deaths

Monsoon downpours cause floods and landslides as climate change and El Nino disrupt rainfall patterns.

Floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains have killed more than 100 people across India since July, according to official data, with thousands forced to flee flooded homes.

The annual monsoon brings rain that farmers depend on, but scientists say climate change is making it increasingly deadly across South Asia.

This year’s toll spans several states. Assam has been hit hardest, with at least 87 dead, and Sivasagar district alone accounting for 47.

Kerala has recorded at least 15 deaths and seven missing after days of heavy rain, Chief Minister VD Satheesan said, with more than 10,000 people sheltering in more than 300 relief camps in the state.

A report by the public state broadcaster said that Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir has seen at least 31 killed by intense rain bursts.

Lightning strikes have killed at least 14 people in Jharkhand, most of them farm workers caught in open fields. Jharkhand saw more than 200 deaths in 2025, mainly attributed to “lightning associated with thunderstorms”, the India Meteorological Department said in January.

Monsoon-related deaths are an annual occurrence across India after the region’s long summers when many parts of the country face water scarcity and drought.

The pattern extends beyond India’s borders. In Sri Lanka, at least eight deaths and 12,000 displaced from monsoon flooding have been recorded. This happened while the country’s eastern regions were in the grip of a severe drought, with authorities having to transport drinking water for residents in tanker trucks.

Sri Lanka’s government said last month that the extreme weather stems from this year’s El Nino, a climate pattern that warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. It occurs when normal east-to-west trade winds weaken or reverse, pushing warm water eastward and significantly disrupting global weather and rainfall.

The FO-backed Travel Health Pro site has completed new review and warned of new high levels of Brits returning with disease

Officials have issued a new list of countries people need to be wary of after ‘UK deaths’ caused by a disease. The Travel Health Pro site, which is backed by the UK’s Foreign Office said people need to take precautions at these 13 locations.

The United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued new guidance this summer on how to avoid getting malaria. Travel Health Pro added: “Each year several UK travellers die from malaria after visiting malaria risk countries, with most travellers who catch malaria reporting travel to Africa.” To read the guidance click here.

2,004 imported malaria cases were reported in the UK in 2023 (returning to pre-pandemic levels), up from 1,369 in 2022

Most affected individuals had traveled to Africa, particularly11 visiting friends and relatives.

Travel Health Pro said this week it has completed a review and has now published new risk maps for the key countries:

• Belize
• Botswana
• Dominican Republic
• Eswatini
• French Guiana
• India
• Myanmar
• Namibia
• Papua New Guinea
• Saudi Arabia
• South Africa
• South Korea
• Sudan

Malaria is a serious febrile illness due to infection of red blood cells with a parasite called Plasmodium and is transmitted by mosquitoes.

Clinical symptoms and signs of malaria

(These symptoms and signs are taken from the UKMEAG malaria treatment guidelines.)

Non-specific symptoms of malaria:

• fever, sweats or chills
• malaise (vague discomfort)
• myalgia (muscle pain, tenderness)
• diarrhoea
• cough

Major features of severe or complicated falciparum malaria in adults:

• impaired consciousness or seizures
• renal impairment (oliguria less than 0.4 millilitre per kilogram (ml/kg) bodyweight per hour or creatinine more than 265 micromoles per litre (μmol/l))
• acidosis (pH less than 7.3)
• hypoglycaemia (less than 2.2 mmol/l)
• pulmonary oedema or acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)
• spontaneous bleeding or disseminated intravascular coagulation
• shock (algid malaria)
• haemoglobinuria (without G6PD deficiency)

Travel Health Pro added: “All travellers visiting areas where malaria occurs are at risk of acquiring the disease, particularly migrants to the UK who were born in malaria risk areas and return to visit friends and relatives in their country of birth. Any immunity travellers may have acquired in their country of origin wanes rapidly on migration to a country with no risk of malaria; their UK-born children will have no protection from the disease. Certain travellers are at increased risk of severe disease such as: pregnant women, those with an absent or poorly functioning spleen, children and older travellers.”

In terms of prevention it added: “Travellers should follow insect bite avoidance advice, including covering up with loosely fitting clothes, ideally long sleeves, long trousers and socks if out of doors. This helps to reduce biting mosquitoes’ access to skin.

“All travellers should be aware of the signs and symptoms of malaria and should be advised to seek immediate medical attention if these occur either whilst abroad or up to a year after their return. They should also let the health professional know they have visited a malaria risk area.

“No regimen is 100% effective, but a combination of preventive measures will give significant protection against the potentially severe consequences of malaria.

“Choice of malaria prevention tablets depends on the malaria species common in the area to be visited and whether there is resistance to any of the available drugs. Certain drugs may not be suitable for certain individuals due to existing medical problems or interactions with their regular medication.”

For more information click here.

Nairobi, Kenya – The death toll from the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has surged above 1,309, an extraordinary rise of more than 40 percent in just five days, government figures show, as a leading public health consultant says the virus is “spreading like a wildfire”.

Updated data released by the government on Saturday showed that as of Thursday, the total number of confirmed cases, including deaths, had climbed to 2,973. This was a 27 percent rise from the figure last Saturday.

The unprecedented rate at which cases are increasing and deaths are mounting has made the DRC epidemic the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak ever documented.

Compounding the danger, the virus spreading in the DRC is Bundibugyo, which is the rarest of the four variants of Ebola known to affect humans and currently has no approved vaccines or treatments.

