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The Ministry of Health (MoH) yesterday confirmed that another person who was infected with COVID-19 has died, increasing the country’s death toll from the virus to 478.
The article Region Nine cook is latest confirmed COVID fatality appeared first on Stabroek News.
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.
On 20 May, the official committee to fight the coronavirus said three of its workers were threatened at knifepoint, part of what the government last Friday described as \"rising cases\" of abuse of virus campaigners.
When official figures were quoted to him – the DRC has documented more than 3 300 cases rising at the rate of more than a hundred a day, almost all of them in Kinshasa, with 72 dead – Hussein was dismissive.
Many people surviving on day-to-day jobs have borne the brunt of emergency measures that President Felix Tshisekedi introduced on 20 March.
The deaths from Covid-19 include around a dozen people at the apex of power in the DRC, according to official figures.
\"Scientifically, there is still no proof that has come forward to say anything other than that Covid-19 caused the deaths that we have regretfully seen in the president's circle,\" Tshisekedi's spokesperson, Tharcisse Kasongo Mwema Yamba Y'amba, told state broadcaster RTNC, which asked him about the rumours.
[Nation] A record 11,324 patients in Kenya have recovered from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health announced on Thursday.
Although the continent's economy had been projected to grow by more than 130%, Africa is now falling further behind according to the study, with projected average economic growth at just 4.3% from 2020 to 2040.
\"COVID-19 is going to have a huge impact on growth in Africa and while we have to deal with the health and the mortality impact in the short term, this accentuates the importance of restructuring African economies for much more rapid growth.
\"The study comes at a very important time and is the first comprehensive long-term forecast of the health and economic impact of the pandemic on Africa up to 2030,\" said Markus Ferber, Member of the European Parliament and Chairman of the German Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSS), one of the financial backers of the research project.
The report, which is titled: \"Death, debt and opportunity -- the cost of COVID-19 in Africa,\" has urged lenders and investors to suspend or cancel Africa's debts to help the continent recover from the aftermath of the outbreak.
Light at the end of the tunnel
However, the study also highlights a potentially bright future for African economies if governments don't just rely on emergency measures to fight the pandemic and instead focus on building resilience and focusing on prospects for long-term growth by putting more resources towards health and basic infrastructure.
Fatalities from COVID-19 in Jamaica are climbing closer to 300, following the confirmation of two more deaths from the disease yesterday. \tThe number of deaths from the infectious disease is now 285. \tThe Ministry of Health and...
James Theodore Holly emigrationist, missionary, and bishop, was born in Washington, D.C on October 3, 1829. At age fourteen his family relocated to Brooklyn, New York. His father taught him the shoemaking trade. Then in 1848 he began working as an abolitionist with Lewis Tappan, one of the nation’s leading anti-slavery activists. In 1850 Holly and his brother Joseph opened their own boot making shop.
In 1851, James and Charlotte Holly were married in New York but they soon moved to Windsor, Canada, just across the border from Detroit. The Hollys remained in Windsor until 1854. While there James Holly helped former slave Henry Bibb edit his newspaper, Voice of the Fugitive. Holly also endorsed the Refugee Home Society and organized the Amherstburg Convention of free blacks in Canada.
Before leaving for Canada, Holly had joined the Protestant Episcopal Church. He became a church deacon in 1855 then in the following year a priest. Even as he continued his religious activities, Holly was drawn toward emigration, believing that African Americans had no future in the United States. In 1854 he was a delegate to the first Emigration Convention in Cleveland. The next year he represented the National Emigration Board as commissioner.
In 1856 Holly returned to the United States, settling in New Haven, Connecticut where he was the priest of St. Luke’s Church and teacher in public and private schools until 1861.
Holly now promoted black emigration to Haiti and made that argument in a series of lectures that were published in 1857 as Vindication of the Capacity of the Negro Race for Self Governance and Civilized Progress.
In 1859 Holly corresponded with U.S. Congressman Francis P. Blair about getting government aid for emigration. He also lobbied the Board of Missions of the Episcopal to finance his journey to Haiti. Holly did not inform the Board that he planned to take emigrants to Haiti on his trip.
Then in 1861 Holly led 110 men, women and children from New Haven to Haiti. Holly’s first year in Haiti was full of
\"It is the first study in which scientists are investigating the function of these plant substances in connection with COVID-19,\" the head of the study, Peter Seeberger, said in an interview with DW.
Studies found the Artemisia extract was effective in inhibiting the first SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) that surfaced in Asia in 2002 causing a respiratory illness.
Wonder cure without evidence
At the end of April, Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina touted a potion containing an Artemisia extract and other herbs as a wonder cure for the coronavirus.
The director of Malagasy IMRA research institute, Charles Andrianjara, spoke vaguely of \"tests on some people\" when contacted by DW for details of any scientific studies on the potion, and referred to many years of experience with the concoction.
Peter Seeberger believes that Madagascar could benefit if the Artemesia extracts prove effective in the Max Planck study and subsequent clinical tests.
In reality, the House bill would give $100 billion to local organizations, such as community health centers or nonprofits, to help with testing and contact tracing by funding door-to-door outreach, the purchase of testing supplies and the hiring and training of people to run mobile testing sites.
