Indian doctor removes ‘rare’ cancerous tumour from African infant’s brain — India News

Ayr­ton Timm de Oliveira and Edwina, both 26 and from Mozam­bique, were dev­as­tat­ed when their infant son and first child, John (name changed), began expe­ri­enc­ing major vision loss, delayed growth and feed­ing dif­fi­cul­ties. He is a ten-month-old baby.After pre­sent­ing their child’s reports to sev­er­al Indi­an hos­pi­tals, the par­ents were informed that their child had a mas­sive brain tumour. Symp­toms such as insuf­fi­cient oral food con­sump­tion result­ed in the child remain­ing under­weight and con­stant­ly cry­ing. The tumour was 7x8x9 cm in size and took up one-third of the brain.The cou­ple trav­elled to India in an attempt to save the baby, where Dr Harshil Shah, a well-known neu­ro­sur­geon at Ahmed­abad’s Shal­by Hos­pi­tals, per­formed a five-hour surgery.Dr Shah said, “They [par­ents] did a CT scan in Africa and the basic diag­no­sis revealed it to be a large, ini­tial stage 2 can­cer­ous brain tumour. Every hos­pi­tal they had gone to told them that the mor­tal­i­ty rate was high. Shal­by Hos­pi­tal was able to not just detect but also per­form the lengthy and com­pli­cat­ed surgery.”“The male child was suf­fer­ing from a rare chi­as­mal tumour. This tumour aris­es from the optic nerves that were affect­ing the brain, which I was able to diag­nose on time. This is the rea­son that the child was not able to see even objects that were close to him due to an affect­ed vision,” said Dr Shah.“Post-surgery, the child’s food intake increased, and he gained three kg. He was nutri­tion­al­ly defi­cient. How­ev­er, the patient is now doing well and is com­plete­ly nor­mal,” said the doctor.“Surgery and com­plete tumour removal have a very low suc­cess rate, and patients with no deficit are extreme­ly rare. I’ve nev­er seen such a large tumour, let alone in a child,” he added.READ | Boy goes for nasal surgery, doc­tor per­forms her­nia oper­a­tion instead­WATCH | Meet the IAF doc­tor who revived can­cer patient after she suf­fered car­diac arrest on Kolkata-bound flight

South Africa’s latest surge is a possible preview of the pandemic’s next chapter.

Coro­n­avirus cas­es are surg­ing again in South Africa, and pub­lic health experts are mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion, eager to know what’s dri­ving the spike, what it says about immu­ni­ty from pre­vi­ous infec­tions and what its impli­ca­tions are glob­al­ly. South Africa expe­ri­enced a decline in cas­es after hit­ting an Omi­cron-fueled, pan­dem­ic peak in Decem­ber. But in the…

New tools for easing cross-border trade in Africa

Mike Ogbalu, CEO of the Pan-African Pay­ment Set­tle­ment Sys­tem (PAPSS) at the African Export-Import Bank, dis­cuss­es PAPSS, a cross bor­der, finan­cial mar­ket infra­struc­ture enabling pay­ment trans­ac­tions across Africa. Relat­ed Con­tent Fore­sight Africa pod­cast is part of the Brook­ings Pod­cast Net­work. Sub­scribe and lis­ten on Apple, Spo­ti­fy, and wher­ev­er you lis­ten to pod­casts. Send feed­back email to podcasts@brookings.edu, and…

EMEA: Central African Republic Embraces Crypto | PYMNTS.com

In today’s top Europe, Mid­dle East and Africa (EMEA) news, Cen­tral African Repub­lic Finance Min­is­ter Herve Ndo­ba said the use of cryp­tocur­ren­cies in the nation’s econ­o­my is com­ing, while London’s Tru­eLay­er has intro­duced vari­able recur­ring pay­ments (VRP). Plus, Face­book own­er Meta and Google pledged to per­mit only reg­is­tered finan­cial firms to adver­tise pro­mo­tions on their…

Mwai Kibaki, Former President of Kenya, Dies at 90

He came to pow­er promis­ing to root out cor­rup­tion and improve gov­ern­ment trans­paren­cy. But his tenure was blight­ed by wide­spread graft and a vio­lent upheaval. NAIROBI, Kenya — Mwai Kiba­ki, who helped trans­form Kenya’s econ­o­my and ush­er in a new Con­sti­tu­tion as its third pres­i­dent, but whose tenure was marred by high-pro­­file cor­rup­tion cas­es and…

Symbiosis School of International Studies Launches MA in African Studies — News18