Abdulsalami Nasidi, a public health consultant who helped establish the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the African Union’s public health agency, told Al Jazeera the lack of a proven vaccine meant the virus was “spreading like a wildfire.”

Nasidi said the epidemic was unfolding in an area of active hostilities, compounding the shortage of public health resources common to African governments confronting outbreaks.

Scientists are racing to find a way to slow the epidemic, and the University of Oxford’s Oxford Vaccine Group said a volunteer had received the first dose of a rapidly developed experimental vaccine on Friday.

“This is an important milestone for the trial, and marks the next phase in our multinational collaborative journey to develop a Bundibugyo ebolavirus vaccine,” said the Oxford team’s chief investigator, Katrina Pollock.

The largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in history killed more than 11,000 people out of at least 28,000 cases between 2013 and 2016, primarily in West Africa across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

That outbreak took about eight months to reach the first 1,000 deaths. The latest epidemic in the DRC has done so in less than 10 weeks.

“We must act now,” Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya wrote in a post on X last week. “If we do not stop it today, this will become the worst outbreak the world has ever documented.”

Al Jazeera’s Alain Uaykani, reporting from the DRC city of Goma, said the government’s response had lacked coordination and urgency, leaving medical personnel overstretched and working in poor conditions.

He said the death toll among health workers continued to climb on Saturday, with a doctor and a health worker among the latest victims.

More than 100 health workers have been infected since the outbreak was declared in May, and around 35 have died, a toll compounded by shortages of protective equipment and, in some communities, hostility from residents who question whether the disease is real.

An increasing number of healthcare workers at several medical facilities in the northeastern province of Ituri, the epicentre of the outbreak, have gone on strike over unpaid wages and unsafe working conditions.

Last week, dozens of workers at Rwampara General Hospital near Bunia went on strike. The hospital operates a major Ebola treatment centre, parts of which were set ablaze in May by angry residents who also chased after health workers fleeing in trucks.

The latest strike began on Saturday at the Elikya Ebola Treatment Centre in the provincial capital of Bunia. Activities were largely paralysed as doctors, nurses and security staff stopped work.

Approximately 100 workers held a protest outside the centre, saying unpaid bonuses were undermining morale and disrupting patient care.

“We need to be paid, because in the meantime the disease is spreading at the treatment centre,” Martin Bolombi, one of the striking workers, told The Associated Press. “I’ve already had five people die who are still inside there. A solution must be found for us,”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that the true number of cases could be more than double the official count, as insecurity continues to restrict access to affected communities.

Contact tracing now reaches roughly 80 percent of known contacts, he said, but response teams still cannot reach every village or deploy where they are needed most.

The United States and Canada have both restricted entry for travellers who have recently been in the DRC, measures that run counter to the WHO’s own guidance issued in May, when it declared the outbreak a global health emergency.

Tedros has called for a ceasefire in the conflict gripping eastern DRC, arguing that medical resources alone are not enough to tackle the crisis, and political action is needed to open up access for responders before the virus takes hold in provinces not yet affected.

The US military says it launched another round of strikes against Iran to “further degrade” its capabilities to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The strikes – the 10th consecutive night of attacks – come after US President Donald Trump vowed to punish Iran for the deaths of US soldiers.

Trump earlier said Iran had been hit “very hard” the previous night “in honour” of three US soldiers killed recently – two in Jordan and one in Iraq.

In response to the latest wave, Iran said it struck two oil tankers in the waterway, as well as US military assets in Bahrain and Kuwait, state news agency IRNA reported. President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran was now fighting a “full-scale war” with the US.

At the same time, Tehran said diplomatic messages were still being exchanged by both sides through intermediaries, despite a collapse of a ceasefire.

US Central Command (Centcom) said on X that the latest strikes had hit Iranian “military command centres, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems”.

Commercial vessels have continued to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, Centcom said.

Iran said rescue teams were removing the crews from the two oil tankers it had struck while attempting to transit through the vital waterway, according to the state news agency IRNA.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) said a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz had reported being struck by an unknown projectile, forcing its crew to abandon the vessel and board a lifeboat.

It was not clear whether the tanker reported by UKMTO was among those cited by Iran.

On Tuesday night the Department of Defense confirmed the identities of two of the US soldiers – Pte Isabella Gonzales, 19, from Texas, and Lt Tyler James Feehan, 25, from Hawaii – who were killed in an Iranian strike on the Muwaffaq Salti base in Jordan over the weekend.

Centcom said earlier a third service member also went missing in action after the attack, and unidentified remains were later found in the area.

Elsewhere in the region, Jordan’s military said late on Monday it had shot down three Iranian missiles as sirens sounded across the country warning of incoming fire.

Earlier in the day, Kuwait’s armed forces said they had intercepted Iranian drones.

Bahrain said drones launched by Iran had targeted its air navigation systems – but traffic remained unaffected.

On the US strikes the previous night, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that several cities had been hit including Tabriz, Chabahar, Konarak, Bandar Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini.

Iranian state media reported that two oil tankers had exploded as the vessels tried to cross the strait.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the tankers were going through what it called an “unsafe and hazardous southern route” of the strait and “exploded and were brought to a halt”. Centcom disputed the claims.

July 17 (UPI) — Laos authorities have charged the owner of a distillery whose methanol-laced alcohol killed six travelers, officials said Friday.

The mass poisoning claimed the lives of two Australian teenagers, two Danish women, a British woman and an American man in November 2024.

The tourists became ill and quickly died after consuming alcohol from a popular local bar in Van Vieng.

