After mpox outbreak, Africa is under the threat of yet another virus outbreak, this is the Marburg virus outbreak in Rwanda. So far, six people have died from the outbreak, confirmed the health minister. Most victims were the healthcare workers in the hospital's intensive care unit. As per reports, 20 cases have been identified since the outbreak was confirmed on Friday.

What Is Marbug Virus?

With the fatality rate of 8% it is the same virus family as Ebola. The main carrier is from fruit bats which spreads to humans then through the contact of bodily fluids of infected individuals, it spreads to others.

Common Signs And Symptoms

The common signs and symptoms of the Marburg virus include fever, pain, diarrhoea, vomiting and in the case of extreme blood loss, death too can happen.

So far, there is no specific treatment or vaccine for the virus. However, treatments like drugs and immune therapy are being developed as per the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Call Of Action

Rwanda says that it has intensified its contact tracing, surveillance and testing to contain the spread. It has also tracked about 300 people who had come into contact with individuals affected by the Marburg virus.

The health minister has urged people to stay vigilant and avoid any physical contact and to wash their hands with clean water, soap or sanitiser and report any suspected case.

As of now, most of the cases have spread to the capital in Kigali. In light of this, the US Embassy in the city has advised its employees to work remotely for the next week.

This is the first time Rwanda has confirmed for Marburg cases, before this, in 2023, Tanzania confirmed the outbreak, whereas three people had died of this in Uganda in 2017.

History Of Marburg

As per WHO, this virus kills half of the people it infects. In the previous outbreaks, it has killed between 24% to 88% of the patients.

The virus was first detected in 1976 after 31 people were infected, out of which 7 died in simultaneous outbreak in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany, and Belgrade in Serbia.

The source was traced to African green monkeys who were imported from Uganda. However, other animals too are linked to the virus spread, including bats.

In the past, the virus outbreaks have happened in countries like Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. In 2005, this virus killed 300 people in Angola.

However, for the rest of the world, only two people have died from the virus in the rest of the world, with one of them being in Europe, and the other in the US. These both have been on expeditions to caves in Uganda.

Your eyes may explain a lot about how your brain handles attention. A new Indian study suggests that tiny fluctuations in the pupils may provide a physiological clue to attention related differences in children with ADHD.

Researchers from the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi analysed eye-tracking data from 50 children aged 10 to 12, including 28 children with combined-type ADHD and 22 without a neurodevelopmental diagnosis. These findings were published in Scientific Reports.

Instead of just looking at the size of the pupils, researchers examined how pupil responses shifted from one trial to another while children performed a working-memory task.

What ADHD-Related Clues Do Pupils Hold?

During the experiment, children watched dots appear on a grid and had to remember their positions while ignoring distractions. An eye tracker recorded their pupil diameter 1,000 times per second.

After accounting for age, IQ and memory-task difficulty, the researchers estimated that unmedicated children with ADHD had about 23% greater trial-to-trial variability in their pupil responses than children in the control group.

Among the unmedicated children with ADHD, greater pupil variability was also associated with poorer accuracy on the task.

The pattern was, however, more complicated. Within individual trials, pupil variability was actually lower in the ADHD group. This suggests that different measures of pupil dynamics may capture different aspects of attention and brain activity.

Also read: Increased Screen Timings Have Lead to ADHD: Key Symptoms

Effect Of ADHD Medication On The Pattern

The researchers also looked at 17 children with ADHD who completed the task both after taking their usual methylphenidate medication and after stopping it for 24 hours.

When the children were taking medication, their pupils showed a stronger response during the task and less variation between trials. Their overall pupil-response pattern also became more similar to that of the control group. But the researchers caution against interpreting this as proof that medication normalising attention span.

Methylphenidate can itself influence physiological systems that affect pupil size, meaning the study could not completely separate the drug's direct effects on the pupils from changes related to attention.

Also read: Using AI Apps To Manage ADHD? How They Can Help And Why Experts Urge Caution

Can A Pupil Test Diagnose ADHD?

There is no single biological test for ADHD currently. Diagnosis involves clinical assessment, developmental history and behavioural symptoms across different settings and circumstances.

The study itself has several limitations. For instance, it was based on a small sample, used existing eye-tracking data and involved a controlled laboratory task rather than everyday environments like classrooms.

Although the statistical model found greater trial-to-trial pupil variability, the direct participant-level difference between the ADHD and control groups did not remain statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons.

The researchers therefore describe pupil dynamics as a useful source of additional physiological information, rather than a diagnostic test.

First author Saumya Yadav said, "It is still too early to consider pupil measurements as a clinical diagnostic tool.”

Larger studies will need to determine whether these pupil patterns can reliably distinguish ADHD from other conditions and whether they remain consistent outside laboratory settings.

A recent AI analysis of more than 400,000 Reddit posts about popular GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound revealed several side effects that researchers may not have fully recorded in clinical trials.

The study, published in Nature Health, analysed 410,198 Reddit posts from May 2019 through June 2025. Researchers identified 67,008 people who self-reported using semaglutide or tirzepatide, with 43.5% reporting at least one side effect.

The findings do not prove that the drugs caused the symptoms. Instead, they did identify patterns in patients' own accounts that may need further investigation.

What Side Effects Did The AI Find?

