Zika virus

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27417495

First discovered in 1947, Zika virus (ZIKV) infection remained a little-known tropical disease until 2015, when its apparent association with a considerable increase in the incidence of microcephaly in Brazil raised alarms worldwide. There is limited information on the key factors that determine the extent of the global threat from ZIKV infection and resulting complications. Here, we review what is known about the epidemiology, natural history, and public health effects of ZIKV infection, the empirical basis for this knowledge, and the critical knowledge gaps that need to be filled.

 

The Syrian Child Omran Daqneesh

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37145206

Ezechiel 1. Thinking the immense suffering of Syrian and Iraqian people

Unitar Maps: Iraq

http://www.unitar.org/unosat/maps/IRQ

 

Forced disappearances in Syria

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2016/08/syria-forced-disappearances-160818124446498.html

Lebanon News. Sick children evacuated from Madaya

Agence France Presse

BEIRUT: Thirteen sick children were among 18 people evacuated by aid workers from the besieged Syrian town of Madaya Friday, a doctor that was treating them told AFP.

The cases included children with meningitis and malnutrition and two babies with blood poisoning.

Another evacuee was a pregnant woman whose baby died inside her womb.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent confirmed in a tweet that it was evacuating “36 humanitarian cases” from Madaya and two government-held towns, Kafraya and Fuaa, in northwestern Idlib province.

Under an agreement brokered by the United Nations, aid deliveries to the towns always occur simultaneously, and a similar stipulation applies for those being evacuated.

The evacuees from Madaya are “headed towards Damascus where the patients will receive treatment,” said doctor Mohammad Darwish, adding that the operation was completed “in coordination with the United Nations.”

“This is a good step but we hope in the future there are no complications with evacuations,” Darwish said.

An estimated 40,000 residents have been affected by food and medicine shortages inside Madaya since the regime encircled it two years ago and besieged it fully last summer.

This week, activists in the town shared a video of Yaman Ezzedin, a 10-year-old with meningitis, as part of a plea for help for Madaya’s suffering children.

The young boy is so consumed by the pain, “he no longer recognizes us,” his father said.

Last week, U.N. special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura said the United Nations was ready to help evacuate at least 16 urgent cases from Madaya and another two from Fuaa and Kafraya.

According to the U.N., nearly 600,000 people live under siege across Syria, which has been consumed by war for more than five years.

Syrian genocide

http://www.iltasanomat.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000001242523.html

”It breaks the human” – Torture, Disease and Death in Syria’s Prisons.

Amnesty

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/08/harrowing-accounts-of-torture-inhuman-conditions-and-mass-deaths-in-syrias-prisons/