It was later discovered the drinks were tainted with methanol.

The Laos distillery owner was charged with selling food products harmful to health and operating an illegal business, according to the Danish authorities.

“The charges carry a penalty ranging from three months to four years’ imprisonment, as well as a fine,” Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement to Australia’s ABC.

“The case will formally remain open for 15 years, meaning that more serious charges carrying higher penalties such as negligent manslaughter may still be brought if sufficient evidence can be established.”

But relatives of the victims, as well as government officials, have expressed frustration at the charges, which could see the distillery owner in jail for as few as three months.

“The Australian Government is deeply frustrated and bitterly disappointed that authorities in Laos are not pursuing the most serious charges in relation to the methanol poisoning deaths of Australian citizens Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones,” said Penny Wong, the Australian foreign minister, in a statement. “This devastating news will only add to the immense pain and grief suffered by the families and friends of Holly and Bianca.”

Mark Jones, father of victim Bianca, said feeling “furious would be an understatement.”

“I don’t have words for the disgust that I have with what the Laos authorities are suggesting is meant to be justice for the deaths of six tourists,” he told ABC.

Kashmir clashes have killed 31 since June, leading UN rights chief Volker Turk to appeal for calm

The United Nations human rights chief has called for an independent investigation into deadly unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

On Friday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, urged Islamabad to launch “prompt, thorough and impartial investigations” into all civilian and security force deaths. At least 31 people have been killed in clashes since last month, in the run-up to regional elections at the end of this month.

The unrest has involved the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), an umbrella group of traders and activists.

While the movement initially formed to protest against rising food prices and utility tariffs, the current flashpoint centres on a legal dispute over legislative seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees. The JAAC demands the abolition of those seats, arguing they allow non-residents to alter local political outcomes.

UN officials expressed alarm over Pakistan’s decision to classify the JAAC as a proscribed “terrorist” organisation under domestic anti-terrorism laws.

The global body warned that utilising anti-terror mechanisms to criminalise peaceful assembly and enforce widespread internet blackouts raises severe freedom of association concerns.

The crisis has amplified the long-running diplomatic feud between nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan, which have both claimed the disputed Himalayan territory in full since their independence in 1947.

According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, the crisis hit a deadly new peak on July 14 during intense clashes in the Poonch division, where security forces attempted to clear roadblocks ahead of a planned JAAC “long march” to Muzaffarabad. The escalation resulted in nine deaths – seven civil activists and two law enforcement officers.

Defending the state actions during the violence, Poonch Divisional Commissioner Waheed Khan told Reuters that protesters had blocked a security convoy and attacked officials. “Police and security officials responded in self-defence.”

In New Delhi, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in an official statement released on Wednesday that the unrest was a “direct consequence of Pakistan’s decades-long systemic exploitation” of the region.

Turk has appealed for immediate calm, pushing for “meaningful and inclusive political dialogue” over security-led measures to defuse deep-seated grievances regarding regional autonomy and inflation.

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota prosecutors announced Monday that they have obtained key evidence in their ongoing investigations into fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during pitched protests against a federal immigration enforcement crackdown in the state earlier this year.

“Through the cooperation of our federal partners we have obtained the hard drives of previously withheld evidence in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said. “We have also obtained some of the physical evidence that was previously withheld, including Renee Good’s car.”

Statements, police body camera video and other evidence had previously been withheld by federal officials in the killings.

She said state and local investigators now also have in their possession Good’s damaged car.

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed in her car while leaving an anti-immigration enforcement protest in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surged through the region.

Her death and that of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse shot and killed by federal officers just weeks later during a Jan. 24 protest, sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in immigration enforcement.

“The wonderful thing now is we have all the evidence,” Moriarty said.

Investigators are going through all the evidence, including hard drives with statements, hours of video recorded by body-worn cameras and the car, Moriarty said.

“We need transparency. We need cooperation. Our community needs it,” she said. “Our democracy requires it.”

At the end of June, Minnesota Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison and Moriarty asked a federal judge to push out the deadlines in their lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice because they said they were in the midst of recently reinitiated “ongoing discussions” with the FBI about information sharing.

Those ongoing discussions with the FBI about information sharing are likely to affect Minnesota’s request for summary judgment in the case, Ellison and Moriarty wrote in their motion to the court.

The attorneys representing the federal government signed onto the motion.

Ellison said he remains “deeply troubled that the federal government spent more than half a year attempting to conceal this evidence from state investigators.”

“It should never have taken this long for Minnesota law enforcement to gain access to the federal government’s evidence,” he said in a statement. “I hope that this is the beginning of a major course correction on the part of the federal government.”

There have been at least eight deaths since the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign began last year, but nobody has been charged in connection with them.

A Minneapolis resident, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, was also shot and injured in his home while ICE agents were in pursuit of another man.

In May, Christian Castro, an ICE agent, was arrested and charged with assault as well as falsely reporting a crime in connection with that Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting.

Prosecutors say Castro, 52, fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh.

In April, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., another ICE agent, was charged with pointing his gun at a motorist and passenger on a Minneapolis highway.

Prosecutors said at the time it was the first criminal case against a federal officer involved in the Minnesota immigration crackdown.

On Monday, ICE was involved in the fatal shooting in Maine, according to state House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat.

Details of what transpired in Biddeford, a coastal city of about 23,000 people roughly 15 miles southwest of Portland, remain unclear.

Last week, an ICE agent in Houston fatally shot a Mexican national who had lived in the U.S. for decades as the homebuilder drove his construction crew to a job site.

