Necrosyrtes monachus: Mass death of Hooded Vultures reported in The Gambia.

A mass death event affecting Hooded Vultures, Necrosyrtes monachus, has occurred in the town of Gunjur, in Kombo South District, The Gambia, according to the West African Bird Study Association. The association was contacted by local residents at 11.00  am local time on Thursday 3 July 2025, by local residents concerned by the sight of a large number of dead and dying Birds. When a team of researchers led by Fagimba Camara arrived at the site, they found 23 dead Vultures and a 24th in a sick and distressed condition.

A researcher from the West African Bird Study Association collecting dead Hooded Vultures, Necrosyrtes monachus, in Gunjur, The Gambia, following a mass death event on Thursday 3 July 2025. West African Bird Study Association.

Hooded Vultures are classed as Critically Endangered under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species. There are thought to be around 131 000 adult Hooded Vultures alive, spread across 45 African countries. However, the species is estimated to have suffered a 68% population decline in three generations, and sudden population collapses have been recorded in several countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Botswana, and illegal killings of Birds have been recorded in several countries, including Guinea Bissau, Burkina Faso, and The Gambia.

The current distribution and conservation status of the Hooded Vulture, Necrosyrtes monachus. International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

The researchers from the West African Bird Study Association have collected samples from the Gunjur Vultures for analysis, but it is thought most likely that the Birds have died as a result of poisoning. This is the most common cause of mass deaths among Vultures, not because they are targeted themselves, but because they will eat both bait put out for large predators which target livestock (itself an illegal activity in almost all countries), as well as the bodies of other Animals which have been poisoned, intentionally or otherwise.

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Contaminated medicine linked to the deaths of 66 children in The Gambia.

The deaths of 66 children in The Gambia, West Africa, have been linked to contaminated medicines from India.  The children, who all died of acute kidney failure, had all consumed cough syrups produced by Maiden Pharmaceuticals, a company based in Haryana State, India. Another 81 children are being treated in hospitals for kidney problems linked to the products.

Musa Kayateh, one of 66 children in The Gambia who died after consuming medicine products products produced by Indian company Maiden Pharmaceuticals. Kayateh Family/BBC.

The contamination was not detected immediately as The Gambia does not have a laboratory capable of testing pharmaceuticals, with doctors initially suspecting a range of illnesses, including Malaria and Meningitis. Only after samples were sent to a laboratory in neighbouring Senegal was it discovered that four paracetamol-based cough syrups produced by Maiden Pharmaceuticals, Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup, and Magrip N Cold Syrup, all contained diethylene glycol, a sweat-tasting chemical which has been linked to several previous poisoning incidents.

Medicines seized by authorities in The Gambia following the discovery that they were contaminated with diethylene glycol. Milan Berckman/AFP.

Following the discovery Police and Red Cross workers in The Gambia carried out a door-to-door search for these drugs, eventually confiscating over 16 000 products. The World Health Organization has issued a global alert for these drugs, as, while they were only ever officially exported to The Gambia, there is a danger that they may have reached other countries, particularly those in West Africa, by informal routes. 

Opposition politicians and families of the deceased children have questioned the delays in tracing the cause of the deaths, claiming that the government should have reacted more quickly once children began to die. The Gambian government has defended its actions by pointing out that the deaths did not immediately show up against a high child mortality rate in the summer months, already made worse by  extensive flooding this year, with an associated jump in the number of cases of water-borne diseases. The Gambian government has now announced plans to open an laboratory capable of carrying out quality assays on medicines.

Flooding in Banjul, The Gambia, in August 2022, triggered by the heaviest rains in 50 years. The Standard Newspaper.

In India, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (India's national regulatory body for cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and medical devices) and Haryana State Government have began an investigation into the activities of Maiden Pharmaceuticals, with samples of the four cough syrups having been sent to the regional pharmaceuticals testing lab in Chandigarh. Maiden Pharmaceuticals has previously been accused of selling substandard medicines by several Indian states, including Bihar, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, and Kerala, and its products have been banned in Vietnam over similar concerns.

