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Over 5000 government officials will be among the first group of Jamaicans to be given COVID-19 vaccines. The first batch of vaccines is expected to arrive in the country this week, to kick-start phase one of the vaccination plan. At least...
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.
Morocco is gearing up for an ambitious COVID-19 vaccination program, aiming to vaccinate 80% of its adults in an operation starting this month that’s relying initially on a China's Sinopharm vaccine.
The first injections could come within days, a Health Ministry official told The Associated Press.
While Britain began its vaccination program Tuesday with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the U.S. and European Union are racing to approve a series of Western-made vaccines, other governments are looking to use vaccines from China and Russia.
Morocco is battling a resurgence in virus infections, with the number of recorded deaths from the virus surpassing 6,000. The North African kingdom is pinning its hopes on two vaccine candidates, one developed by China’s Sinopharm and the other by Britain’s Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
The Sinopharm vaccine has been approved for emergency use in a few countries and the company is still conducting late-stage clinical trials in 10 countries.
Morocco’s government seeks to vaccinate 80% of its adults, or 25 million people, as soon as the vaccines are approved by domestic regulators. Priority will go to medical staff and other front-line workers, as well as the elderly.
It will start with the Sinopharm vaccine, which was tested on 600 Moroccans as part of clinical trials this autumn. Morocco has ordered 10 million doses of the vaccine.
The initial deliveries will come from China, but Morocco also plans to produce the vaccine locally, Abdelhakim Yahyan, a senior official at the Ministry of Health, told the state-owned news agency MAP.
In the Moroccan trial of the Sinopharm vaccine, carried out in Casablanca and the capital Rabat from August through November, healthy volunteers received two separate doses of the vaccine. In the advanced trial, volunteers either received the vaccine or a placebo.
According to the health minister, early results have proven the vaccine to be “safe and effective” with no severe side effects reported.
Sinopharm’s shot relies on a tested technology, using a killed virus to deliver the vaccine, similar to how polio immunizations are made.
Leading Western competitors, like the vaccine made by Oxford and AstraZeneca, use newer, less-proven technology to target the coronavirus’ spike protein.
AP
THE Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) yesterday threatened to clamp down on social media users who “cyber-bully” government officials, which critics say is meant to muzzle critics of President Emmerson Mnangagwa on social media. By RICHARD MUPONDE /MOSES MATENGA Media experts also accused the government of trying to close media space. This came as Harare’s provincial development co-ordinator Tafadzwa Muguti claimed he was being targeted on social media, while Zanu PF last week also claimed that Mnangagwa was a victim of online cyber-bullying. “The ZRP warns individuals and groups from committing crimes through cyber-bullying of government officials who will be performing their constitutional and lawful obligations in terms of service delivery to Zimbabweans,” the police said in a terse statement. They further said the cyber-bullying of government officials was perpetrated by “certain groups of suspects who know their arrest is imminent”. Police tagged Information secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana and Muguti in their statement on Twitter. Muguti had earlier taken to Twitter to say that he had been bullied and was being threatened for doing his job. “No amount of smearing my name with false stories will intimidate me. I was appointed to clean up the corruption and land barons. Believe me, no amount of death threats, following me from work or dishing sewer drawn corruption allegations against me will work. We are coming for you. “I am sick and tired of being diplomatic to insults and now death threats and name-smearing. You start it and I respond. At the same time, I keep doing the very job. All the same, always take advice, thank you,” Muguti ranted. Muguti was said to have been offended by a letter circulating on social media claiming that he allegedly illegally received a piece of land in Chitungwiza in July 2019, without following procedure. He denied the allegations, saying all due processes were followed. Media experts and human rights organisations reacted saying that the police should not play referee on social media by seemingly protecting government officials. Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe executive director and Media Alliance of Zimbabwe vice-chairperson Loughty Dube said: “The police have no role to be involved in issues of freedom of expression. Every citizen has a right to engage in a civil manner a government official and it is not the role of the police to referee on what people would say or who they should talk to or whether anybody should not engage with anyone. “If anyone is aggrieved, they go to the police and the police will then act whenever someone has approached them, but it is not for them to referee to say this one is not tweeting properly and so on, that is not the role of the police,” he said. Dube said citizens had a right to hold government officials and Mnangagwa accountable on any platform including social media. Zimbabwe Union Journalists secretary-general Foster Dongozi said: “When I saw the tweet, I dismissed it because I thought somebody had hacked the police Twitter handle. We do not
