Marburg virus has killed five people in Tanzania’s north-western Kagera region, the health ministry has said. High fever is a common symptom of the deadly Ebola-like virus, often followed by bleeding and organ failure. Tanzania’s health minister Ummy Mwalimu said the disease had been contained and she was confident it would not spread further. Three people are being treated in hospital and authorities are tracing 161 contacts, Ms Mwalimu added. Tanzania’s strategy to control the spread was praised by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO’s regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said: “The efforts by Tanzania’s health authorities to establish the cause of the disease is a clear indication of the determination to effectively respond to the outbreak.” Dr Moeti said WHO is working with Tanzania’s government to “rapidly scale up control measures to halt the spread of the virus”. The Marburg virus is a cousin of the equally deadly Ebola virus – part of the filovirus family – and it kills on average half of those infected, the WHO says. It is a severe, often fatal illness with symptoms including headache, fever, muscle pains, vomiting blood and bleeding. No vaccines or anti-viral treatments have been approved to treat the virus, the WHO has said, but it adds that rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids has improved survival.(BBC)…[+]

French President Emmanuel Macron has given a defiant defence of his decision to force through a rise in the pension age, in the face of protests across France and two no-confidence votes. “This reform isn’t a luxury, it’s not a pleasure, it’s a necessity,” he said. Protesters have been emboldened by the government’s use of constitutional power to ram through reforms without a vote in the National Assembly. A ninth round of strikes and national protests will take place on Thursday. There have been six nights of demonstrations involving hundreds of arrests in a number of cities. Bins that have been left overflowing by refuse workers have been set alight and 13% of petrol stations are running short of fuel because of blockades at oil refineries; almost half the pumps in the Bouches-du-Rhône area of the south have run dry. The protests have also cast a cloud over King Charles’s imminent visit to France. Green MP Sandrine Rousseau called for the trip to be cancelled: “Is the priority really to receive Charles III at Versailles? Something is taking place within French society… the priority is to go and talk to society which is rising up.”(BBC)…[+]

Controversial influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan will remain in custody in Romania for a fourth consecutive month, a court has ruled. The brothers have been detained since December and are being investigated on allegations of rape, people trafficking and forming an organised crime group. Both have denied wrongdoing. Mr Tate’s lawyers say he will be held until the end of April. Under Romanian law, the men can be held for up to six months in detention. The brothers’ lawyers told a court in Bucharest prosecutors had brought no new evidence to Wednesday’s hearing. They suggested their clients’ notoriety was contributing to the decision to keep them in custody. Lawyers have long argued keeping the Tates in preventative custody is unnecessarily harsh, when other judicial options – such as house arrest – are available. But, judges have repeatedly disagreed and ruled four times this year to keep the men in preventative detention while investigators compile evidence against them.(BBC)…[+]