Brucellosis sickens dozens in Algeria after drinking goats milk

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Douglas Powell

Outbreak News Today reportsAlgerian media is reporting an outbreak of brucellosis in Batna. According to the report, 31 people were infected with brucellosis in the municipality of Ares after consuming goat’s milk.

This followed the discovery of a focus of the disease that infected 119 goats from a herd of 155.

Brucellosis is a contagious disease of animals that also affects humans. The disease is also known as Bang’s Disease. In humans, it’s known as Undulant Fever.

The Brucella species are named for their primary hosts: Brucella melitensis is found mostly is goats ,sheep and camels, B. abortus is a pathogen of cattle, B. suis is found primarily in swine and B. canis is found in dogs.

The more common ways people get infected with brucellosis include: First, individuals that work with infected animals that have not been vaccinated against brucellosis. This would include farmers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians.

They get infected through direct contact or aerosols produced by the infected animal tissue. B. abortus and B. suis are most common.

The second way is through ingesting unpasteurized dairy products.

Brucellosis is also an occupational hazard to laboratory workers who inappropriately handle specimens or have an accident or spill. Brucella is highly infectious in the aerosolized form.

If someone gets infected with Brucella, the incubation period is about 2-3 weeks, though it could be months. Fever, night sweats, severe headache and body aches and other non-specific symptoms may occur.

She podcasts too: Mapping Layers of Colonial Memory into Contemporary Visual Art

Posted on April 6, 2017 by Douglas Powell

From January to May 2016, the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (known as MuCEM) in Marseille, France hosted an exhibition called “Made in Algeria: Genealogy of a Territory”. The exhibit proclaimed to be the first large-scale exposition on the Algerian territory and gathered cartographic depictions of Algeria from the earliest European encounters in the fifteenth century to twenty-first century images of an independent culture still bearing colonial remnants, with a goal to show “this long and unique process which was the impossible conquest of Algeria” (MuCEM 3).

The most recent pieces, notably by artists Zineb Sedira who was born to Algerian parents in France, and Katia Kameli who has a French mother and Algerian father, show layering of colonial memory into contemporary images of the Algerian people and landscape. The exhibit, which in title wants to show the origins of the Algerian territory, is created primarily in France, for a French audience, and is built upon French imagination. By assessing the lines, grids and other marks that are still visibly mapped onto Algeria in the exhibit, this paper explores how what is in name “Made in Algeria” remains heavily marked by France.

Seven suspected cases of botulism in Algeria

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Seven people, four adults residing in Batna and three children, were evacuated from the wilaya of Khenchela, with symptoms of botulism are under medical supervision at the resuscitation department of the university hospital center (CHU) of Batna.

Some of these patients have consumed cachir and other rotten pie, whose origin has been identified and whose samples were sent to a lab for analysis.