The bill states that grants will be awarded for “diagnostic testing for COVID-19, to trace and monitor the contacts of infected individuals and to support the quarantine of such contacts, through mobile health units and as necessary, testing individuals and providing individuals with services related to testing and quarantine at their residences.”
THE FACTS: Several former presidents have made comments criticizing the policies of their successors, including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter — even Theodore Roosevelt.
In April 2015, former President George W. Bush was seen as criticizing successor Obama during a closed-door Republican Jewish Coalition meeting, quoting Sen. Lindsey Graham’s comments on Obama’s policies in the region: “Pulling out of Iraq was a strategic blunder.”
THE FACTS: Numerous posts circulated on Facebook falsely claiming that people who refuse to participate in contact tracing in Washington will “not be allowed to leave their homes to purchase basic necessities such as groceries and/or prescriptions.”
As many African countries reopen, the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges widespread testing as the best way to avoid a surge in new cases of coronavirus.
Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, said that to have a reasonably accurate picture of how the disease is spreading, Africa needs about 15 million tests, or enough to test about 1% of the population.
To date, the Africa CDC has distributed about 2.7 million tests, including a planned distribution of about 900,000 tests in Senegal this week.
Africa CDC Deputy Director Dr. Ahmed Ogwell told VOA’s English-to-Africa health reporter that the organization is seeking to acquire polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which detect genetic material from the virus, rather than some other rapid tests that are less reliable.
Africa has recorded a lower caseload than other parts of the globe, with about 119,000 cases of COVID-19 infection and about 3,500 deaths.
[Daily Maverick] It is crucial for the SADC to encourage all member states to develop, publish and promote national vaccine acquisition and roll-out plans and procurement strategies, detailing concrete measures to ensure non-discriminatory access to vaccines to all in the region.
Yet at the same time, some of the very health challenges African countries have wrestled with for decades have given us a clear understanding of what needs to be done, and how to do it.
By early May, 43 African countries had full border closures, 53 had closed institutions of learning, 54 had limited public gatherings, 26 had instituted the compulsory use of face masks, 32 had instituted night-time curfews and 18 had imposed nation-wide lockdowns
The African Union developed a comprehensive Joint Continental Strategy to guide cooperation between member states and set up a Covid-19 Response Fund.
The deployment of community health workers to do screening, testing, contact tracing and case management is happening in many African countries, and draws heavily on our experience with HIV and TB.
Whether it is in repurposing health protocols used with other infectious disease outbreaks, rapidly deploying health care workers to communities, or in launching mobile Covid-19 testing labs to improve national testing capacities, Africa is working proactively to overcome this global threat.
Though it is clear we will continue to rely on the support of the international community and international financial institutions to bolster the existing continental effort and build economic resilience, African countries are holding their own.
Senegal will continue treating COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine, a senior health official said on Wednesday, despite a recent study indicating that the anti-malarial drug is ineffective and potentially harmful.
Authorities in the West African state opted to provide consenting patients with the drug early on during its coronavirus outbreak, citing promising clinical results.
Abdoulaye Bousso, who heads Senegal’s Centre for Health Emergency Operations, told AFP on Wednesday that the country’s hydroxychloroquine treatment programme would nonetheless continue, without offering further details.
The infectious-diseases doctor who is spearheading Senegal’s treatment of COVID-19 patients, Moussa Seydi, did not respond to requests for comment.
The World Health Organization said on Monday it had temporarily suspended clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for coronavirus following the Lancet study.
Tens of millions of people in Africa could become destitute as a result of COVID-19 and its catastrophic impact on fragile economies and health systems across the continent, human rights chiefs from the United Nations and the African Commission warned on Wednesday.
As of 19 May 2020, COVID-19 had reached all 54 African States, infecting 88,172 people
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, and Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Solomon Dersso, issued a joint call for urgent measures to mitigate the ripple effects of COVID-19 on the most vulnerable.
As of 19 May, COVID-19 had reached all 54 African States, infecting 88,172 people – 16,433 of them in South Africa, which recorded the highest number of cases.
Ms. Bachelet and Mr. Dersso called for equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, urging creditors of African countries to freeze, restructure or relieve debt.
“It is a matter of human rights necessity that there must be international solidarity with the people of Africa and African Governments,” they said.
In recent weeks, water levels in Lake Victoria have reached unprecedented heights as a result of heavy rains in the East African region which started in August 2019.
From research my colleagues and I have done - examining the projected changes in weather in the Lake Victoria basin - we've found that these high water levels will be more frequent in the future because there'll be much more rainfall.
The aim of our study was to look at how the rivers that drain into the Lake Victoria basin will change as a result of increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
We show that, between 2036 and 2065, there will be 25% more annual rainfall in the eastern part of the lake Victoria catchment (Kenya and Tanzania side) area and between 5 and 10% in the western part of the catchment (Rwanda and Burundi side).
Lake Victoria is an open lake meaning whenever the lake level rises, spill-off should occur - this makes it hard to predict how much the lake will rise because the control of the spillover is through manmade dams in Jinja.
