- Bagnaia eyeing summit on home ground in 100th MotoGP
- 'Something was wrong', defendant in French mass rape tells court
- Hezbollah chief admits 'unprecedented' blow in device blasts
- Sales of US existing homes slip slightly in August
- Fear, panic haunt Lebanese after devices explode
- Labuschagne sparks Australia fightback in England ODI opener
- S.Africa's HIV research power couple says fight goes on
- Why is Israel focusing on border with Lebanon?
- Mpox vaccines administered in Rwanda, first in Africa
- US Fed rate cut is 'very positive sign' for economy: Yellen
- Unknown Mozart string trio discovered in Germany
- 'Are we five-year-olds?' F1 drivers won't mind their language
- Brazil judge orders X to reimpose block or face hefty fine
- Munich to rename stadium street after Beckenbauer
- Champions Italy to face Argentina in Davis Cup Final 8
- The winding, fitful path to weight loss drug Ozempic
- Italians defeat American Magic to reach Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Norris has 'nothing to lose' as he hunts Verstappen in Singapore
- Kyiv 'outraged' at Swiss showing of Russian war film
- French city renames Abbe Pierre square after abuse claims
- Footballer charged after huge cannabis seizure at UK airport
- Vatican recognises Medjugorje shrine, but not Virgin's messages
- Israel bombs Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon after wave of deadly blasts
- Bank of England freezes rate after jumbo US cut
- Playing Nadal is 'kind of a nightmare', says Alcaraz
- Portugal tackles last of deadly northern forest fires
- Ton-up Ashwin lifts India to 339-6 against Bangladesh
- Departing NATO chief warns US against 'isolationism'
- Coming winter 'sternest test yet' for Ukraine energy grid
- Evacuations as tail of Storm Boris floods northeast Italy
- Lebanon's Hezbollah reeling after second wave of deadly blasts
- Taiwan recognises same-sex marriages between Chinese, Taiwanese
- Stock markets rally after jumbo US rate cut
- Gabon's ousted leader Bongo says renouncing politics for good
- Lebanon device blasts: what we know about deadly attacks
- Equity markets rally after jumbo US rate cut
- Late Harrods owner Al-Fayed accused of rape: BBC
- Hong Kong man sentenced 14 months for wearing 'seditious' T-shirt
- Lebanon's Hezbollah in disarray after second wave of deadly blasts
- Equity markets, yen rally after jumbo US rate cut
- Meta and Spotify blast EU decisions on AI
- Hasan takes three as Bangladesh rattle India in first Test
- Two killed during police operation in New Caledonia
- Flood-hit region leaders to meet in Poland to discuss EU aid
- Sri Lanka to vote in first poll since economic collapse
- Hong Kong probe finds Cathay Airbus defect could cause 'extensive' damage
- AI development cannot be left to market whim, UN experts warn
- All Blacks primed for 'hell' of a Wallabies clash
- Japan firm says no longer makes radio reportedly used in Lebanon blasts
- Zoom fatigue? Try some nature in your background: study
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
RYCEF | 5.48% | 6.93 | $ | |
CMSC | -0.14% | 25.02 | $ | |
AZN | 0.86% | 79.265 | $ | |
GSK | -1.05% | 41.99 | $ | |
NGG | -1.77% | 68.83 | $ | |
RIO | 3.53% | 65.215 | $ | |
BTI | -0.68% | 37.625 | $ | |
SCS | -7.1% | 13.175 | $ | |
CMSD | 0.1% | 25.005 | $ | |
BCC | 3.96% | 142.71 | $ | |
RELX | 1.48% | 48.08 | $ | |
BCE | -0.55% | 35.415 | $ | |
VOD | -1.64% | 10.065 | $ | |
JRI | -0.07% | 13.43 | $ | |
BP | 1.8% | 33.025 | $ |
Researchers brave relentless violence to work in DR Congo
As Tony Ukety peers into a microscope in an effort to wipe out a devastating tropical disease, he is acutely aware that there is a more immediate threat looming outside the walls of his research centre.
It comes from the militia groups who have wrought terror in the Democratic Republic of Congo's northeastern province of Ituri for more than four years.
The violence in Ukety's remote area, Djugu territory, is so bad that it is too dangerous to reach his lab by road.
Instead, the facility is reached by a 12-seater Cessna, piloted by American pastors.
It takes off from the provincial capital Bunia, flying over hills studded with displaced people's camps, before landing a half-hour later near the Protestant mission at Rethy, near the Ugandan border.
Enemies for Ukety, whose lab opened there in 2009, are the larvae of microscopic parasitic worms, transmitted by flies.
They develop inside the human body, causing a sight-robbing disease called river blindness, formally known as onchocerciasis.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 14 million people, most of them in tropical sub-Saharan Africa, suffer from the horrifying ailment.
Ukety's Centre for Research in Tropical Diseases (CRMT) is leading clinical tests of a key treatment.
The drug is moxidectin -- an anti-parasite formula approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2018.
The first new weapon against river blindness in 20 years, moxidectin is undergoing longer-term tests to fine-tune its effectiveness.
But to do so, scientists have to find volunteers "in areas where nobody has been previously treated," Ukety said.
And this is where the area's extreme isolation, as a result of poor security, turns out to be a blessing.
- Too risky -
Gathered on a January day just outside Rethy in the village of Kanga, a team of scientists was hard at work after a month of forced rest.
"Because of the militia attacks, all the inhabitants had left," and travelling to villages was too risky anyway, said Innocent Mananu, an ophthalmologist on the team.
At the Kanga clinic, the researchers were recruiting volunteers for the study.
Participants took a clinical and ophthalmological exam. Skin samples were then taken to be tested for microfilaria larvae.
Back at the CRMT, lab chief Joel Mande scanned the samples with the latest in microscope technology.
Away from his work, the microbiologist wears another hat as the head of an administrative territory, the Walendu Tatsi, whose inhabitants are mainly members of the Lendu ethnic group.
The area is a stronghold of an armed political-religious sect called CODECO.
Its innocuous-sounding name -- the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo -- belies a bitter ethnic feud between the Lendu, which the group claims to defend, and the Hema community.
Mande has to walk a fine line.
If he gets too close to his study subjects, the authorities may accuse him of fraternising with CODECO.
But if he is deemed to be too pro-government he risks being accused of betraying the Lendu cause.
- Young, stoned, armed -
CODECO fighters can be found less than three kilometres (two miles) from Ukety's lab. They are young, armed, drunk and high on marijuana.
They control all the access roads to nearby Kpandroma and extort money at markets and checkpoints that they set up along roads.
A dozen soldiers are also on hand ostensibly to keep order but, lacking resources, yield to the CODECO.
AFP met some commanders of CODECO's main faction, the Union of Revolutionaries for the Defence of the Congolese People (URDPC), which claims to have more than 30,000 fighters.
The meeting took place at a disused hospital, which troops pillaged in 2020, located at Linga some 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Rethy.
The militia have in recent months been accused of carrying out massacres in camps for displaced members of the Hema community.
Since the long-running ethnic conflict flared anew in 2017, hundreds of people have been killed and more than 1.5 million have fled their homes, according to the Danish Refugee Council.
Back at his research centre, Ukety holds the line.
"The militia's incursions have affected our activities a bit. But we are still here and we are going to see things through," he said, with his study still two years from completion.
C.Meier--BTB