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By Johannes Marisa QUALITY health delivery service requires collaboration. In 2007, the World Health Organisation proposed a framework describing health systems in terms of six core components or building blocks. These components are the availability of good service delivery, health workforce, health information systems, access to essential medicines, financing and leadership. Much has been said in our country pertaining the desire to deliver a robust healthcare to the masses. With COVID-19 always threatening to strike further, it is thus prudent that we keep ourselves ready for action so that we are not caught unawares as a nation. While Europe continues to be hit by COVID-19 left, right and centre, the situation in Africa is a little better despite the little resources available. The public health measures that were introduced by authorities paid off with a halt on both morbidity and mortality. Health stakeholders in Zimbabwe include all those who are involved in health service delivery. These include policymakers, health practitioners, city councils, medical aid societies, the donor community, community leaders who, therefore, should come together for the benefit of the nation at large. It is a fact that there has been a lot of dissension among the stakeholders due to differences which have often threatened the viability of the health sector. Surprisingly, some of the contentious issues are easy to resolve. They only need minimal co-operation in order to move ahead. Being difficult does not help matters when dealing with issues, particularly important ones. The following matters have been of concern among stakeholders and it is my prayer that solutions will be found if the country is to make great strides in healthcare delivery: Service providers/medical aid societies feud The friction between service providers and medical aid societies should be resolved if many people are to access healthcare. There are patients that have been denied medical care simply because their health insurers do not want to honour claims from service providers. Some medical aid societies have gone for more than six months without paying a single dollar in this COVID-19 era. Service providers have been left without any option except to demand cash or shortfall upfront, thus putting more misery on patients. Members of medical aid societies should enquire with service providers on when medical aid societies last paid them. Harare City Council/private practitioners food handlers feud There has been acrimony from private practitioners about the way the city health department has handled the issue of food handlers’ certification. Council has claimed that many private practitioners have a tendency of making claims without examining patients, which has been denied by doctors. Council has refused to release medical certificate forms and its officials have gone around restaurants and supermarkets threatening that anyone who has a certificate not signed by council medical practitioners will be arrested. This is very unfair and it ridicules the prof
A November 26 letter from the presidency asked the head of Uganda's national drug authority to 'work out a mechanism' to clear the importation of the vaccines.
China has about five COVID-19 vaccine candidates at different levels of trials. It was not clear what vaccine was being imported into Uganda.
One of the frontrunners is the Sinopharm vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Product, a unit of Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group (CNBG).
On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates said the vaccine has 86% efficacy, citing an interim analysis of late-stage clinical trials.
China has used the drug to vaccinate up to a million people under its emergency use program.
On Tuesday, Morocco said it was ordering up to 10 million doses of the vaccine.
Record cases
Uganda on Monday registered 701 new COVID-19 cases, the highest-ever daily increase, bringing its national count to 23,200.
The new cases were out of the 5,578 samples tested for the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said in a statement.
Tuesday's tally was 606, the second-highest ever number of new infections, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the east African country to 23,860.
Health authorities have blamed ongoing election campaigns which have drawn huge crowds for the rise in infections.
So far, a number of countries have begun easing their lockdowns, and, according to WHO's initial analysis, the impact on doubling time - the number of days for case numbers to double in a given country - appears to be varying depending on the timing and duration of the confinement measures.
Thirteen countries in sub-Saharan Africa have implemented lockdowns along with other public health and social measures nationwide, while ten more instigated partial lockdowns in hotspots.
Moeti called for solidarity and a strong focus against the prevention of the virus through social distancing and Kumar Singh Jagutpal, Minister of Health and Wellness in Mauritius, shared how his country has fared against the spread of the virus.
Mkhize emphasised the importance of social distancing and masks and welcomed the support of Cuban doctors who were brought into the country to assist local health were brought in to strengthen our ground teams and we have increased the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds,\" Mkhize said.
Aceng praised Uganda's leadership in responding to the pandemic at the speed it did with President Yoweri Museveni having addressed the nation 15 times, issuing 36 guidelines on the prevention of contracting the virus and the introduction of a national lockdown.
\"Test, test, test\" has been the mantra for defeating the novel coronavirus, but African countries are finding themselves at the end of a long global queue for the chemical reagents and other commodities necessary for administering diagnostic tests, according to public health experts.
Although mass testing is seen as a key component to slowing transmission, African health authorities are struggling to compete with richer, more powerful countries when it comes to procuring the scarce testing material on the global market, notes a new commentary published in The Lancet scientific journal.
