TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
PROBLEM: The 40-year-old woman had traveled nearly 500 kilometers (289 miles) from Beni, despite having been identified by health officials as having been exposed to Ebola and warned not to travel. Her case was confirmed in Ariwara, Congo, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the border with South Sudan’s Yei River State, according to a report from South Sudan’s health ministry that was viewed Tuesday by The Associated Press. It is the closest confirmed case to South Sudan since the outbreak began in Congo last August, according to an official with close knowledge of the outbreak who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on the record. People who have come into contact with Ebola patients are supposed to be monitored for 21 days, the incubation period during which symptoms can emerge after exposure. Long-distance travel, particularly to regions bordering other vulnerable countries, is not recommended. More than 1,500 people have died in Congo since the epidemic began, and two other fatal cases were reported in Uganda after a family sickened in Congo returned home across the border. While no other fatalities have emerged since the scare, fears remain high that Ebola could spread through the impoverished region where people are often mobile and difficult to trace. While authorities in South Sudan have been preparing for possible spread of Ebola case across the border, the country still remains far less prepared than Uganda. A five-year civil war in South Sudan has killed nearly 400,000 people and the health system is weak. Contact tracing is critical to stopping the disease’s spread, but those efforts in South Sudan would be complicated by the fact more than 4 million people have been displaced by the war. Medical facilities, which were already far more basic than those in Congo or Uganda, have been further weakened during the conflict. The outbreak is now the second deadliest in history, surpassed only by the 2014-2016 epidemic in West Africa that caused more than 11,300 deaths. While there is an experimental vaccine that has shown a high level of protection, efforts to vaccinate people in eastern Congo have been complicated by instability. The region where the outbreak began has been plagued for decades by violence from rebel groups and armed militias. The population remains highly distrustful of the Congolese government and the health authorities now trying to fight the disease. Major international health charities have had to curtail their work following deadly attacks on treatment centers and assaults on health teams in the field. ___ Mednick reported from Bujumbura, Burundi. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

SOLUTION: Ebola case reported not far from South Sudan border.

PROBLEM: A team of 20 doctors, including surgeons, neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists and nurses, will be deployed to the region of Marche in central Italy for two weeks, Italian ambassador to Ukraine, Davide La Cecilia told Reuters. “The national health service in our country is very stressed. So we badly need medical personnel and are very happy that Ukraine is sending this humanitarian aid,” said La Cecilia at Kiev’s airport, before the medical mission’s departure. Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who accompanied the ambassador, said Kiev would send more medical aid and disinfectant to Italy in the coming days. “It is an honour for us to help Italy during such tough times. We know that many Ukrainians live and work in Italy. By helping Italy, we are helping our citizens,” said Avakov. Ukraine’s health ministry has reported 1,096 cases, including 28 deaths since March 3, when the first case was recorded. But as thousands of Ukrainians have recently returned home from abroad, the ministry expects a much bigger outbreak ahead. The daily tally of new cases increased to 154 on Saturday from 138 on Friday, up from 62 last Monday. The head of the Ukrainian medical mission, neurosurgeon Andriy Miroshnichenko, said that all the team members volunteered to work in Italy. “After they come back home, they will be able to treat patients and work having practical experience and knowledge about the disease,” said Miroshnichenko. Asked whether the Ukrainian doctors were not afraid to catch the virus themselves Glib Bidyukov, a nurse, said it was “a consciously made choice”. “When you choose healthcare, you understand that you put yourself in some danger… Each of us made a choice a long time ago,” Bidyukov said.

SOLUTION: Ukrainian doctors fly to Italy to help combat coronavirus.

PROBLEM: Researchers who analyzed the situation warned that if nothing was done to reverse the trend, Spain risked spiraling health problems and could see increases in infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and the virus that causes AIDS. As part of the analysis, interviews were conducted with 34 doctors and nurses across Catalonia in northern Spain. Many reported feeling “shocked”, “numbed” and “disillusioned” about the cuts, and some expressed fears that “the cuts are going to kill people”, the researchers said. “For five years, policies to address the financial crisis have focused almost entirely on economic indicators,” said Martin McKee, professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who co-led the study. “Our paper sheds light on the burden of human suffering that has followed from these policies.”  The study published in the British medical Journal (BMJ) found that Spain’s national budget cuts of almost 14 percent and regional budget cuts of up to 10 percent in health and social services in 2012 have coincided with increased demands for care, particularly from the elderly, disabled and mentally ill. The researchers also noted increases in depression, alcohol-related disorders and suicides in Spain since the financial crisis hit and unemployment increased. “If no corrective measures are implemented, this could worsen with the risk of increases in HIV and tuberculosis — as we have seen in Greece where healthcare services have had severe cuts — as well as the risk of a rise in drug resistance and spread of disease,” said Helena Legido-Quigley, a lecturer in Global Health at LSHTM who worked with McKee. The findings in Spain chime with other studies in Europe and North America which found budget cuts had a devastating effect on health, driving up suicides, depression and infectious diseases and reducing access to medicines and care. In a book published in April, researchers said around 10,000 suicides and a million cases of depression had been diagnosed during what they called the “Great Recession” and the austerity measures that have come with it across Europe and North America. The BMJ study noted that Spain already had one of the lowest public expenditures on healthcare relative to GDP in the European Union. It said planned further cuts to a dependency fund for the elderly and disabled this year would put these vulnerable people even more at risk. Other changes in health provision include excluding unofficial immigrants from accessing free health services and increasing payments by patients for extra treatments such as drugs, prosthetics and some ambulance trips. In Madrid and Catalonia, regional cuts have led to a move towards privatization of hospitals, longer waiting times, cutbacks in emergency services and fewer surgical procedures, the researchers found.

SOLUTION:
Spanish austerity cuts put lives at risk, study finds.