Paracetamol-based cough syrups have been phased out in India, following an incident in 2020 in which 17 children died of diethylene glycol poisoning in Jammu and Kashmir State. They have been replaced with liquid paracetamol suspensions, in which diethylene glycol is easier to detect. 

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The Cabeço da Amoreira burial: An Early Modern Era West African buried in a Mesolithic shell midden in Portugal.

The Tagus and Sado valleys of central Portugal contain numerous shell middens, dating back to the Late Mesolithic, roughly 6500 to 5000 years ago. As well as depositories for waste shells, these sites were used as burial grounds by the people who made them. A number of these sites were excavated by archaeologists in the 1930s, producing a series of sets of Human remains, buried within the middens without grave goods. One site, Cabeço da Amoreira at Muge in the Tagus Valley yielded an individual noted at the time as being both notably taller and better preserved than others recovered from such sites. More recently, scientists working on a database of Mesolithic European genomes have begun to sequence individuals from these Mesolithic Portuguese sites, including the Cabeço da Amoreira individual, in the process of which they found that this individual was not closely related to other individuals from Mesolithic burials in Portugal, or elsewhere in Europe, but rather appeared to be of African descent.

In a paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports on 21 February 2022, Rita Peyroteo-Stjerna of Human Evolution at Uppsala University and the Centro de Arqueologia da Universidade de Lisboa, Luciana Simões, also of Human Evolution at Uppsala University, Ricardo Fernandes of the Department of Archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and the Faculty of Arts at Masaryk University, independent researcher Gonçalo Lopes, and Torsten Günther and Mattias Jakobsson, again of Human Evolution at Uppsala University, present the results of the follow up study which used multiple lines of enquiry to determine the origin of the Cabeço da Amoreira individual.

 

Location of Cabeço da Amoreira shell midden (indicated by the star), Muge, Tagus valley, Portugal. Peyroteo-Stjerna et al. (2022).

Radiocarbon dating of material from the Cabeço da Amoreira site, including bone, charcoal and shells, have produced dates of between 6500 and 5000 BC, consistent with a Mesolithic origin for the site, however, radiocarbon dating of collagen from the individual buried at the site yielded dates between 1529 and 1763 AD, and probably between 1631 and 1793, consistent with an Early Modern origin. 

Relationships between Early Modern Europe and Africa were dominated by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which saw millions of people taken from Africa and shipped to European colonies in the New World, and to a lesser extent Europe itself. Portugal is estimated to have directly imported 2-3000 African slaves per year between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. Most of these remained enslaved their whole lives, though some were freed and able to live relatively independent lives, albeit very much at the bottom of the social scale. 

Because mitochondrial DNA is found in the mitochondria, organelles outside the cell nucleus, it is passed directly from mother to child without being sexually recombined each generation, enabling precise estimations of when individuals shared common ancestors, at least through the female line; this is known as the female haplogroup. It is also possible to trace direct ancestry through the male line, using DNA from the Y chromosome, which is passed directly from father to son without sexual recombination; this is known as the male haplogroup. Since everyone has mitochondria, it is possible to determine the female haplogroup of all Humans, but generally only males have a Y chromosome and can be assigned to a male haplogroup.

Genetic analysis of the Cabeço da Amoreira individual established that he had a Y chromosome, indicating that he was male. It was also possible to determine both his male haplogroup. He was found to belong to the E1b1a male haplogroup, which is the most widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, being commonly found in Nigeria, Congo, Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, and among Bantu-speakers in Southern Africa.

A principle component analysis based upon his entire recoverable genome revealed that Cabeço da Amoreira man showed a greater genomic similarity to West Africans than to other populations, and in particular, to people of Gambian or Mandinka origin. 

 

(A) Principal component analysis. Worldwide modern populations (circles coloured according to continent) and Cabeço da Amoreira man projected as a yellow, red outlined diamond. (B) Geographic distribution of the genetic affinity of the studied individual with modern African populations, measured by outgroup-f₃. The two highest f₃ scores are depicted with diamonds. Peyroteo-Stjerna et al. (2022).

