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France restricts blood transfusions over Zika virus

Travelers coming back from any outbreak zones of the Zika virus will need to wait at least 28 days before giving blood to avoid any risk of transmission, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Sunday. Zika, which is rapidly spreading through the Americas and has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is primarily transmitted through mosquito bites. “Someone who comes from a zone where there is Zika can not give blood for 28 days,” Touraine said in an interview with Europe 1 radio, news channel iTele and Le Monday daily.

Crowds attack Ebola facility, health workers in Guinea

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 400 km (250 miles) 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.