and night and risks are exacerbating food insecurity for vulnerable families across the affected region.”

Locust swarms are already forming in Somalia and Ethiopia and threaten to re-invade northern Kenya, while breeding is also underway on both sides of the Red Sea, posing a new threat to Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, said the FAO.

https://www.express.co.uk

‘The Next Jihad’: Evangelical leader, rabbi warn about ‘Christian genocide’ in Africa

Samuel Smith – November – 17, 2020

The rise of violent extremist groups throughout Africa, as well as the constant attacks against Christian communities in the continent’s most populated country, has religious leaders fearful that “the next jihad” is underway as world leaders seem to be rushing to address the problem.

“I know one thing has never really changed: No one gives a damn about Africa except for their natural resources or if there is going to be a big party because there is a peace treaty being signed,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, director of the global social action agenda of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights organization with over 400,000 family members.

“That’s just the truth and it’s a terrible truth. It might be one of the vestiges, frankly, of colonialism.”

Cooper teamed up with Rev. Johnnie Moore, a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, to author the new book The Next Jihad: Stop the Christian Genocide in Africa.

The book was written after the unlikely duo traveled together to Nigeria earlier this year to meet with dozens of Christian victims of terrorism from five different regions.

In recent years, Nigeria, the continent’s richest country, has dealt with the rise of Islamic terrorist groups in the northeast (Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province) and an increase of deadly attacks on farming communities carried out by militarized radicals from the Fulani herding community.

In the past few years, it’s been estimated that thousands of Christians have been killed while millions of Nigerians have been displaced from their communities. Some human rights groups have warned that attacks against Christian communities in Nigeria have reached the standard for genocide

https://www.christianpost.com

New, larger wave of locusts threatens millions in Africa

RODNEY MUHUMUZA – April 10, 2020

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Weeks before the coronavirus spread through much of the world, parts of Africa were already threatened by another kind of plague, the biggest locust outbreak some countries had seen in 70 years.

Now the second wave of the voracious insects, some 20 times the size of the first, is arriving. Billions of the young desert locusts are winging in from breeding grounds in Somalia in search of fresh vegetation springing up with seasonal rains.

Millions of already vulnerable people are at risk. And as they gather to try to combat the locusts, often in vain, they risk spreading the virus — a topic that comes a distant second for many in rural areas.

It is the locusts that “everyone is talking about,” said Yoweri Aboket, a farmer in Uganda. “Once they land in your garden they do total destruction. Some people will even tell you that the locusts are more destructive than the coronavirus. There are even some who don’t believe that the virus will reach here.”

Some farmers in Abokat’s village near the Kenyan border bang metal pans, whistle or throw stones to try to drive the locusts away. But mostly they watch in frustration, largely barred by a coronavirus lockdown from gathering outside their homes.

A failed garden of cassava, a local staple, means hunger. Such worries in the village of some 600 people are reflected across a large part of East Africa, including Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. The locust swarms also have been sighted in Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania and Congo.

https://apnews.com

A Plague Of “Billions” Of Locusts Threatens To Create Horrific End-Times Famine Across Africa

– January 27, 2020

Billions of locusts are eating everything in sight in east Africa right now, and every single day many more farms are being completely wiped out.  Unfortunately, authorities are telling us that what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg.  In fact, if extreme measures are not implemented immediately, authorities are claiming that this locust plague could literally get “500 times” worse in a few months.  But it is difficult to imagine conditions getting any worse than they are at this moment.  Ravenous locust swarms that are “the size of cities” are consuming crops at a staggering pace, and this could potentially cause famine on the African continent that is unlike anything we have ever seen before.

It can be difficult to imagine a plague of “billions” of locusts.  After all, there are only about 7 billion people living on the entire planet.

But this is actually happening.  Right now “billions of locusts” are absolutely devastating east Africa, and each one can eat “its own weight in food every day”…

Billions of locusts swarming through East Africa could prove disastrous for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods, experts have warned, amid increasing calls for international help.

Dense clouds of the ravenous insects, each of which consumes its own weight in food every day, have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades.

It would be hard to overstate what this is going to mean for the region.  According to the FAO, this plague is an “unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in the Horn of Africa”…

The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has described the situation as “extremely alarming,” representing an “unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in the Horn of Africa.”

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com