Category: Medical

BLANTYRE, MALAWI – Malawi president Lazarus Chakwera has urged southern African leaders to increase efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic and called on wealthy nations to stop hoarding vaccine.

The Malawi leader was speaking at the annual summit of the 16-member Southern African Development Community in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.

Speaking during the televised function Tuesday, Chakwera, who is also SADC’s current chairperson, said it was concerning that, despite the devastating social and economic impact of the COVID-19, wealthy nations continue hoarding vaccine.

Statistics show that less than 2% of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated. That is low compared with the rest of the world.

Chakwera blamed it on inequalities and disparities in the distribution and production of COVID-19 vaccine.

He said it is symptomatic of an old geopolitical framework that regards some human lives as more worthy of saving than others.

“Our message to those countries that perpetuate and promote those frameworks is simple, ‘You are using a failed and tired formula’. African countries are full members of the global community, period,” Chakwera said. “As such for the sake of human dignities everywhere, we as African have a moral duty to refuse to be treated as second-class citizens.”

Chakwera said that thinking would make it difficult for the region to reach herd immunity and reduce high infection rates.

Dr. Vera Songwe is executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. She said the Africa Vaccines Acquisition Task Team, put together by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, has procured 400 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine for the continent.

Songwe also said Africa needs to do more than just procure vaccine.

“We also need to produce on the continent,” Songwe said. “SADC region is demonstrating its capacity do that by starting in South Africa with production of vaccines in South Africa. This is for us, as a continent I think, a first demonstration that Africa coming together can effectively [go] forward better sustainably in the crisis.”

The summit also aims to promote regional trade and building a regional defense force after its first deployment to fight insurgents in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province.

Speaking through a translator, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi thanked the SADC for authorizing the deployment.

“We congratulate countries of the region for the brotherhood and prompt solidarity demonstrated by the deployment of SADC standby force capabilities in the spirit of SADC Mutual Defense Pact which as launched on the 9th August 2021 in Pemba city,” Nyusi said.

Nyusi said he would speak more on the issue during a closed-door session.

The summit is expected to end Wednesday when a communiqué on resolutions will be read.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – The World Health Organization has begun giving the Ebola vaccine to high-risk people in Ivory Coast, after a woman was diagnosed with the Ebola virus in Abidjan.

On Saturday, Ivory Coast declared its first case of Ebola in more than 25 years. An 18-year-old woman who arrived by bus from Guinea in Abidjan, a city of nearly five million inhabitants, was found to be infected with the deadly virus.

Officials have responded swiftly. Within 48 hours after the outbreak was declared, they began vaccinating people who had contact with the Ebola patient, as well as first responders and health workers.

World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the vaccination campaign was able to get off the ground quickly because surplus vaccine doses the WHO had used to fight a four-month-long outbreak in Guinea were rapidly sent to Ivory Coast.

“This swift response is a reminder of how crucial preparedness and surveillance are to minimize the potential damage and to try to limit and to stop the spread of the virus by breaking that transmission chain,” he said.

The 18-year-old patient is currently receiving treatment in a local hospital, Jasarevic said, adding that health officials are tracing the nine people with whom she had come in contact. There is one suspect case.

Jasarevic added there is no indication the cases of Ebola in Ivory Coast are linked to the monthslong Ebola outbreak in Guinea earlier this year.

“Preliminary investigations and genomic sequencing to identify the strain show that there is a close link to the 2014 to 2016 outbreak in West Africa,” he said. “And we are probably looking here at the Zaire strain of the virus as well. Now, further investigations are needed really to confirm these early results.”

Since the Ebola outbreak was declared in Guinea in mid-February, WHO has been helping six countries, including Ivory Coast, prepare for a potential outbreak. This includes support in disease surveillance and screenings at border crossings, as well as setting up rapid response teams and improving testing and treatment.

An Ebola outbreak centered on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone killed more than 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016.

Source: Voice of America

GABORONE, BOTSWANA – Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi, whose country has one of the world’s highest COVID-19 infection rates per capita, has announced new COVID-19 restrictions, including extension of a nighttime curfew and postponement of the reopening of schools.

In a televised address, Masisi said the country was seeing an exponential increase in COVID-19 cases.