Building self-sufficiency
Many African researchers foresaw this scarcity and the consequent need for African countries to be as self-sufficient as possible when it comes to diagnostic tests.
Given the global shortages - particularly the reagents necessary to run polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which remain almost exclusively the basis for diagnosis - African countries need to take two paths forward, suggests Dr. Misaki Wayengera of Uganda's Makerere University.
But there are only a few diagnostics manufacturing facilities across Africa that have developed RDTs and could work on COVID-19 solutions, acknowledged Dr. Moses Alobo of the African Academy of Sciences, who is leading the effort to coordinate elite researchers across the continent.
The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) has denied that it plans to resume passenger flight operations at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
This comes a day after an internal memo by JKIA Airport Manager Abel Godo to officials from the Aeronautical Operational Control (AOC), all government agencies, concessionaires, contractors, suppliers and service providers about the imminent resumption of passenger flights for a meeting leaked.
“In preparation of the imminent resumption of passenger operations at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, you are hereby invited to a virtual meeting to be held on Wednesday 13th May 2020 at 11.00hrs,” read the memo.
She clarified that the meeting, which has since been postponed, was meant to put in place measures in case the flight operations resume.
Moi International Airport Manager Paul Wafula confirmed that they do routine meetings internally to brainstorm on the measures to put in place just in case the travel ban is lifted.
Even before COVID-19, many African countries used libel and defamation laws, and internet shut downs to limit the freedom of expression of citizens and the media.
This recommendation can still be used to combat fake news as long as the impact on freedom of expression is minimal.
The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa issued a recently press statement expressing concerns about internet shutdowns in African countries in the time of COVID-19.
And the African Commission recently published its Revised Declaration on Principles of Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa.
Finally, African governments must not use fake news during this pandemic as a shield to violate the freedom of expression of its citizens, or settle old scores with the press.
Nancy and her family of five live in Aburokango Village, Atekiber Parish, Nambieso Sub-county, Kwania District.
Like thousands of child-headed households in Uganda, this family at Acwa A Village, Nambieso Sub-county in Kwania District, lacks many basic necessities such as food, clothing, and beddings.
The children, who live in dilapidated structures at Tarogali Village, Tarogali Parish, Ibuje Sub-county in Apac District, were orphaned as a result of domestic violence.
Child rights activists say children in child-headed households face a serious threat to their right to education because of poverty, difficulty in obtaining food and shelter.
Ms Josephine Omara Olili, the Alebtong Resident District Commissioner (RDC), acknowledges that little is being done to support extremely vulnerable people, including the orphans, the elderly, HIV/Aids patients and child-headed households.
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe — Experts across Africa are warning that as hospitals and health facilities focus on COVID-19, less attention is being given to the management of other deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which affect millions more people.
\"With COVID-19 spreading, we are worried about its impacts on health systems in Africa and that this may impact negatively on the delivery of routine services, which include malaria control.
Poorly equipped and understaffed national health services in many countries in Africa could compromise efforts to eliminate the malaria scourge, noted Kalu.
Africa must cope with COVID-19 without forgetting malaria
Mamadou Coulibaly, head of the Malaria Research and Training Center at the University of Bamako, Mali, concurred that the pandemic was straining health systems in developing countries.
More action, less talk
While pleased with progress made towards eliminating malaria in Africa since 2008 when the Abuja Declaration on Health investment was signed, Kalu said Africa could do better.
Tests on hamsters reveal the widespread use of facemasks reduces transmission of the deadly coronavirus, a team of leading experts in Hong Kong said Sunday.
The research by the University of Hong Kong is some of the first to specifically investigate whether masks can stop symptomatic and asymptomatic Covid-19 carriers from infecting others.
Led by Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, one of the world's top coronavirus experts, the team placed hamsters that were artificially infected with the disease next to healthy animals.
Surgical masks were placed between the two cages with air flow travelling from the infected animals to the healthy ones.
The infection rate plunged to just over 15 per cent when surgical masks were put on the cage of the infected animals and by about 35 per cent when placed on the cage with the healthy hamsters.
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has extended a nationwide lockdown meant to control the spread of coronavirus, though the restrictions will be reviewed every two weeks.
LIVE | All the latest coronavirus and lockdown updates
In a live broadcast on Saturday, Mnangagwa said the measure would remain in place \"for an indefinite period\", adding that \"the country needs to ease out of the lockdown in a strategic and gradual manner\".
