A piano virtuoso is mourning the loss of her “best friend” after movers dropped her grand piano. Canadian Angela Hewitt is acclaimed as one of the world’s leading classical pianists. All of her European recordings since 2003 were performed on her Fazioli F278 concert grand piano, which was the only one in the world to have four pedals.

She says two weeks ago movers came into her recording studio to tell her they had “dropped” it. The piano was kept at her home in Italy, and pianopricepoint.com estimates it is worth over $200,000 (£155,000). Her use of the piano is noted on the Fazioli website.(BBC)…[+]

Mexicans are expressing their outrage over the brutal murder of a young woman stabbed to death by her partner.

Ingrid Escamilla, 25, was killed by the man she lived with, who also mutilated and skinned parts of her body in an attempt to dispose of the evidence. Femicides, gender-based killings of women, have been on the rise in Mexico with more than 700 cases currently being investigated. Activists say the number of women killed for their gender is much higher. According to official figures, 3,142 women were killed in Mexico in the first 10 months of 2019. Of those, 726 cases are being treated as femicides, a number women’s rights activists argue is too low.(BBC)…[+]

Mounting protests over a Canadian natural gas pipeline have led to dozens of arrests, buildings occupied and more than 150 train cancellations. The Coastal GasLink pipeline project would make it easier to export natural gas in British Columbia. But its route cuts through indigenous Canadian land. Several indigenous camps have been set up to block access to construction sites, sparking solidarity protests that have swept across the country.

Coastal GasLink says it has reached deals with 20 elected indigenous councils along the route to move ahead with construction, including Wet’suwet’en band councils, coming to agreements on training, employment, and community investment. Former Wet’suwet’en elected Chief Ray Morris of the Nee Tahi Buhn band told the Canadian Press last January that his elected council signed the agreement to get funds for things like education and elder care.

“We’re no different than any other human, we have the same needs as you do,” he said. (BBBut Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs oppose it and say they, not the community’s elected officials, hold authority over traditional lands, warning the project will cause pollution and endanger wildlife.(BBC)…[+]

Since the announcement of the outbreak of 2019 n-CoV in China, PAHO has worked very closely with the Ministry of Health in providing technical support for the preparedness and response for managing such an event in Suriname. Support has been provided with guidance documents to strengthen surveillance for respiratory illnesses, revision of Standard Operating procedures and enhancing infection prevention and control in hospitals.

During the period 4 – 6 of February 2020, the PAHO Suriname Office received a mission from the PAHO Health Emergency Team in the Regional Office in Washington, DC. The team provided the Central Laboratory of the BOG with reagents for molecular testing (PCR) for the 2019-nCoV that included primers, probes, and positive controls and facilitated the training of laboratory technologists in conducting the screening and confirmatory tests for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus. With this provision of reagents and training, as of February 5, 2019, in the context of the Emergency Response to the 2019-nCoV in the Region of the Americas,  Suriname became the first CARICOM country and the third in the Region of the Americas with the capacity for molecular diagnosis of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.

In preparing to respond to events with potential public health impact, Suriname’s Ministry of Health public health officers and surveillance staff from Nickerie and Paramaribo sentinel hospitals for severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) surveillance, were also trained in outbreak response to and investigation of respiratory events, including the 2019-nCoV, also conducted by the PAHO PHE mission team. This will further improve their ability to rapidly identify, investigate, and respond to outbreaks of respiratory infections

In addition, as part of respiratory virus virologic surveillance, the BOG Central Laboratory, based on the strong laboratory response capacity including its high performance of annual 100% score in the WHO External Quality Assessment Program (EQAP) for influenza molecular diagnostics has been assessed with the WHO official tools to advance the process of  the National Influenza Center (NIC)  to become an officially recognized laboratory within the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System.

Suriname’s rapid response plan was also reviewed, in a continued effort to improve the ability to rapidly and effectively respond to disease outbreaks. Although no case of 2019-nCov has been confirmed in Suriname to date, these activities supported by PAHO have contributed significantly to the Ministry of Health’s preparedness activities for this Public Health Emergency of International Concern…[+]