The federal Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has acknowledged officers were looking for someone else when they attempted to stop Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s vehicle. The agency maintains Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle, prompting an officer to open fire in self-defense.

Marcelo and Boone write for the Associated Press.

July 13 (UPI) — Exceptionally hot weather in May and June was responsible for the heat-related deaths of at least 2,700 people in England and Wales, according to British research out Monday that found that human-caused climate change was a significant factor.

Temperature records for both months fell during heat waves May 21-29 and June 18-28, with the bulk of the fatalities — 2,200 — in June when the temperature rose to as high as 99.9 degrees Fahrenheit compared with average daytime highs of 68 degrees Fahrenheit, the Met Office said in a news release.

Researchers from Imperial College London, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Met Office modeled excess deaths — those over and above normal levels — during both heat waves using historical mortality records and established peer-reviewed methods.

Notably, almost 6 in 10 of fatalities during the May heat wave were attributed to additional heat contributed by human-caused climate change, compared with a little less than 4 in 10 during the heat wave in June, which was hotter and lasted longer.

The scientists said daytime maximum temperatures approximately 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they would have been without human-induced climate change had fueled temperatures that would have otherwise been far less likely to occur — making the heat waves far more hazardous to human health.

“We all love the sun, but people need to be aware that we are now seeing dangerous climate-change-fueled heat that is claiming lives, disrupting schools and hospitals and shutting down transport and infrastructure,” said Dr. Clair Barnes, Research Associate in Extreme Weather and Climate Change at Imperial College London.

“It’s time we woke up to the fact that we now live in a country with dangerously hot summers. To protect people during future extremes, we must urgently adapt to the reality of the climate we now have, and double down on global efforts to reach net zero emissions to stop this from getting worse,” she said.

Dr. Malcolm Mistry, Assistant Professor in Climate and Geo-spatial Modelling at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, expressed concern that only a few weeks into summer England and Wales had already experienced two record-breaking heat waves.

He warned that with spikes of extreme hot weather more frequent and more intense due to human activity, summer heat waves were “rapidly evolving into a major health risk for people in the United Kingdom.”

Mistry said it was critical that changes to homes, workplaces and critical infrastructure to cope with extreme heat kept ahead of rising health risks in order to protect the elderly, children, babies and other vulnerable groups.

The Met Office said 2026 has been exceptional with the two heat waves topping records that had stood since May 1944 and June 1976.

“For the time of year these events were extreme, even in our warmer climate,” said Climate Attribution Manager, Dr. Mark McCarthy.

The climate division of the U.K. Health Security Agency said that with periods of heat likely to become more intense, longer and more frequent as the world continued to warm, the study showed the “scale of risk associated with extreme heat and the growing threat climate change poses to our wellbeing.”

Continental Europe has also been in the grip of a more or less continuous heat wave since May that has placed health systems under huge pressure, triggered deadly wildfires that have burned through tens of thousands of hectares of woodland and scrubland, crippled power grids and forced schools to close.

The World Health Organization said Sunday that 1,300 excess deaths reported across Europe since June 21 were linked to the high temperatures.

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Europe was warming twice as fast as the rest of the world with 150 million people suffering the negative impacts of the extreme heat.

France’s Health Ministry said Sunday that there were 1,000 extra deaths between Wednesday and Saturday alone, compared with previous months.

The UK has experienced two record heatwaves this year, with temperatures in England reaching 35.1C in May and 37.7C in June.

More than 2,700 deaths across England and Wales have been linked to unprecedented heatwaves in the United Kingdom in May and June, according to new research.

There were 550 heat-related deaths between May 21 and 29, and nearly 2,200 people died between June 18 and 28, scientists estimated in the study published on Monday.

Researchers from Imperial College London, the Met Office and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used weather data, climate models and studies on excess deaths during the extreme weather to arrive at their estimate.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said it would publish its official estimate of heat-related deaths in the coming weeks, based on death records from recent heatwaves.

Climate change driving heatwaves

The UK and much of Europe have already experienced two record-breaking heatwaves this year, with temperatures in England reaching 35.1C (95.2F) in May and 37.7C (99.9F) in June.

“They were extreme heatwaves for the UK, and for all parts of Western Europe, and they’re particularly exceptional for the timing and how early in the year they occurred,” said Mark McCarthy, the science manager at the Met’s climate attribution team.

Scientists emphasised the role of climate change in making heatwaves more intense and frequent.

They estimated that maximum daytime temperatures were up to 4C (7.2F) higher than they would have been without global warming.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC), the body responsible for advising the British government on climate change, warned last year that the UK was “not ready” to deal with the consequences of climate change.

Lea Berrang Ford at UKHSA’s Centre for Climate and Health Security says the study released on Monday would “help illustrate the scale of risk associated with extreme heat and the growing threat climate change poses to our wellbeing”.

In a report published in May, it estimated that 92 percent of British homes could be too hot by 2050.

It said the government should set maximum temperature limits in the workplace, as well as invest in air conditioning for public buildings such as hospitals and schools in preparation for extreme weather.

The research on heat-related deaths in the UK comes as data showed that more than 10,000 excess deaths were recorded across Europe during the heatwaves across the west ⁠of the continent ⁠in late June.

EuroMOMO, a network backed ⁠by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization, said most of those deaths were among people aged 65 and above, with 9,000 excess deaths reported in that age range.

Scientists pooled national mortality statistics from 27 European countries in June and concluded that, without other notable factors such as COVID-19 outbreaks, the heatwave is most likely to have ⁠contributed to the spike of 10,650 excess deaths between June 22 and 28.

