Disease

Local Protests against Ebola Health Workers

Crowds destroyed an Ebola facility and attacked health workers in central Guinea on rumours that the Red Cross was planning to disinfect a school, a government spokesman said on Saturday.

Red Cross teams in Guinea have been attacked on average 10 times a month over the past year, the organisation said this week, warning that the violence was hampering efforts to contain the disease.

During the incident on Friday in the town of Faranah, around 400km east of the capital Conakry, angry residents attacked an Ebola transit centre and set ablaze a vehicle belonging to medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.

A Red Cross burial team was also targeted and forced to flee, said Fodé Tass Sylla, spokesman for the government campaign against the disease.

The number of new cases in Guinea nearly doubled last week to 64, according to World Health Organisation data, jeopardising a government plan to get to zero new cases by early March.

Scarlet Fever in Britain

Bristol could be facing an outbreak of scarlet fever - with reports today saying that the disease is spreading faster in Britain than at any time in half a century.

More than 300 new cases of the bacterial infection were reported in England last week, with 1,265 cases registered since the beginning of the year, the Independent reports.

Scarlet fever was often deadly in the Victorian era, but during the 20th century it became milder and more rare.

But now the disease – which causes a sore throat and fever accompanied by a distinctive rash on the chest or stomach – is on the rise again.