Brazil's Lula Recovering in ICU after Surgery to Drain Head Hemorrhage

FILE PHOTO: Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva walks at the Mercosur Summit in Montevideo, Uruguay December 6, 2024. REUTERS/Martin Varela Umpierrez/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva walks at the Mercosur Summit in Montevideo, Uruguay December 6, 2024. REUTERS/Martin Varela Umpierrez/File Photo
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Brazil's Lula Recovering in ICU after Surgery to Drain Head Hemorrhage

FILE PHOTO: Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva walks at the Mercosur Summit in Montevideo, Uruguay December 6, 2024. REUTERS/Martin Varela Umpierrez/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva walks at the Mercosur Summit in Montevideo, Uruguay December 6, 2024. REUTERS/Martin Varela Umpierrez/File Photo

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is recovering in an intensive-care unit after undergoing surgery for an intracranial hemorrhage, the Sirio-Libanes hospital said in a statement in the early hours of Tuesday.
The procedure was performed after the 79-year-old leftist leader felt headaches doctors believed resulted from a fall at home in October, The Associated Press reported.
The hospital said Lula, who travelled from the capital Brasilia to be treated 1,000 kilometers south (620 miles) in Sao Paulo, is “well, under monitoring in an ICU bed” after the bleeding was drained.
Lula canceled a trip to Russia for a BRICS summit after the accident, his office said at the time. It left him with a cut visible on the back of his head, slightly above his neck.



China Discovers Cluster of New Mpox Strain

A woman walks on the Youyi Bridge at the Liangmahe river in Beijing, China on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
A woman walks on the Youyi Bridge at the Liangmahe river in Beijing, China on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
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China Discovers Cluster of New Mpox Strain

A woman walks on the Youyi Bridge at the Liangmahe river in Beijing, China on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
A woman walks on the Youyi Bridge at the Liangmahe river in Beijing, China on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Chinese health authorities said on Thursday they had detected the new mutated mpox strain clade Ib as the viral infection spreads to more countries after the World Health Organization declared a global public health emergency last year.
China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said it had found a cluster outbreak of the Ib subclade that started with the infection a foreigner who has a history of travel and residence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Reuters reported.
Four further cases have been found in people infected after close contact with the foreigner. The patients' symptoms are mild and include skin rash and blisters.
Mpox spreads through close contact and causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body. Although usually mild, it can be fatal in rare cases.
WHO last August declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, following an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that spread to neighboring countries.
The outbreak in DRC began with the spread of an endemic strain, known as clade I. But the clade Ib variant appears to spread more easily through routine close contact, including sexual contact.
The variant has spread from DRC to neighboring countries, including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, triggering the emergency declaration from the WHO.
China said in August last year it would monitor people and goods entering the country for mpox.
The country's National Health Commission said mpox would be managed as a Category B infectious disease, enabling officials to take emergency measures such as restricting gatherings, suspending work and school, and sealing off areas when there is an outbreak of a disease.