RABAT: Authorities in Morocco have been scrambling to contain an outbreak of measles, a contagious and potentially fatal disease that had nearly been eradicated in the kingdom but has rebounded as vaccination rates have fallen.
In Harhoura, a small coastal town near Rabat, 13-year-old Salma and her nine-year-old brother, Souhail, sit quietly in a public clinic, waiting for their second shot of measles vaccine.
Their grandmother, Rabia Maknouni, said it was after a campaign at school that the family realised they had been missing doses of the vaccine.
"We didn't know they hadn't completed their vaccination," she said. "Their parents panicked when they heard about the outbreak."
Measles is highly contagious, spreading through respiratory droplets and lingering in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves an area.
The disease causes fever, respiratory symptoms and a rash. In some cases, it also leads to severe complications, including pneumonia, brain inflammation and death.
Even though vaccination remains the best protection against the disease, immunisation rates have fallen in recent years.
The vaccine hesitancy is driven by misinformation, which has lingered since the Covid-19 pandemic.
In Morocco, authorities have scaled up vaccination against measles in recent months in a bid to control the outbreak.
More than 10 million schoolchildren have had their immunisation status checked since October last year, said Mourad Mrabet, an official at the National Centre for Public Health Emergencies.
Since late 2023, authorities in the North African country have reported more than 25,000 measles cases and 120 deaths, Mrabet said.
The outbreak has raised concerns in France, Morocco's former colonial ruler and leading foreign investor and trade partner.
The French public health agency has described the epidemic as reaching "historic levels" and urged travellers to check their vaccination status before visiting the kingdom.
Moroccan authorities say the number of new infections has been steadily declining in recent weeks.
They have promised to continue their vaccination programme until late March with the aim of achieving 95-percent cover, sufficient for herd immunity.
But they acknowledge they still have some way to go. The health ministry said only about half of those requiring a booster had received one by early March.
In January, government spokesman Mustapha Baitas blamed "false information that fuels public fear of vaccines".
Mrabet attributed it to "the influence of the global anti-vax movement".
In the United States, growing distrust of public health policy and pharmaceutical companies has contributed to falling vaccination rates.
In February, an unvaccinated child died of measles in Texas, where an outbreak has been spreading.
And last week, an adult from New Mexico -- which neighbours Texas -- also died from the disease.
To tackle misinformation, Moroccan health officials have launched awareness campaigns, including in schools, to explaining the importance of vaccination.
The education ministry's head of health programmes, Imane El Kohen, said one of the "deceptive allegations" was the claim that the measles vaccine is a fourth dose of the Covid vaccine.
Hasna Anouar, a nurse in Harhoura, has been involved in vaccination status check programmes for years.
She said that before the Covid-19 pandemic, there was little resistance to routine childhood immunisations.
But now, some parents have developed a "fear of vaccines," she said. "We have to sit down with them and explain why these shots are necessary."
Health rights activist Ali Lotfi put the decline in the vaccination rate down to "lockdown and the fear of being contaminated in hospitals".
"Afterwards, the health ministry didn't do enough to address the backlog," he said.
Morocco fights measles outbreak amid vaccine misinformation
https://arab.news/y7sw5
Morocco fights measles outbreak amid vaccine misinformation
- In Morocco, authorities have scaled up vaccination against measles in recent months in a bid to control the outbreak
- To tackle misinformation, Moroccan health officials have launched awareness campaigns, including in schools, to explaining the importance of vaccination
Israel says it downed Yemen-fired missile claimed by Houthis
- The insurgents have carried out dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel since the Gaza war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack
- The Houthis have also repeatedly targeted merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted” before entering Israeli territory, the military said.
The Houthis, who control large parts of Yemen, said they targeted an air base “east of the occupied area of Haifa” with a “hypersonic ballistic missile.”
The insurgents have carried out dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel since the Gaza war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.
They are part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and the United States, presenting themselves as defenders of Palestinians in Gaza.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement that the group’s “support operations will continue until the aggression against Gaza ceases and the siege is lifted.”
The Houthis have also repeatedly targeted merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, drawing retaliatory strikes by Israel, the United States and Britain.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the United States has intensified its bombing campaign, with almost daily strikes for more than a month.
Houthi media said this week that US strikes on the movement’s stronghold of Saada killed at least 68 people, all Africans being held at a “center for illegal migrants.”
The United States said in April its strikes since March 15 had hit more than 1,000 targets in Yemen and killed “hundreds of Houthi fighters.”
On Friday, the Houthi-run Saba news agency said three people were wounded in a US air strike the previous night in Al Wahda district, citing a preliminary toll.
All aboard Gaza aid flotilla confirmed safe, Malta government says
- Maltese government: ‘The vessel had 12 crew members on board and four civilian passengers; no casualties were reported’
VALLETTA: Everyone aboard an aid flotilla for Gaza that was hit by drones in international waters off Malta overnight are “confirmed safe,” the Maltese government said in a statement on Friday.
“The vessel had 12 crew members on board and four civilian passengers; no casualties were reported,” the statement said, adding that a nearby tug had been directed to aid the vessel.
“The tug arrived on scene and began firefighting operations. By 1:28 a.m. (2328 GMT Thursday), the fire was reported under control. An Armed Forces of Malta patrol vessel was also dispatched to provide further assistance,” the government said.