The number of deaths comes as healthcare workers threaten to walk off the job over a delay in payments.

At least 600 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have died from Ebola, as the number of confirmed cases of the illness rose to 1,759, according to government data.

The total numbers, released on Wednesday, were confirmed as of Tuesday, while 51 new cases and 20 deaths were recorded in the previous 24 hours.

The total of those infected does not include two cases of illness reported in Kisangani, the capital of the Tshopo province and one of the DRC’s biggest cities, as the test results were being validated, the government’s report said. They will be included in the official case total once confirmed.

One of those two cases is linked to the village of Nia-Nia in the Ituri province, where the first illnesses were reported. But the second illness “does not appear to have a geographic link” beyond Kisangani, according to the government.

As the situation worsens, healthcare workers in the Ituri province, the hardest-hit of the country’s three eastern regions affected by the outbreak, are walking off their jobs to protest against delay in payments.

In an official notice to national and provincial authorities over the weekend, front-line workers in Ituri threatened to strike if they were not paid in 24 hours. By Tuesday, some had already stopped working, although no official strike has been declared, The Associated Press news agency reported.

Some of the health professionals and other front-line workers told AP they had not been paid wages or bonuses since the Ebola outbreak was declared on May 15. They also said they were working with limited gear and treated unfairly by authorities and response teams.

“Since the Ebola virus disease outbreak was declared, we’ve been demanding payment for our work,” Dr Biensi Kano, a member of the epidemiological surveillance committee in Ituri’s capital, Bunia, told AP.

The strike comes at the start of the enrolment for clinical trials for the treatment of the Bundibugyo virus, which is responsible for this outbreak. The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola is generally considered less deadly than some others, but there is no approved vaccine.

By the time the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in May, the virus had already been spreading undetected for weeks through the mining towns of Mongbwalu, Rwampara and Bunia, before reaching neighbouring provinces, Al Jazeera’s Catherine Wambua-Soi reported from the DRC earlier this month.

BBC Weather says a large area of high pressure is currently building from the Azores towards Portugal and Spain and that by the weekend, heat is forecast to climb across France and southern Britain.

And as Europe braces for sweltering conditions, millions of Americans celebrating the July Fourth holiday weekend are already being affected by prolonged extreme heat and high humidity in parts of the central and eastern US.

Climate change is driving up temperatures around the world – but particularly in Europe. It is the fastest warming continent, heating up twice as fast as the global average, according to the Copernicus climate service.

This is causing increased summer heatwaves, greater pressure on Europe’s water supply, and more intense wildfires.

This summer’s record-breaking temperatures have already proved particularly deadly.

The number of deaths recorded between 22 and 28 June increased by 2,025 – 29% -in France, the Public Health France agency announced on Friday. Deaths rose by 62% in the Paris region alone.

It said the figure was likely an “underestimate” and mortality would “therefore be higher than these initial figures”.

Drowning deaths soared during the heatwave, with French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez saying on Saturday that 72 people had died by drowning since 18 June.

Meanwhile, unprecedented heat in the Netherlands last week led to about 480 excess deaths, Dutch authorities said on Thursday – most of whom were aged 80 and older.

Temperatures reached almost 40C in parts of the country, with most of the deaths reported in the south and east of the Netherlands where temperatures were highest.

While the Netherlands is expecting a cooler week ahead, hot weather is predicted again over the weekend elsewhere.

Temperatures are forecast to reach 40C in the south of France, with peaks of 36C to 37C expected around Bordeaux, Toulouse and Agen.

Météo-France has issued red alerts for Friday and Saturday for forest fires in the southern part of the country, warning that weather conditions meant the risk outbreak was “very high” compared to summer norms.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said nearly 7,000 fires had broken out since the start of the summer season, with about 8,700 hectares burned so far.

Nearly 3,000 people were evacuated after a wildfire ignited in the town of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer and spread to Canet-en-Roussillon on Thursday.

In the Iberian Peninsula, Aemet weather service has warned of the possibility of another heatwave.

Portugal’s government declared a state of alert which will remain in place until midnight on Tuesday. Temperatures are forecast to exceed 40C in some areas, with overnight temperatures above 25C.

In Spain, areas of the southwest are on orange alert as 40C is expected in some parts.

Research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) has found that a United Kingdom-United States pharmaceutical deal could cause 229,000 excess deaths as a result of the diversion of billions of pounds away from Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).

In December, the UK and US signed a pharmaceutical trade deal, under which the US government agreed not to impose tariffs on UK pharmaceutical and medical technology exports for the next three years.

In return, the British government committed to increasing NHS spending on new US medicines from 0.3 percent in 2026 to at least 0.6 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) by 2036. This means that medicine spending overall should increase from 10 percent to 12 percent of the NHS budget.

UK politicians defended the deal with Science Minister Patrick Vallance saying in April that the arrangement gives patients across the NHS access to “life-changing new medicines that they previously would have been denied”.

“Not only this, but as the first country in the world to benefit from a zero percent tariff on pharmaceuticals to the US, Britain’s life sciences sector will be further boosted,” Vallance argued.

But the research published in the BMJ found that the commitment to spend so much more on new branded medicines over the next decade without any increase in NHS funding will “create substantial opportunity costs elsewhere, having a direct effect on population health”.

Samuel Cross, a professor in the department of pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of Liverpool, who coauthored the report, said the agreement “benefits pharmaceutical companies and comes at a cost of NHS patients”.