Sym­bio­sis School of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (SSIS) has launched a mas­ters of arts in African stud­ies (geo-eco­nom­ics and for­eign pol­i­cy) that offers a holis­tic under­stand­ing of the African con­ti­nent and its rela­tion with major coun­tries in the world. The two year long mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­gramme focus­es on the polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and socio-cul­tur­al envi­ron­ment of the con­ti­nent and its impact on glob­al affairs.Candidate should be a grad­u­ate from any statu­to­ry uni­ver­si­ty with a min­i­mum of 50 per cent marks (45 per cent for SC and ST) at the grad­u­a­tion lev­el. Can­di­dates appear­ing for the final year exam­i­na­tion can also apply, but their admis­sion will be sub­ject to obtain­ing a min­i­mum of 50 per cent marks (45 per cent for SC and ST) in the qual­i­fy­ing examination.
A can­di­date who has com­plet­ed qual­i­fy­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tion from any for­eign board/ uni­ver­si­ty must obtain an equiv­a­lence cer­tifi­cate from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Indi­an Uni­ver­si­ties (AIU) Sym­bio­sis School of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (SSIS), a con­stituent of the Sym­bio­sis Inter­na­tion­al (Deemed Uni­ver­si­ty) was estab­lished in 2012 with the aim to bring a dis­course on inter­na­tion­al rela­tions through a well-designed aca­d­e­m­ic pro­gramme, con­fer­ences, sym­posia and exchanges with rel­e­vant stakeholders.
The MA African stud­ies cen­ters around the key areas of African econ­o­my, for­eign pol­i­cy, his­to­ry, cul­ture and iden­ti­ty. It also delves into the polit­i­cal process­es and insti­tu­tions, for a com­pre­hen­sive under­stand­ing of the upswing devel­op­ment tra­jec­to­ry of the region.
Along with empow­er­ing stu­dents to learn and under­stand the African con­ti­nent, the pro­gramme aims to strength­en ana­lyt­i­cal, crit­i­cal think­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, includ­ing devel­op­ing a holis­tic under­stand­ing of the Unit­ed Nations’ Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals. The pro­gramme will also help the stu­dent to work in a mul­ti­cul­tur­al environment.
Fur­ther, the third and fourth semes­ters offer elec­tives to help stu­dents deep-dive into the sub­ject around North, West and Cen­tral Africa and East­ern, South­ern Africa and Island nations. It also offers Ara­bic and French lan­guage learn­ing as part of its elec­tive courses.
The cur­ricu­lum includes a manda­to­ry intern­ship in the third semes­ter to help stu­dents imple­ment their the­o­ret­i­cal learn­ing with the real-world sce­nario. Post the com­ple­tion of pro­gramme, stu­dents can pur­sue a host of career paths across the cor­po­rates, the NGOs, the civ­il ser­vice, think tanks, the media hous­es and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions or fur­ther, pur­sue doc­tor­al stud­ies in the domain.
Aspi­rants can apply for MA African Stud­ies (Geo-eco­nom­ics and For­eign Pol­i­cy) by vis­it­ing the offi­cial web­site of SSIS and reg­is­ter­ing for the pro­gramme. After suc­cess­ful online reg­is­tra­tion and pay­ment of fee, sub­ject to ful­fill­ment of admis­sion cri­te­ria, short­list­ed can­di­dates would be noti­fied for Per­son­al Inter­view (PI) via email.
The PI will be con­duct­ed vir­tu­al­ly and aspi­rants will have to book their pre­ferred slot for the same. Aspi­rants need to ensure unin­ter­rupt­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty and a well-func­tion­ing mic to under­go the PI. The max­i­mum score for PI will be 100 marks and can cov­er gen­er­al aware­ness, clar­i­ty of thought and artic­u­la­tion, log­i­cal rea­son­ing, learn­ing ori­en­ta­tion, moti­va­tion, extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties, spe­cif­ic field of inter­est, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and soft skills, and over­all personality.
Shiv­ali Lawale, Direc­tor, Sym­bio­sis School of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies said, “It brings us immense plea­sure to announce the launch of M.A in African Stud­ies focus­ing on Geo-eco­nom­ics and For­eign Pol­i­cy. With the launch of this pro­gramme, we are steadi­ly diver­si­fy­ing our plat­form for teach­ing and research in inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, with an empha­sis on India and its role in glob­al affairs. Through this pro­gramme, we hope to empow­er future lead­ers and cor­po­rates, who will strength­en the col­lab­o­ra­tions between India and Africa. We look for­ward to wel­com­ing our first batch of students.”
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Tackling the climate change challenge in Africa

This spe­cial episode of Fore­sight Africa pod­cast is a rebroad­cast of an event host­ed on Earth Day by the Africa Growth Ini­tia­tive (AGI) at Brook­ings. Aloy­sius Uche Ordu, direc­tor of AGI and pod­cast host, mod­er­at­ed an expert pan­el dis­cus­sion on cli­mate change in Africa, includ­ing top­ics such as ener­gy tran­si­tion, local action, cli­mate finance, the…

West Africa moves in unison to promote vaccination and curb falsehoods — Poynter

In West Africa, fact-check­­ers are coop­er­at­ing to expand their influ­ence on local, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­els to curb mis­in­for­ma­tion about vac­cines. Orga­ni­za­tions are band­ing togeth­er, form­ing alliances with inter­gov­ern­men­tal groups and cre­at­ing cross-con­ti­­nent task forces to ele­vate health knowl­edge across Africa. “I think the most impor­tant thing is to high­light how fact-check­­ers lever­age col­lab­o­ra­tion to…