World Status Report

This report intends to give the UTD Community a snapshot of international risks, and other issues as reported by the linked media and official sources from the U.S. and other countries.

More health and security information for each country can be found in the travel advisories issued by the governments of the United States, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia, and the CDC, ECDC, and WHO sites. Not all advise in these sites will apply to US travelers.

Please note the publication date of this report and go to the direct sources linked for the most up-to-date information.  The information in this report may change without prior notice.

Security

• Immediate action is needed to save young lives in Haiti amid the “triple threat” of cholera, malnutrition and violence (UN News), the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) said on Tuesday.
• Nigerian Authorities Dismiss Terror Warnings by US, Other Foreign Missions (Voice of America). Nigerian authorities on Monday dismissed recent terror warnings by foreign missions for the capital, Abuja, as “false” and “irresponsible.” But security experts are urging Nigerians to take the warnings seriously.
• No one is left out when it comes to street crime in Karachi, study finds (Dawn). A recent study finds that more than two-thirds of the population of the metropolis have experienced such incidents one way or the other and almost one-fourth have directly suffered the loss due to prevailing situation of armed robberies and snatching of valuables at gunpoint.
• Ecuador declares emergency after 5 police officers killed, prison guards taken hostage, headless bodies hung from bridge (CBS News). Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of exception in two provinces Tuesday, after at least five police officers were killed and prison guards taken hostage in the latest wave of attacks in the deadly gang war consuming the country.
• Human remains recovered from clandestine graves in Mexico (AP News). At least two clandestine graves holding human remains were found in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, state authorities said Tuesday.

Demonstrations

• Thousands join anti-Rwanda protests in DR Congo’s Goma (Al Jazeera English on MSN.com). Protesters denounce Rwanda’s alleged support for the M23 rebels, who have made advances in the countryside around Goma.

Natural Disasters

• Floods and landslides continue across the Philippines (ERCC) following the landfall of tropical cyclone Nalgae (locally named Paeng) and Cyclone Queenie which had weakened into tropical depression, but still brings rains including the areas flooded by Nalgae.
• Heavy rainfall has been affecting several States of northern Venezuela over the last week (ERCC), causing floods and rivers overflow that have resulted in casualties and damage. The most affected areas are La Guaira State (previously named Vargas) and the neighbouring capital Caracas.
• Heavy rainfall has been affecting southern Indonesia over the last 48 hours (ERCC), in particular the East Nusa Tenggara Province, the southernmost Province of Indonesia in the Lesser Sunda Islands, causing floods that have resulted in casualties and damage.
• Recent heavy rainfall has caused floods and landslides across several Departments of Colombia (ERCC), resulting in casualties, as reported by National Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD).
• T.N. Rains | Two subways, several roads closed off in Chennai due to inundation (The Hindu). Subways in Rangarajapuram and Ganesapuram have been closed; in addition some roads that are water-logged have also been closed by the Chennai traffic police

Health

• The first cholera outbreak in nearly three decades in Lebanon is now spreading throughout the country (UN News), with more than 1,400 suspected cases, and 17 reported deaths so far, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday.
• Cholera Outbreaks Surge Worldwide as Vaccine Supply Drains (NYT) A record number of cholera outbreaks around the globe, driven by droughts, floods and armed conflicts, has sickened hundreds of thousands of people and so severely strained the supply of cholera vaccines that global health agencies are rationing doses. Outbreaks have been reported in the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, putting the health of millions at risk and overwhelming fragile health systems. 
• Tuberculosis deaths and disease increase during the COVID-19 pandemic (WHO) An estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with tuberculosis (TB) in 2021, an increase of 4.5% from 2020, and 1.6 million people died from TB (including 187 000 among HIV positive people), according to the World Health Organization’s 2022 Global TB report. The burden of drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) also increased by 3% between 2020 and 2021, with 450 000 new cases of rifampicin-resistant TB (RR-TB) in 2021.This is the first time in many years an increase has been reported in the number of people falling ill with TB and drug resistant TB. TB services are among many others disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, but its impact on the TB response has been particularly severe.
• Unusual malaria outbreak tied to invasive mosquito (Science) Anopheles stephensi, native to southern Asia, was first identified in Africa a decade ago in the Republic of Djibouti, which borders Ethiopia. It has since spread to at least four other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Now, amid lingering questions about whether the insect’s presence is significantly driving cases of malaria on the continent, researchers have confirmed that people infected in an uncommon dry season outbreak of the disease were more likely to have the mosquito living close to their homes.

Covid

• More severe COVID-19 may raise risk of long COVID (CIDRAP). Meta-analysis finds that 51% of patients with milder cases, 67% of hospitalized patients, and 74% of ICU patients had long COVID.
• COVID ‘variant soup’ is making winter surges hard to predict (Nature) Some call it a swarm of variants — others refer to it as variant soup. Whatever it’s called, the current crop of immunity-dodging offshoots of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is unprecedented in its diversity. This complexity makes it harder to predict coming waves of infection. It might even lead to a ‘double wave’ in some places, as first one variant and then another overtakes a population. But amid the chaos, patterns are emerging. The swarm has helped scientists to pinpoint a handful of immunity-evading mutations that power a variant’s spread. Globally, a few heavyweight variants have emerged, yielding different outcomes in different regions — at least, so far.
• Rising COVID-19 cases triggered a lockdown (Nikkei) in an industrial zone in the central city of Zhengzhou that houses the massive factory campus of iPhone supplier Foxconn and forced electric vehicle maker NIO to pause production at two plants in the city of Hefei.

Ebola

• Uganda’s Ebola cases rise; WHO ups risk assessment (CIDRAP). Officials are now reporting 128 lab-confirmed cases, up from 109, and the case-fatality rate is 28%.

Please note the publication date of this report and go to the direct sources linked for the most up-to-date information.  The information in this report may change without prior notice.

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