The drastic restrictions have so far borne fruit as coronavirus transmission has not been widespread and numbers remain lower than the initial projections, Mnangagwa said.
Zimbabwe imposed its lockdown on 30 March and has recorded 44 confirmed coronavirus cases and four related deaths.
Mnangagwa said the World Health Organisation had classified coronavirus transmission in Zimbabwe as \"sporadic\", with a low number of cases and no discernible clusters.
Dr. William Dorsey has been elected to the Illinois Health and Hospital Association’s (IHA) 2021 Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the policymaking body for the Association, which represents more than 200 hospitals and nearly 40 health systems across Illinois. Dr. Dorsey’s three-year term started January 1, 2021. As Chief Executive Officer of […]
[allAfrica] Johannesburg -- Twenty-one countries have experienced three consecutive years of zero indigenous cases of malaria since 2000. Ten countries where malaria once raged have been certified free of malaria by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
As government looks mainly to the public purse to foot the bill for the COVID-19 vaccine, the SACP has said there must be no room for corruption in the sourcing of treatment
There are a few examples that show that African institutions of higher learning and many other organisations can play their part in collectively helping fellow Africans face the pandemic head-on.
In recent history, other pandemics such as SARS (2002), H1N1 Swine flu (2009), and MERS (2012) did cause a global response and disruption, but it is probably fair to say that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a global response like never seen before, with terms such as \"lockdown\", \"social-distancing\" and \"the new-normal\" now part of our common vocabulary.
Indeed, many parts of Africa are scarcely populated, but according to the United Nations, around 40 to 45% of Africans live in urban areas, with many living in a number of mega-cities such as Lagos, Kinshasa, Addis Ababa, Cairo, and Johannesburg.
Since a major focus of the Makerere University team is doing research and outreach related to refugee health, much of their current focus is monitoring for Covid-19 among refugee communities and camps in the country.
These are just a few examples that show that African institutions of higher learning and many other organisations can play their part in collectively helping fellow Africans face the pandemic head-on and \"rise like lions\", to use the words of the renowned African poet, Ben Okri.
[Monitor] Emerging evidence has linked the smoggy skylines being observed in several towns and cities across the country to high levels of pollution.
Treasury has released K7.4 billion to government ministries to arm them fight the raging coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
Minister of Information, Civic Education and Communications Technology Mark Botomani said the money is from Covid-19 pool money.
This is what is needed to fight the Covid-19.
Botomani said that the government already released K2.4 billion which went to government ministries as well as district, town and city councils to fight the pandemic.
He said another K5 billion went to councils and security agents among other clusters engaged in the fight against Covid-19.
Akin Abayomi, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, gave the update on Sunday on his Twitter handle.
However, on Sunday, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health said three of them have tested positive for COVID-19.
In addition to the new positive cases recorded in Lagos, three more COVID-19 related deaths have been recorded in the state.
This brings the total deaths from COVID-19 to 36 in Lagos State.
The commissioner urged Lagos residents and particularly those who recently returned to the country to cooperate with the COVID-19 response team as may be desirable at all times and in all circumstances.
[WHO] Around 1.8 billion people are at heightened risk of COVID-19 and other diseases because they use or work in health care facilities without basic water services, warn WHO and UNICEF.
...dons warn FG against mass vaccination plan
• Reps set to revisit bill mandating vaccines for Nigerians
• FG places six-month ban on 100 travel...
The World Health Assembly, which has been trimmed from the usual three weeks to just two days, Monday and Tuesday, is expected to focus almost solely on Covid-19, which in a matter of months has killed more than 310,000 globally, and infected nearly 4.7 million.
Despite the tensions, countries hope to adopt by consensus a resolution urging a joint response to the pandemic.
While diplomats have agreed in principle on the draft resolution, observers voiced concerns that in the current politicised atmosphere, some countries might still choose to break the consensus next week.
And Washington is also leading a number of countries in demanding that the WHO end its exclusion of Taiwan -- considered by Beijing to be part of its territory -- and allow it to access next week's assembly as an observer.
The United States, which will be represented during the assembly by Health Secretary Alex Azar, is meanwhile not among the countries who are asking the WHA to make a call on the issue of Taiwan's participation.
There is over 200 million undernourished people in the African continent, and with the novel coronavirus sweeping countries, the urgency to address their food and health systems increases as undernourished people have weak immune systems leaving them vulnerable and exposed to COVID-19.
