TheChek News Flow

Key poll shows financial experts most gloomy since eurozone debt crisis

Expectations for the German economy have slumped to their lowest level since the eurozone debt crisis eight years ago amid deepening concerns over the US-China trade dispute and the potential for a chaotic UK exit from the EU.

The Zew survey of financial market experts revealed on Tuesday that economic sentiment in August had dropped to minus 44.1, its lowest since December 2011 and much gloomier than estimates from analysts in a Reuters poll who had predicted it to be minus 28.5. The index had come in at minus 24.5 in July. The experts polled showed that current conditions for the month were minus 13.5, down from minus 6.5 in July and worse than the predicted minus 7.

Turmoil in the country’s carmaking industry, the US-China trade spat and the prospect of a messy no-deal Brexit at the end of October have taken their toll on the export-orientated economy.

The poll points to a “significant deterioration in the outlook for the German economy”, said Achim Wambach, president of Zew. “The most recent escalation in the trade dispute between the US and China, the risk of competitive devaluations and the increased likelihood of a no-deal Brexit place additional pressure on the already weak economic growth. This will most likely put a further strain on the development of German exports and industrial production.”

Tuesday’s figures show the fifth consecutive monthly decline in the respected poll, while apart from April this year the indicator has shown negative figures since March 2018. The index has been below its long-term average of 21.8 points for three years since September 2015.

Quarterly gross domestic product figures, due on Wednesday, are expected by the Bundesbank and a Reuters poll of analysts to show that the German economy shrank 0.1 per cent in the three months to June. GDP in the first quarter had expanded 0.4 per cent while second-quarter eurozone growth came in at 0.2 per cent.

“The financial market experts’ sentiment concerning the economic development of the eurozone also experienced a significant drop, bringing the indicator to a current level of minus 43.6 points, 23.3 points lower than in the previous month,” the survey said on Tuesday. The indicator for the current economic situation in the eurozone fell 3.9 points to a level of minus 14.5 points in August.

More than 90% of patients in Democratic Republic of Congo survived when treated early

Two anti-Ebola drugs have proved so effective they will be rolled out to all patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising the prospect of a potential cure for the deadly disease.

In a trial conducted since November, more than 90 per cent of patients survived when they were treated early enough with one of the two drugs, scientists said. Under normal circumstances, some 70 per cent of people infected with the virus die.

In the latest outbreak in Congo, the second worst in history, some 1,800 people are known to have died out of about 2,800 infected.

The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped run the trial, described the results as “very good news” in the fight against Ebola. Scientists said the breakthrough could significantly reduce the risks of further outbreaks on the scale of the one in Congo or that in west Africa in 2014, in which more than 11,000 people died.

The two drugs, called REGN-EB3 and mAb114, attack the Ebola virus with antibodies, preventing the virus from entering cells. They build on a treatment developed by Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, who has helped lead the fight against Ebola for four decades.

Dr Muyembe, 77, was recently put in charge of the Congo’s response against the Ebola outbreak, which has taken place in the east of the vast central African country where lawlessness and lack of trust in authorities has hampered the response.

Scientists said that having an effective medicine could massively improve public trust, since patients would not simply be asked to come to medical centres to die. Instead, if the infection was caught early enough, they now stood an excellent chance of survival.

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