Peyroteo-Stjerna et al. next looked for alleles (gene variants) associated with sub-Saharan populations, finding that Cabeço da Amoreira man had a number of alleles which would further support an African origin, notably the FY*B allele, which is associated with resilience to Malaria, and a number of skin pigmentation alleles, namely MFSD12 rs10424065; DDB1 rs11230664; OCA2 rs1800404; SLC45A2 rs16891982; and HERC2 rs6497271, which are more commonly associated with sub-Saharan African populations than with Europeans (skin pigmentation is complicated, genetically speaking, and it is not possible to directly determine someone's exact skin tone from their genome at the current time, but it is possible to associate allele abundances with specific populations). Cabeço da Amoreira man also lacked the alleles for lactase persistence (i.e. retaining the ability to digest milk into adult life), sugesting that he was lactose intolerant, something more common in Africans than Europeans.

A stable isotope analysis for carbon and oxygen isotopes, based upon bone collagen from Cabeço da Amoreira man, suggested that when he was growing up his diet comprised largely C₄ Plants, supplemented with seafood. A diet of C₄ Plants is not at all typical for Portugal (or elsewhere in Europe) in the Early Modern period, although it would have been common in parts of West Africa, notably the Sahel Region (which reaches the coast in the Senegambia region and southern Mauritania), where the principal crops for the time would have been Sorghum and Millet, both of which are C₄ Plants. Further south, in the West African forest zone, the principal crops were Rice (a C₄ Plant) in the west and a more mixed vegecultural diet (also based around C₄ Plants) in the east. Therefore, the C₄ Plant component of Cabeço da Amoreira man's diet makes it likely that he came from the Sahel region, and the seafood component further ties him to the Senegambia and Mauritania region.

 

Estimated area of origin of Cabeço da Amoreira man (mug019) in West Africa and place of burial in Portugal. Traditional plant food-producing systems in West Africa. Peyroteo-Stjerna et al. (2022).

Around 35 000 slaves were brought to Portugal from Africa between 1514 and 1866. Records of these movements are fairly complete after 1750, but older records are somewhat patchy, making the origin of Cabeço da Amoreira man difficult to reconstruct in this way. However, it is known that slaves were brought to Portugal from predominantly from Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia, with smaller numbers arriving from the Cape Verde islands, Princes Island and São Tomé, Bance Island (Sierra Leone), the Gold Coast (Ghana), Senegal and Whydah (on the coast of modern Benin). 

Most slaves in Portugal during this period would have been baptised as Christians, and buried in Christian burial grounds. However, there are records of slaves being buried in other ways, including by roadsides, in wastelands or in Olive groves. The Church generally kept good records of births, deaths, marriages, and baptisms during this period, for all social classes including slaves, which offered some hope of discovering the identity of Cabeço da Amoreira man. Peyroteo-Stjerna et al. were able to identify two deaths of interest in the Cabeço da Amoreira area in the seventeenth century, the first of an unnamed slave on 5 May 1633, for whom no burial location is listed, and the second of the murder of a man named João at Arneiro da Amoreira on 1 November 1676; João is described as being brown skinned, which may indicate that he was of mixed origins, but he was buried in a churchyard, so presumably was not Cabeço da Amoreira man.

One notable feature of the Cabeço da Amoreira burial is that the body does not appear to have been buried hastily, but rather laying upon a bed of sand which had been used to line the grave, something not seen in Mesolithic shell midden burials (the difference was noted at the time of excavation, but the significance of this, understandably, was not realised).This implies that the burial at this location was planned and carefully executed, rather than being the hurried disposal of the body of a slave or murder victim.

Shell midden burials, both ancient and modern, are known from the Senegambia region, and are still sometimes practiced among Serer fishermen in the Saloum Delta. Here, some families maintain temporary settlements on islands deep within the delta, which are used for four-to-five months each year, when shellfish are harvested. Since these sites are essentially located on shifting sandbanks, the shell middens that build up their form stable hardgrounds, which can be used for purposed such as supporting structures and burying anyone who dies while the temporary villages are in use.

 

Modern cemetery on a shell midden, at Fadiouth in the Saloum Delta, Senegal. Hardy et al. (2015).

