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[Vanguard] The World Health Organisation, WHO, and COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, COVAX on Wednesday announced that Nigeria and other lower-income countries will get approximately 1.2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021.
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.
[This Day] Nigeria's former Finance Minister and leading candidate in the race for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director General, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been announced as the recipient of the 2020 African of the Year award.
It may be winter, but remember this is when you build that gorgeous summer body. Try one of these exercise options.
(Reuters) - Canada’s Olympic wrestling champion Erica Wiebe has said frontline workers and vulnerable people should be prioritised over Olympic athletes for the novel coronavirus vaccine.
The article Wiebe contradicts Dick Pound on vaccine issue appeared first on Stabroek News.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank, today approved an €188 million loan to support the Government of Kenya’s efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate the related economic, health and social impacts.
The loan will extend additional resources to Kenya as the country takes steps to contain the spread of the pandemic and deal with its unprecedented impact.
“We are very pleased to join other development partners in supporting the Government of Kenya’s efforts in mitigating the financial impact of the pandemic, especially in terms of the country’s expenditure in the health, social and economic sectors.
In April, the Bank extended an emergency grant to help countries in the East and Horn of Africa, including Kenya, that are contending with swarms of locusts that are threatening food security.
He added that the government recognizes truck drivers and their counterparts in the transport industry for their continued support to ensure adequate supplies of goods across the East African countries and for enduring long journey and waiting times at border points as each country tries to be vigilant in their containment measures against COVID.
BATSA have accused Fita's members of benefiting from the cigarette ban, as they lament their cataclysmic drop in market performance.
A GROUP of academics have published a paper exploring whether the government could make a COVID vaccine compulsory. They suggest that such a step may be necessary. They advise that COVID vaccination could be a condition of release from lockdown and related restrictions.
[SAnews.gov.za] The first team of experts from the World Health Organisation, who will assist South Africa in its fight against Coronavirus, is set to arrive in the country today.
PRIVATE commuter omnibus operators and small cars, popularly known as mushikashika, are back on the road in most cities and towns defying President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ban on their operations during national lockdown.
Mnangagwa (pictured) declared Zupco the sole public transport operator during the indefinite lockdown.
I have received several reports that there was activity at various night spots including the popular Showground over the weekend and that private transport operators, especially those plying Chiredzi-Save or Chiredzi-Checheche routes, are back on the road,” he said.
The Zimbabwe Passengers Association (ZPA) called on government to lift the ban on private commuter omnibus due to escalating public transport shortages following the eased lockdown regulations.
The President maintained the ban on commuter omnibuses, but called on private operators to join the Zupco franchise.
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.
The UN-backed Libyan government's forces on Saturday said it took over three military camps from the rival eastern-based army in the south of the capital Tripoli, as the armed conflict between the two rivals continued.
\"Our forces took control of Al-Yarmuk, Hamza and the Missiles camps and are pursuing the fleeing militias of Khalifa Haftar (commander of the eastern-based army),\" Mohamed Gonono, spokesman of the UN-backed government's forces, said in a statement.
\"The military engineering teams are clearing mines laid by Haftar's militia,\" the statement said.
Lately, the UN-backed government's forces have been making significant progress against the eastern-based army, taking over military camps and cities in western Libya.
A war has been going on since April 2019 between the UN-backed government and eastern-based army, which is trying to take over Tripoli and topple the UN-backed government, despite repeated international calls for cease-fire.
A leading US Intelligence advisor has taken a firm stance on the origins of COVID-19, insisting that the virus came from a biological weapons lab in Wuhan.
The 2020 World No Tobacco Day is unique and historic as it comes at the time when countries across the world are on lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The country has banned imports and sales of tobacco or tobacco-related products along with other emergency regulations during the country's declared six-month state of public emergency.
The motivation to ban the sales of tobacco and tobacco related products in Botswana was informed by scientific evidence that smoking damages human lungs and other body organs.
The ban on the sale of tobacco products and any calls by governments for smokers to quit during the COVID-19 pandemic need to be accompanied by initiatives that aid smokers in this course of action.
Additionally, and in line with the ideals of the 2020 World No Tobacco Day, the government of Botswana must strictly enforce the provisions of its Control of Smoking Act.
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.
With the European Union unveiling a massive recovery plan to step up its emergence from the crisis, the US figure was a sobering reminder of the devastation being wreaked around the globe by a virus that only emerged late last year.
Nevertheless, most US states moved toward reopening restaurants and businesses, cheered on by President Donald Trump, who is eager to see the economic pain of the crisis mitigated as he seeks re-election.
The United States remains the hardest-hit nation, with President Donald Trump weathering heavy criticism for his handling of the crisis -- and for not wearing a mask in public despite his administration's recommendations.
Trump's principal preoccupation has been for a quick turnaround of the badly battered US economy, and he has pressured local and state leaders to ease lockdowns.
Even as many economies emerge from the drastic lockdowns, a joint study by Save the Children and UNICEF warned Wednesday that the pandemic could push as many as 86 million more children into poverty by the end of 2020.
But the nature and sheer scale of the current coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic now brought a number of questions with regard to how the government has handled burials of victims, with experts now condemning the Health Ministry for violating the dignity of the dead.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its March 24 guidance on burials of Covid-19 victims said that dead bodies are generally not infectious.
This, coupled with the Health Ministry’s directives that local health authorities should designate a team to oversee the process and that a maximum of only 15 people, strictly adhering to the social distancing, will be allowed at the funeral of their loved one, have upended important death and burial rituals.
The Health ministry notes that to avoid community practices that would result in more infections through contact, bodies of people who have died of, or suspected to have died of Covid-19, should be handled by a public health official.
Families of three Covid-19 patients who have been buried by health officials donned in personal protective gear have decried the manner in which their kin have been buried, alleging that the government did not let them have a say in the burials.