“By 2:13 a.m., all crew were confirmed safe but refused to board the tug ... The ship remains outside territorial waters and is being monitored by the competent authorities,” the statement concluded.
Sudan’s war-ravaged Khartoum tiptoes back to life after recapture by army
- In a lightning offensive in March, the army recaptured the city center, including the presidential palace and the airport
- Within the next six months, the UN expects more than two million displaced people to return to the capital if security conditions allow
KHARTOUM: In war-ravaged Khartoum donkey carts clatter over worn asphalt, the smell of tomatoes wafts from newly reopened stalls and pedestrians dodge burnt-out cars left by two years of war.
Life is slowly, cautiously returning to the Sudanese capital, weeks after the army recaptured the city from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who had held it since soon after fighting erupted in April 2023.
Stallholder Maqbool Essa Mohamed was laying out his wares in the large market in the southern neighborhood of Kalakla.
“People feel safe again,” he said. “Business is moving and there’s security.”
Just weeks ago this market was deserted – shops shuttered, streets silent and snipers perched on rooftops.
In a lightning offensive in March, the army recaptured the city center, including the presidential palace and the airport, and the RSF was shed back into the western outskirts of greater Khartoum.
But the RSF remain within artillery range of the city center, as they demonstrated twice this week with a bombardment of the army’s General Command headquarters last Saturday followed by shelling of the presidential palace on Thursday.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million.
In greater Khartoum alone, more than 3.5 million people have fled their homes, leaving entire neighborhoods abandoned.
Within the next six months, the UN expects more than two million displaced people to return to the capital if security conditions allow.
Kalakla, a neighborhood on the road to Jebel Awliya – once an RSF bastion – suffered heavily during the war.
Its location close to a military base made it a prime target, with RSF fighters encircling the area and cutting off food and water for the civilians trapped inside.
In July 2023 activists called it “uninhabitable.”
But now women can be seen on the roadside brewing tea – a common sight before the war – as a man dragging his suitcase stands beside a minibus, newly arrived in the war-torn neighborhood.
Public transport has yet to return to normal as fragile security conditions and crumbling infrastructure impede movement.
With buses packed to capacity, weary commuters climb atop vehicles, preferring the risky ride over an indefinite wait for the next bus – which may not come for hours.
From January, the army began advancing in the greater Khartoum area and by late March had wrested back control of both Khartoum and the industrial city of Khartoum North just across the Blue Nile.
Standing amid the wreckage of the presidential palace, army chief Burhan declared: “Khartoum is free.”
The paramilitaries are now confined to the southern and western outskirts of Omdurman, the third of the three cities that make up greater Khartoum.
Both sides in the conflict have been accused of war crimes, including deliberately targeting civilians and indiscriminately bombing residential neighborhoods.
The RSF in particular has been notorious for systematic sexual violence, ethnic cleansing and rampant looting.
“They left nothing,” said Mohamed Al-Mahdi, a longtime resident. “They destroyed the country and took our property.”
Today, Mahdi steers his bicycle through the recovering market, where vehicles, animal carts and pedestrians jostle for space under the wary eye of the army.
Earlier this month, Sudan’s state news agency reported that the army-backed government plans to restore the water supply to the area – a basic necessity still out of reach for many.
But for vendor Serelkhitm Shibti, the costs of the war are not about lost income or damaged infrastructure.
“What pains me is every drop of blood that fell in this land, not the money I lost,” he said.
Israeli military strikes near Syria’s presidential palace after warning over sectarian attacks
DAMASCUS, Syria: Israel’s air force struck near Syria’s presidential palace early Friday hours after warning Syrian authorities not to march toward villages inhabited by members of a minority sect in southern Syria.
The strike came after days of clashes between pro-Syrian government gunmen and fighters who belong to the Druze minority sect near the capital, Damascus. The clashes left dozens of people dead or wounded.
The Israeli army said in a statement that fighter jets struck adjacent to the area of the Palace of President Hussein Al-Sharaa in Damascus. It gave no further details.
Pro-government Syrian media outlets said the strike hit close to the People’s Palace on a hill overlooking the city.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus.
US meets Syria’s top diplomat, urges action to protect Druze minority
- State Department spokeswoman confirms meeting in New York between US and Syrian delegations
WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday confirmed meeting Syria’s top diplomat and called on the interim authorities to take action on concerns, as violence flares against the Druze minority.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani last Friday raised his new country’s flag at the UN headquarters, marking a new chapter after the overthrowing in December of longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce confirmed that US representatives met the Syrian delegation in New York on Tuesday.
She said that the United States urged the post-Assad authorities to “choose policies that reinforce stability,” without providing any assessment on progress.
“Any future normalization of relations or lifting of sanctions... will depend on the interim authority’s actions and positive response to the specific confidence-building measures we have communicated,” Bruce told reporters.
The demands were in line with those set out in December by the United States, then led by president Joe Biden, and include protecting minorities and preventing a role in Syria by Assad’s ally Iran.
Since the Islamist fighters toppled Assad, sectarian clashes have repeatedly flared.
The spiritual leader of the Druze community on Thursday alleged a “genocidal campaign” after two days of violence left 102 people dead.
“We urge the interim authorities to hold perpetrators of violence and civilian harm accountable for their actions and ensure the security of all Syrians,” Bruce said of the violence against Druze.