“The disease burden is weighing heavily on us, with infections continuing to increase across the country, and precious lives being lost on a daily basis here at home and across the continent,” Masisi said. “Our nation has attained the highest prevalence ever.”

By Friday, 1,973 people had died of COVID-19, with the death toll rising from about 300 in February.

Masisi announced restrictions Friday meant to blunt the spread of the virus, including a ban on public gatherings.

“Interzonal movement continues to be restricted to essential travel only,” he said. “Reopening of schools [will] be delayed for a further three weeks, except for those students preparing for their final examinations. The ban on sale of alcohol remains. Curfew will now start earlier at 8 p.m. and end at 4 a.m. for the next three weeks, after which there will be a review.”

Masisi said the country would accelerate its vaccination program in the next three weeks. About 5 percent of the population, or 146,299 people, are fully vaccinated.

Vaccine slow to arrive

The president blamed the slow delivery of vaccine for the frustrating pace of inoculation.

“Of course, it saddens me that many have not received a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and they are obviously exasperated,” he said. “It may look like government is not trying hard, but I can assure you the opposite is true.”

Education unions welcomed the government’s decision to postpone the reopening of schools.

The unions had urged their members not to return to class until they were vaccinated.

Tabokani Rari, secretary-general of the Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions, said the government should use the three-week break to vaccinate teachers.

Rari called it “a progressive step” that the president, because of union pressure, had postponed the reopening of schools. “We have not heard anything from the president as to whether during the three weeks that schools will be closed, there will be any plan where teachers will be vaccinated in a fast-tracked manner.”

This week, Botswana took its first delivery from Johnson & Johnson, with 108,000 COVID vaccine doses arriving. The country also received 38,400 doses of Astra Zeneca vaccine on August 8.

Source: Voice of America

KAMPALA – Uganda has resumed mass vaccinations against COVID-19 after running out of doses in June. But even with less vaccine hesitancy, essential workers say the rate of vaccination is too slow.

Two health workers share a table facing a long line of Ugandans waiting to receive a dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Many are here for their second shots and the officials have to check the system, to see if they qualify for it.

Seventeen-year-old Kawalya Paul is among those standing in line as he waits for his card to be verified and stamped.

Even though he is not on the priority list of those to be vaccinated, Paul explains to VOA why he decided to come.

“Actually, my mom’s boss, succumbed to Covid. Every time he was all very protective. He could not talk to you in case you’re not putting on a mask. So, I was like, if he was able to get it, yet he‘s a doctor and a big man, I was like, what about me, why shouldn’t I? Because I saw the virus was close,” he said.

The priority list for vaccinations includes teachers, security personnel, health workers, the elderly – who are defined as people over 50 years old – and those between 18 and 50 with underlying health conditions.

At the end of July, Ugandan authorities received 1.72 million doses of vaccine, and are hoping to get another 11 million in September.

The pace of vaccination remains slow. So far only about 1.1 million Ugandans have been inoculated.

But, officials are hopeful that Ugandans are now eager to get the vaccine and have opened up vaccination centers at Kampala’s Capital City grounds and the Namboole National stadium.

Pius Okethwengu, the Namboole hospital administrator, said they are seeing a large turnout of people at the stadium. He predicts the goal of inoculating 10,000 people this week will be surpassed.

“We are having this activity, starting today, in the next five days, to be able to have attended to all these clients that we are looking for. But, with the response that we are seeing, we are estimating that actually we should be able to even exceed that. And the beauty is, the vaccines are there and, we should be able to give the services to the people,” he said.

The vaccination drive is raising hope that authorities will lift the restrictions on schools, public transportation and religious institutions imposed last month amid a new wave of coronavirus cases.

The minister of education said on July 30 that schools could reopen if all children between the ages of 12 and 18 are inoculated.

Othieno Leonard, a secondary school teacher, does not expect to see educational facilities reopen any time soon.

“I don’t think so. I really feel, given the pace at which they are vaccinating, it is going to take us way longer to put us in a situation where we can call it normal. So, for now, I don’t have hope that they can open soon,” said Leonard.

The Ministry of Health says about seven million children would need to be vaccinated before classes can resume.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – The World Health Organization says shipments of coronavirus vaccine to Africa are picking up while the continent continues to grapple with an upsurge in COVID-19 infections.