This does not unequivocally tie the Cabeço da Amoreira burial to the Senegambia region, but does create a plausible scenario in which members of a community transplanted to Portugal, who had practiced shell midden burials in their homeland, might have chosen to recreate the practice in their new environment.

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World Health Organisation confirms The Gambia has eliminated Trachoma as a public health problem.

The World Health Organization has validated The Gambia for having eliminated Trachoma as a public health problem, making it the second country in the World Health Organisation’s African Region to achieve this milestone, according to a press release issued on 20 April 2021. 'This is a great step towards the 2030 goals set by the recently launched 2021–2030 road map for neglected tropical diseases,' said Ren Minghui, the World Health Organisation’s Assistant Director-General for Universal Health Coverage/Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases. 'Gambia has become the second country this year, after Côte d’Ivoire, to eliminate a neglected tropical disease.'

 

A Gambian mother getting checked for Trachoma. Trachoma is a neglected tropical eye disease. Infection mainly affects children, becoming less common with increasing age. Gambia Eye Health Programm/World Health Organisation.

The Gambia’s success in eliminating Trachoma is largely attributed to strong collaboration with partner organisations to implement the World Health Organisation’s SAFE strategy. 'This is a remarkable achievement that has saved children, mothers and families from preventable visual impairment or blindness, and improved their quality of life and well-being,' said Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organisation’s Regional Director for Africa. 'It is also a clear sign that we can achieve significant milestones through dedicated efforts in tackling health challenges in the region.'

At the heart of the efforts against trachoma are Gambian community volunteers, who have played a crucial role in mobilizing communities and promoting behaviour change.

A 2018–2019 survey on Trachomatous Trichiasis (the advanced, blinding stage of trachoma) in Gambia found that the prevalence of this condition among people aged 15 years and above ranged from 0% to 0.02%, well under the threshold required for elimination of Trachoma as a public health problem. This is a huge achievement compared to the mid-1980s, when a national survey estimated that Trachoma was responsible for almost 1 out of 5 cases of blindness, countrywide.

Trachoma is a neglected tropical eye disease. Infection mainly affects children, becoming less common with increasing age. The long-term consequences of infection develop years or even decades later. In adults, women are up to 4 times more likely than men to be affected by the blinding complications of Trachoma, mainly due to their close contact with infected children.

The Gambia and the World Health Organisation will continue to closely monitor previously endemic populations to ensure there is a rapid, proportionate response to any resurgence of the disease. 

Despite The Gambia’s success, Trachoma remains endemic in 27 countries in the World Health Organisation’s African Region, and 29 countries on the African continent overall. Progress against neglected tropical diseases has alleviated the Human and economic burden they impose on the world’s most disadvantaged communities. The 2021–2030 road map for neglected tropical diseases seeks to prevent, control, eliminate or eradicate 20 diseases by 2030.

Globally, Trachoma remains a public health problem in 45 countries, with an estimated 137 million people living in areas endemic for the disease. Significant progress has been made over the past few years, the number of people requiring antibiotic treatment for Trachoma elimination in the African Region fell by 72 million from 189 million in 2014 to 117 million in 2020.

Trachoma is a devastating eye disease caused by infection with the Bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. The infection spreads from person to person through contaminated fingers, fomites and flies that have come into contact with discharge from the eyes or nose of an infected person.

Environmental risk factors for Trachoma transmission include poor hygiene, overcrowded households, inadequate access to water, and inadequate access to, or use of, proper sanitation facilities.

Repeated infections in childhood lead to scarring of the inner side of the upper eyelids, resulting in inward turning of the eyelid margin, with the lashes touching the globe. This is a painful condition known as Trachomatous Trichiasis, if left untreated, this condition can result in visual impairment and blindness.

In 1996, the World Health Organisation launched the WHO Alliance for the Global Elimination of Trachoma by 2020. With other partners in the Alliance, the World Health Organisation supports country implementation of the SAFE strategy and the strengthening of national capacity through epidemiological assessment, monitoring, surveillance, project evaluation and resource mobilisation.

Elimination of Trachoma is inexpensive, simple and extremely cost-effective, yielding a high rate of net economic return.