Read the full interview with Dr Jane Battersby
\"This is making diverse diets more costly for citizens.The Global Nutrition Report argues that in terms of both health and systemic resilience, there is a need for food systems to 'go beyond a narrow focus on energy intake; reduce the dominance of cereal production (maize, rice and wheat); and increase the availability of healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables, nuts and whole grains',\" Battersby says.
The novel coronavirus pandemic exposes deep inequalities within countries and weak food and health systems - a view shared by food experts during the report launch.
As a result the 2020 Global Nutrition Report is calling on governments, businesses and civil society to step up efforts to address malnutrition in all its forms and tackle injustices in food and health systems.
For countries' food and health systems to be more equitable, the report recommends that strong governmental coordination on nutrition should be put in place.
People in low-income countries are living longer and healthier lives due to better control of deadly diseases like HIV/Aids and malaria, says the World Health Organization.
In the 2020 World Health Statistics published by WHO, it is shown life expectancy rose by 21 per cent or 11 years between 2000 and 2016 in low income countries.
Comparatively, growth in life expectancy seems to have stagnated in higher income countries with an increase of four per cent or three years only.
The recent life expectancy gains in low-income countries are largely due to major reductions in mortality in children under five years in low-income countries, a reduction of 53 per cent from 143 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000 to 68 in 2018.
Gains may be reversed during Covid-19 pandemic due to shortage of services within and outside the health system, while prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart and lung disease, and stroke have been affected by Covid-19 too.
EDITORIAL: Demystify coronavirus
Wednesday, May 20, 2020 0:01
By EDITORIAL
Patients fear that a hospital visit increases their chances of contracting coronavirus.
The measures have sparked fears among sick Kenyans who have stopped going to hospitals for treatment and routine check-ups.
Most health facilities are now grounded as patients' bed occupancies, admissions as well as visits decline.
Patients fear that a hospital visit increases their chances of contracting coronavirus or they may be tested and found to have the virus, then locked up in quarantine facilities.
That the pandemic has weakened health systems and disrupted routine services in hospitals means that the government has not demystified Covid-19, especially the need to be in quarantine.
[Africa In Fact] Abuja Declaration: broken promises
Pharmaceutical companies should sell Covid-19 vaccines to African countries at discounted rates, the head of the continent's disease control body said
Vaccines to prevent the deadly coronavirus disease in Tennessee are expected to arrive Thursday (Dec. 17), according to Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (MLH). Healthcare workers in hospitals across the state will be first to receive the initial batch of 56,000 doses produced by Pfizer. A second batch developed by Moderna is expected to follow. Subsequent […]
Take the government’s modelling of COVID’s likely trajectory in South Africa.
Government statistics are publicly available according to the number of tests, cases diagnosed, recoveries and deaths.
As Professor Landon Myer, of the University of Cape Town‘s school of public health and family medicine, told the Sunday Times an interview, “If there is one massive criticism government, it is a lack of transparency … and details of the mathematical models they are using.
In both the United States Kingdom and in the United Kingdom, where the ethnicity of COVID victims is recorded and made publicly available, it has been discovered that African-Americans and people of so-called Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) origin are over-represented in the infection and mortality figures.
Speculatively, perhaps there is a genetic resilience among African people to COVID, if one considers the admittedly early trajectory of the disease on the continent.
Africa has recorded successes on many levels which are often ignored by global media -- and we need to embrace and celebrate our unique contribution to the world.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has once again revealed global perceptions of Africa.
A report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) stated that between 300,000 and 3.3 million Africans could lose their lives due to Covid-19.
Beyond the narratives of doom and gloom, Africa has recorded successes on many levels which are often ignored by global media.
These states thus have the moral authority to promote democracy and human rights on the continent and beyond....
The World Health Organization on Monday urged countries to continue funding the agency, saying it will initiate an independent review into its handling of the coronavirus pandemic \"at the earliest appropriate moment.\"
Speaking at the 194-member World Health Assembly virtual conference, the WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, also called on all nations to \"do everything it takes to ensure that the 2020 coronavirus pandemic is never repeated.\"
Mr Ghebreyesus said the world could no longer afford the \"short-term amnesia\" that had characterised the global response to health crises in the past.
PREMIUM TIMES reported how the U.S. President, Donald Trump, threatened to permanently pull funding from the World Health Organisation (WHO) if it does not commit to \"major substantive improvements\" within 30 days, according to a letter to the WHO chief shared by Mr Trump on Twitter on Monday.
\"The only way forward for the World Health Organisation is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China,\" the U.S. president asserted.