As expected, the analysis found gastrointestinal symptoms in majority. Among GLP-1 users who reported side effects, the most common were:

• Nausea: 36.9%
• Fatigue: 16.7%
• Vomiting: 16.3%
• Constipation: 15.3%
• Diarrhoea: 12.6%

Researchers also found abdominal pain, reduced appetite, acid reflux, bloating, headache and dizziness among commonly reported symptoms.

But two groups of symptoms stood out as they may be less represented in existing clinical-trial data and drug information. They are reproductive symptoms and complaints associated with temperature.

Nearly 4% of people who reported side effects described reproductive symptoms, including irregular menstrual cycles, bleeding between periods and heavy bleeding.

GLP-1 drug users also described chills, feeling unusually cold, hot flashes and fever-like sensations.

Also read: GLP-1 Drugs Mounjaro, Zepbound Show Promise For 1 Billion With Sleep Apnea

Effects Of Ozempic Or Mounjaro On Menstrual Cycles

The study was based on self-reported social-media posts, so researchers cannot establish whether semaglutide or tirzepatide directly caused menstrual changes, chills or hot flashes.

Other factors may also influence these symptoms. People taking GLP-1 drugs may experience substantial weight loss, changes in food intake, metabolic changes or other health changes that could effect these symptoms.

The researchers therefore describe these findings as safety signals, rather than confirmed adverse effects.

Also read: Are GLP-1 Drugs Actually Changing Asthma Biology, Or Are People Simply Having Fewer Attack Due To Weight Loss?

Reliability Of Reddit Analysis

Clinical trials help in determining whether a medication is effective. They also help in identifying its potential side-effects. But once millions of people begin using a drug, patients may describe symptoms in everyday settings that were uncommon or not specifically investigated during trials.

Reddit provides researchers with a huge data collection of real-world experiences. AI can quickly scan hundreds of thousands of posts for recurring symptom patterns that would be extremely difficult to identify manually.

However, Reddit users are not representative of all people taking GLP-1 drugs. The researchers noted that the population studied was younger, more likely to be male and disproportionately based in the US.

The study does not provide evidence that people should stop Ozempic, Mounjaro or other GLP-1 medications. Instead, it shows how AI-assisted analysis of patient experiences could help in addition to traditional drug-safety trials and monitoring.

Common symptoms of GLP-1 medications remain nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and constipation as they are backed by extensive research and clinical trials.

The newly highlighted symptoms, particularly menstrual and temperature-related changes, need clinical research to determine whether they are genuinely caused by the drugs.

Globally renowned beauty and haircare brand L’Oréal is in the midst of a new legal battle in the US over allegations that it did not warn consumers possible potential cancer risks linked with its chemical hair-relaxer products.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against L’Oréal USA, its parent company and SoftSheen, accusing the companies of selling chemical hair relaxers without disclosing alleged links to ovarian and uterine cancers. Arizona is the first US state to bring such a lawsuit against L’Oréal over the products.

The lawsuit alleges that the products were primarily marketed to African American women and, in some cases, children.

The state is seeking damages and penalties, including warnings if the brand wants to keep selling the products.

What Is The Concern With Hair Relaxers?

Chemical hair relaxers are highly alkaline products designed to permanently straighten textured hair. They work by breaking and reforming the disulfide bonds in keratin, which gives hair its natural shape.

According to the Arizona lawsuit, some chemical relaxer products contain substances including phthalates, parabens, and other chemicals classified as probable carcinogens.

The complaint states that repeated use can increase exposure as these products are applied directly onto the scalp.

However, the presence of a potentially hazardous chemical does not establish that using a particular product will cause cancer. Cancer risk depends on factors including the substance, dose, duration, and route of exposure.

Also read: Prostate Cancer: What's Fact, What's Fiction

Earlier Study Flags Same Concerns

The legal action follows years of scientific research that examined links between chemical hair relaxers and cancers related to hormones.

A 2022 study from the US National Institutes of Health found that women who reported frequent use of chemical hair-straightening products had more than twice the risk of developing uterine cancer compared with women who did not use them frequently.

The researchers, however, found an association, not proof that hair relaxers directly caused these cancers.

Other research has also investigated possible links with ovarian and breast cancers, adding to concerns about repeated exposure to chemicals may cause serious health conditions.

Also read: Beyond Vaccines And Nutrition: Why Childhood Cancer Needs A Wider Conversation

What Does L’Oréal Say?

According to Reuters, L’Oréal has rejected the allegations. A spokesperson for L’Oréal USA said that the company is confident in the safety of its products and considers that the claims lack legal and scientific merit.

The company said, “L’Oréal’s highest priority is the health and well-being of all our consumers. Our products are subject to a rigorous scientific evaluation of their safety by experts who also ensure that we strictly follow all regulations in every market in which we operate. We are confident in the safety of SoftSheen-Carson’s products and believe the allegations made in this lawsuit have neither legal nor scientific merit.”

L’Oréal also disputes the research underlying the litigation, saying the study cited by plaintiffs did not establish a causal connection between hair-relaxer use and the alleged health conditions and called for further research.

The Arizona lawsuit comes amid more than 12,000 similar lawsuits consolidated in a federal multidistrict litigation in Chicago involving L’Oréal, Revlon and other manufacturers. Trials in that litigation may start in 2027.

The current evidence does not mean that everyone who has used a chemical hair relaxer will develop cancer.

But repeated use is an area of ongoing scientific investigation. People who use these products can reduce unnecessary exposure by following product instructions carefully, avoiding application to irritated or damaged skin, and considering less frequent use or non-chemical alternatives.