Chlamydia trachomatis is a member of the Chlamydiae, a diverse group of Bacteria which are generally pathogenic. Most well understood members of Chlamydiae are intracellular parasites of Animals and single-celled Eukaryotes, and it has long been presumed that these Bacteria were obligate parasites, incapable of living or reproducing outside of Eukarotic cells. However, some free-living species have recently been discovered in deep marine environments, although little is yet known about the life-cycle of these Bacteria.

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Illegal Rosewood shipment intercepted in The Gambia.

A shipment of Rosewood has been intercepted as its owners tried to export it from The Gambia, West Africa, according to a statement made by the Gambian Environment Minister,  Lamin Dibba, on Monday 8 February 2021. The shipment comprised 22 containers of wood bound for an undisclosed destination, which has been seized by customs officials. Rosewoods, Pterocarpus and Dalbergia spp., have been heavily over-exploited in many areas of Africa due to the high value of their timber, and their export is now banned from most countries. The Gambia has previously been a major exporter of Rosewood, and is now largely depleted of these trees, with neighbouring Senegal accusing the smaller country of being a conduit for the export of trees felled illegally there.

 

A container filled with Rosewood logs intercepted in The Gambia this week. The Fatu Network,

The term Rosewood, or 'Hongmu' (红木) refers to a group of 29 timber species with distinct features valued in China, including the rich hue, extreme durability and often a pleasant smell. Hongmu species are widely used in antique furniture reproduction in China and Vietnam. Nearly half of the world’s countries (95 in total) across five continents have been exporting Rosewood to China since 2000. At a plant genus level, where studies exist, 90 percent of Pterocarpus and Dalbergia populations show declining or unstable populations. Since 2015, Africa has become the world’s top Hongmu producing region, accounting for the majority of all Hongmu log imports to China by volume between January 2015 and June 2019. Demand for Hongmu has driven boom-and-bust cycles, marked by steep increases in harvest and export volumes from individual countries before a sudden collapse, or 'bust'. Once a species is exhausted in one country, or new control measures are put in place by governments, smuggling networks quickly identify new supplies and move to the next country or region. This phenomenon of 'boom and bust' in the Rosewood trade has been well documented and was confirmed by the CITES Secretariat in 2019.

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Chinese fishing vessels impounded for violating Fisheries Protection Zones in The Gambia.

Six fishing vessels have been impounded by authorities in The Gambia, West Africa, for fishing in protected waters since the beginning of October 2020. The country stepped up patrols of its waters at the beginning of October, in order to both prevent unmonitored entrance and exit from the country, as it closed its borders temporarily in order to slow the spread of the Covid-19 Virus, and to prevent vessels using the current lockdown to exploit its waters. The Gambian-registered Super Fly 1 was stopped by the Gambian Navy inside a restricted zone on 6 October, as was the Senegalese-registered Betty on 29 October. On 4 November a combined operation by the Gambian Navy, Gambian Fisheries Department and environmental group Sea Shepherd boarded and impounded three Chinese vessels, the Gorde 106, Gorde 107, and Gorde 108. On 7 November a fourth Chinese Vessel, the Finsi Wang, was boarded and seized by a Gambian Navy team based on board the Sea Shepherd.

 

Impounded fishing vessels in The Gambia. Fatu Network.

The Gambia has a land area of 10 869 km², and 10 500 km² of territorial waters within its Exclusive Economic Zone, making fishing an important economic activity, and Fish a vital staple food for much of the country's population. The country has a coast line 80 km in length, 25 km of which lies within the Gambia River mouth embayment. Commercial fishing vessels are allowed to operate in Gambian waters with the appropriate permits, but a 7 km exclusion zone exists around the country's shores, in which only small vessels using traditional, artisanal, fishing methods are permitted. These are considered to be more selective, and therefore Fish-friendly, and the measures are intended to protect both Fish stocks and the livelihoods of local communities dependent on fishing for their income. 

 

The waters of the Gambian Exclusive Economic Zone (red). The paler zone indicates the continental shelf, where almost all commercial fishing takes place. At the left of the map are the Cape Verde Islands. Marine Regions.

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