“There’s really no way to sugar-coat that. The numbers speak for themselves,” Cross told Al Jazeera.

Here’s what we know about the report:

What is in the US-UK deal?

The agreement signed on December 1 was hailed as a landmark deal between British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump on pharmaceutical trade and pricing.

The US agreed not to impose tariffs on UK pharmaceutical and medical exports for the following three years – until January 19, 2029.

According to a policy paper published by the British government, the preliminary understanding of the agreement recognised that the US and UK shared a “mutual interest in developing a global medicines system that supports development and commercialisation of new innovations”.

 What did the research find?

In February, Vallance disclosed that funding for the increased spending on medicines would come from the Department of Health and Social Care, which funds the NHS in England, rather than the Treasury.

The study in the BMJ forecast that if spending targets are met and the economy grows as forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the NHS would need to spend an extra 1.3 billion pounds ($1.73bn) a year by 2028 – about 25 million pounds ($33.4m) a week. By 2036, this would rise to an extra 8.8 billion pounds ($11.74bn) a year – about 170 million pounds ($227m) a week). Over the course of the agreement, that would add up to about 44.7 billion pounds ($59.7bn) by the end of 2036.

“Costs are even higher if the impact on publicly funded adult social care is also considered – modelling of English local authority data indicates that every £1bn [$1.33bn] the NHS must find to fund this deal will increase the costs of adult social care by £118m [$157.5m] because of increases in morbidity and mortality,” the report found.

Ultimately, the study predicted, excess deaths are likely as a result.

“Even if we restrict attention to the direct effect of reductions in available NHS expenditure, by 2036 this deal is likely to result in roughly 229,000 excess deaths – more than during the COVID-19 pandemic between March 2020 and June 2022 (137,000). If the indirect effect on adult social care is also included, the increase in excess deaths is even greater (291,000),” the report stated.

The report added that the findings are “unsurprising” given the existing pressures on the NHS and the “large burden of unmet need in highly cost-effective areas of care”.

It also referred to shortfalls in NHS funding and pharmaceutical pricing as “opportunity costs”.

Cross said that in health economics, opportunity costs are the “key to all of this”.

“In the NHS, we have a finite budget – we’re not made of money – and if you take money away to pay for, in this case, more medicines. then that comes at an opportunity cost of the places that the money has been diverted away from,” he explained.

Which health sectors will be worst affected?

The research predicted that the greatest number of deaths would occur in cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal and cancer patients.

It added that there will also be broader harm caused to quality of life for patients in those sectors as well as “neurological, endocrine, musculoskeletal, and mental health problems”.

“Despite this evidence and reassurances that ‘frontline services’ will be protected, the NHS will need to fund this deal from allocations made six months before the deal was agreed. The evidence suggests that if additional public expenditure was available, it could be more effectively deployed within the NHS itself,” it added.

The report also called the government’s claims that the US-UK agreement would encourage pharmaceutical innovation in the country “uncertain”.

“Pharmaceutical research and development operate within a global market, of which the UK represents a relatively small share. As such, there is limited evidence that UK domestic pricing materially influences global investment decisions,” the report stated.

“Even so, evidence suggests in most cases the UK is already paying more than 100 percent of the long-term value of new medicines; incentivising production of new medicines under this deal will do long-term harm to the public health objective of the NHS,” it added.

Cross added that because money has in effect been diverted away from the NHS, there is no way for the government to offset the impact on the service.

“If the funds are used to pay for new medicines, we will lose positive health outcomes elsewhere, and that is as simple as that,” he said.

He called for the government to release an impact assessment to trigger a public discussion about how good the US-UK deal really is for Britain.

Deaths of immigrants held in US detention centres have surged during Donald Trump’s second term.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has called for an independent investigation into the severe uptick in deaths in migrant detention centres during President Donald Trump’s second term in office.

In a statement on Friday, Turk expressed concern over the lack of transparency over those deaths, at least 19 of which have occurred so far this year, according to US government statistics.

“Those responsible for violations of the law must be held to account, and the rights of the victims’ families to truth, justice and reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence must be upheld,” the UN rights chief said.

Deaths in immigrant detention centres have surged during Trump’s second term in office, a by-product of what rights groups and immigration lawyers have depicted as systematic neglect, inhumane conditions and abuses.

The Trump administration has sought to rapidly expand the network of immigrant detention centres, some operated by private contractors, as it seeks to carry out the mass deportation of immigrants in the US.

Trump stated in a social media post on Friday that his administration has the “Highest Average Daily Arrest Rate by ICE and CBP, including Total Detention, with Final Orders of Removal, than any other president, by far!”

The reported death of a Georgian man, Mamuka Artmeladze, in a detention facility in Louisiana on June 4 increased the number of fatalities so far this year to 19, compared to 33 last year and 11 in 2024.

“The mortality rate of deaths in ICE custody is at its highest level in over a decade and has more than doubled since Trump’s second term began,” the watchdog group Human Rights Watch wrote in a report on detention deaths earlier this month. “The rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration and more than two and a half times as high as that of the first Trump administration.”

That report said the 52 people who have died in detention during Trump’s second term ranged in age from 19 to 75 and came from 20 different nationalities.

Turk wrote on Friday that there have been “concerning allegations regarding the use of force” at such facilities and that five of the deaths recorded in 2026 were classified as suicides.

He also expressed concern over the reported use of solitary confinement, which is associated with a heightened risk of suicide and considered a form of torture by the UN after a period of 15 days.

“All these factors exacerbate vulnerability and raise serious concerns as to whether some of these deaths in ICE custody could have been prevented,” he said.

Events and public transport have been cancelled with public drinking banned

Health warnings have been issued for peopel across Europe including in France, Italy, Spain and Germany. France has been cancelling trains, concerts and sports events and cracking down on public drinking as an exceptional heat wave unfurled across parts of Europe.

Multiple drownings were reported as people sought relief in whatever water they could find About a third of France is under “red alert″ heat and temperatures reached 40C in some areas, in a country where air-conditioning is not widespread.

The forecast for Monday is even hotter. The Eiffel Tower and other Paris venues set up misting stations to cool crowds, among a raft of measures introduced by authorities to minimise risks. Tourists in Rome dunked in fountains.

Spain’s Basque Country cancelled some sports and cultural events. More than 200,000 people across Europe died from heat-related causes over the last four years, and most of the fatalities were preventable, the World Health Organisation’s Europe office said this month.

More above-average temperatures are expected this summer, which can cause heat exhaustion and life-threatening heat stroke. Human-caused climate change is tied to increasing extreme weather events and UN climate agency projections say the next five years should shatter more heat records.

A rapid study found that human-caused climate change was responsible for killing about 1,500 people in an unusually early European heat wave in May. In this latest European hot spell, French media reported that four children drowned on Saturday.

Summer drownings are an annual problem that health authorities say worsens during hot spells. France’s annual Music Day on Sunday was of particular concern. The nationwide summer solstice celebration involves thousands of concerts in village squares, rave venues and Paris clubs, bringing communities together and increasingly drawing British and other international visitors.

Some of the concerts outside Paris were cancelled. The French government banned public drinking in “red alert” zones, and ordered organisers of music day events to limit alcohol consumption to “preserve emergency services and allow medics to concentrate on taking care of the most vulnerable”.

Scores of French trains were cancelled, and the national rail authority dispatched thousands of extra staff to deal with potential problems as the heat threatened rails and electrical cables. Authorities are notably worried about people living in the baking streets, and elderly people in nursing homes or isolated in their homes.

About 15,000 older people died in France in a 2003 heat wave that became a national reckoning. The government mobilised emergency services and military forces for reinforced wildfire readiness, imposed tightened surveillance of water supplies to France’s many nuclear reactors, and ordered 845 schools to close on Monday.

Spain kicked off the summer with large parts of the country on alert because of temperatures expected to hover around 40C — even in the interior of Basque Country, a northern region that typically experiences cooler temperatures. Authorities have suspended outdoor sports and cultural activities in the region.

The heatwave is expected to scorch Spain at least until Wednesday. In Italy, authorities expanded heat warnings — referred to locally as “red flags” — to eight cities on Sunday in northern and central parts of the country.

Temperatures there are mostly in the upper 30s. At one farm outside Milan, owners set up fans and sprinklers to keep cows cool, while visitors to Milan Fashion Week huddled under parasols and clutched fans.

In Rome, tourists dunked their arms and occasionally their faces into the city’s famed fountain pools. The German Weather Service is forecasting temperatures of up to 37C for Monday and Tuesday, and up to 39C on Wednesday.

A 23-year-old man drowned on Saturday in a lake near Rheinstetten in the south-western region of Baden-Wurttemberg, the German news agency dpa reported. Three other people are missing after swimming in the Rhine River, a police spokeswoman told dpa.

Thunderstorms also threatened regions in Germany and Poland. French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu is convening a new government heat crisis meeting on Sunday, and ordered government ministers to plan for better adapting France to heat waves in the future — including “via air conditioning, if necessary”.

Israeli attack reportedly kills one person in central Gaza’s Bureij camp, as a disabled Palestinian is shot in the West Bank.

Israeli forces have carried out a deadly attack in a refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Palestinian media reports, as casualties continue to mount in the enclave despite a “ceasefire” declared months ago.

The Israeli drone attack in the Bureij camp on Saturday killed one person and injured two others, reported the Wafa news agency.

The Palestinian Information Center identified the person killed as Muawiya al-Aydi, a local municipality worker.

Further north, a separate Israeli attack injured a person at a gathering in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood, according to Wafa.

Despite a ceasefire technically in effect since October, Israel’s military has regularly attacked Gaza, over half of which is under Israeli military control in defiance of the ceasefire’s terms.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least two Palestinians have been killed and 11 injured in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 48 hours.

The ministry said 983 people have been killed and 3,122 injured in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire was declared.

Hamas has accused Israel of repeatedly violating the agreement through its continued attacks and by shifting the so-called “Yellow Line” that demarcates Israeli-controlled areas in Gaza.

“Israeli actions reflect its unwillingness to implement the ceasefire agreement and aim to blow up the negotiation track and thwart the efforts being made, while continuing escalation to serve political and electoral considerations,” said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem on Friday.

Disabled Palestinian shot, injured in West Bank

Israeli troops also carried out a series of violent raids in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, part of a pattern of near-daily operations since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

According to Wafa, Israeli forces deployed stun grenades and tear gas during two separate incidents near Bethlehem, causing numerous injuries: one during a raid on the Dheisheh refugee camp and the other while blocking access to the Solomon’s Pools reservoirs.

A disabled Palestinian man was also shot and injured in the town of Duma, near Hebron.

Wafa said Israeli forces shot the man, while Israeli media cited Israeli police as saying an Israeli settler was responsible. According to Israeli police, the settler felt threatened by the man who was carrying a rock.

Other Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians and vandalised property near Bethlehem, including assaulting Palestinian electrical workers and stealing water pipes, said Wafa.

May 15 (UPI) — The World Health Organization said Friday there have been 10 hantavirus cases reported from the MV Hondius cruise ship and three people have died.

The WHO held a press conference to share an update on the hantavirus outbreak Friday, days after passengers of the cruise ship disembarked to return to their home countries under quarantine. It previously reported 11 cases but that number was revised down to 10.

One American who recently had an inconclusive test has tested negative, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, director of the WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Management.

“As of today a total of 10 cases, including three deaths, have been reported to WHO, including eight people who were laboratory confirmed for Andes virus infection and two probable,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said during Friday’s press conference.

Forty-one people are being monitored for the hantavirus in the United States. Most U.S. passengers were transported from the ship to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where they were being monitored in a specially designed medical facility.

Stephen Kornfeld is the only American to test positive for hantavirus. He had flu-like symptoms while aboard the cruise ship and was admitted to the facility in Nebraska. He has since tested negative and has been moved into the facility’s quarantine unit.

“I physically feel great. I have felt great for many, many days,” he told ABC News.

On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a press briefing on its response to the hantavirus. Dr. David Fitter, incident manager for CDC’s hantavirus response, said the risk to the general public is “low.”

“Testing is recommended only for those with symptoms, and decisions are guided by the best available evidence,” Fitter said.

Fitter said the monitoring period for the U.S. passengers is 42 days. He noted that there were passengers who left the ship and returned home before the outbreak and they have been identified.

“Some of these people are at home monitoring their health in close coordination with their state and local health departments, with CDC supporting those efforts,” Fitter said.

Multiple burials have been reported by locals

At least 80 deaths have been reported as a country battles an outbreak of a highly contagious disease.

The deaths were confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s new Ebola disease outbreak in the eastern Ituri province, authorities said, as health workers raced to intensify screening and contact tracing to contain the disease. Officials first announced the outbreak on Friday, with 65 deaths and 246 suspected cases. Meanwhile, journalists in Ituri’s capital, Bunia, interviewed local people who recounted their fears and constant burials.

“Every day, people are dying … and this has been going on for about a week. In a single day, we bury two, three, or even more people,” said Jean Marc Asimwe, a resident of Bunia. “At this point, we don’t really know what kind of disease it is.”

Congolese health minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said late on Friday that there have been eight laboratory-confirmed cases, among them four deaths. Test results confirmed the Bundibugyo virus, a variant of the disease that has been less prominent in Congo’s past outbreaks.

This is the country’s 17th outbreak since Ebola first emerged in the country in 1976, the Associated Press reproted. Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted through bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, or semen. The disease it causes is rare, but severe and often fatal.

The suspected index case in the latest outbreak is a nurse who died at a hospital in Bunia, Mr Kamba said, with the case dating back three weeks to April 24. He did not say whether samples from the nurse were tested, but said the person presented symptoms suggestive of Ebola.

DR Congo has experience in managing Ebola outbreaks, but often faces logistical challenges in getting expertise and supplies to affected regions. As Africa’s second-largest country by land area, Congo’s provinces are far from one another and mostly battling conflict. Ituri, for instance, is around 620 miles from the nation’s capital, Kinshasa, and is ravaged by violence from Islamic State-backed militants.

The disease is so far confirmed in three health zones in the Ituri province, including the capital city, Bunia, as well as in Rwampara and Mongwalu where the outbreak is concentrated.

Foreign Office advice for Democratic Republic of the Congo

As of Saturday afternoon, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office had not given specific advice about travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in regards to the Ebola outbreak.

Its current advice, which it said remained valid on May 16, was that UK citizens should avoid travel to muliple parts of the country due to political instability.

It said: “If you are in North or South Kivu and judge it safe to do so, and if routes are available, you should leave. M23 rebels and Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) have captured the cities of Goma and Bukavu and the surrounding areas in North and South Kivu. M23 rebels and RDF captured the city of Uvira in December 2025, and then withdrew from the city in January 2026, though clashes continue in the surrounding areas. The situation remains highly unstable and unpredictable. Routes to depart Uvira, Goma and Bukavu are limited and may change at short notice.

“The border crossings between Rwanda and the DRC at Gisenyi-Goma and Ruzizi-Bukavu could close at short notice. Goma and Bukavu airports have been attacked and commercial flights are no longer operating from the airports.

“Support from the UK government is severely limited outside Kinshasa. You should not assume that FCDO will be able to provide assistance to leave the country in the event of serious unrest or crisis.”

The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to:

• The districts of N’djili and Kimbanseke in Kinshasa city south of the main access road to N’djili airport, in Nsele commune
• The N1 road in Kinshasa Province, between and including Menkao to the west, Kenge to the east, the border of Mai-Ndombe province to the north, and 10km to the south

The FCDO advises against all travel to within 50km of the border with the Central African Republic and to the provinces of:

• Haut-Uélé and Ituri, including the entire DRC-South Sudan border
• North Kivu
• South Kivu
• Maniema
• Tanganyika
• Haut-Lomami

It also advises against all travel to the Kwamouth territory of Mai-Ndombe Province. This is between, and including, the towns of Kwamouth, Bandundu and the southern border of Mai-Ndombe province. Further, it advises against all travel to the province of Kasaï Oriental and against all but essential travel to the provinces of Kasaï and Kasaï Central and to Bangoka International Airport in Kisangani.