After a slight dip in cases last week, the third wave of COVID-19 has come roaring back, with infections rising by nearly 19 percent to more than 278,000 new cases this week.

Also, this week, the World Health Organization says COVID-19 deaths have reached a record peak of more than 6,400, bringing the total number of coronavirus fatalities on the continent to more than 172,000.

Amid the bad news is the positive prospect of scaled-up vaccine shipments to Africa.  Phionah Atuhebwe is New Vaccines Introduction Officer at the WHO Regional Office for Africa.  She says there has been a 12-fold increase in vaccine deliveries in the last two weeks of July compared with the first half of the month, bringing the total number of doses shipped to Africa so far to 91 million.

“We need to be clear though:  In a continent of over 1.3 billion people, this is just a tiny drop in a very large ocean, and in the face of a surging third wave and more contagious variants, vaccine shortages leave Africa dangerously exposed,” said Atuhebwe. “We have a very long way to go.  With less than two percent of Africans fully vaccinated, we cannot get vaccines fast enough into the arms of the people.”

Atuhebwe says the vaccines arriving from the United States and European Union are expected to continue and shipments from Britain will start soon.  She says around 110 million doses are expected to be delivered to African countries through the COVAX facility and the African Union by the end of September.

“Beyond September, as commitments by COVAX and the African Union and bilateral deals come through, we hope to meet the target of vaccinating 30 percent of Africans by the end of this year,” said Atuhebwe. “But we also need up to 250 million more doses to complement the COVAX and African Union doses to meet this goal.”

Atuhebwe says it would be a dream to have vaccines manufactured on the continent.  She says several countries, notably Senegal, South Africa, Morocco, and Egypt have the capacity to make it, but not from scratch.

For that to become a reality she says the technology for producing COVID-19 vaccine must be transferred to African countries.  She says a waiver also is needed on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, known as TRIPS.  That would temporarily allow African countries to manufacture vaccines for underserved populations.

 

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – The World Health Organization says more than 700 health care workers and patients were killed, more than 2,000 injured, and hundreds of health facilities destroyed in countries of conflict between 2018 and 2020.

A three-year analysis was carried out in 17 conflict-ridden countries and territories, including Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Mozambique, the occupied Palestinian territories, and Myanmar.

New data show that health care continues to be under attack. So far this year, the World Health Organization has recorded 588 incidents in 14 countries with emergencies, causing 114 deaths and 278 injuries of health care workers and patients.

The WHO’s director of health emergencies interventions, Altaf Musani, says the impact of those health care attacks goes well beyond claiming lives. He says the ramifications are significant and alarming, especially considering the ongoing COVID-19 response.

 

“Their impact reverberates on health care workers’ mental health and willingness to report to work, equally, on communities’ willingness to seek health care, and also drastically reduces resources for responding to a health crisis, amongst others,”  Musani said.

Musani says the ripple effect of a single incident is huge and has a long-lasting impact on the system at large. When health facilities are destroyed, he says, they need to be rebuilt.

When health care workers are killed or wounded, he says a vital work force must be reinforced. Building back those vital systems, he says, requires years of costly investment, years in which people in need are underserved.

“During the pandemic, more than ever, health care workers must be protected, must be respected,”  Musani said. “Hospitals and health care facilities, including the transportation of ambulances should not be used for military purposes. Essential conditions for the continued delivery of vital health care must be given the necessary space.”

Musani notes any reduction in capacity will interrupt services and deprive vulnerable communities of urgent care.

The WHO is calling on all parties in conflicts to ensure safe working spaces for the delivery of health care services. It says people caught in emergency situations must be able to safely access care, free from violence, threat, or fear.

 

Source: Voice of America

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – South Africa’s Cape Town is struggling to cope with more than 38,000 active cases of COVID-19, making it the epicenter of the pandemic in Africa’s worst-hit country.

The provincial chairman of the Democratic Nursing Organization of South AfrIca, Elenor Roberts, said medical staff members were under immense pressure.

“As of now, the situation in our rural areas, it is dire,” because there are so many COVID patients who need attention and “so few staff to look after these patients,” Roberts said.

She said there were about 13,000 nurses in Western Cape province, far too few to handle the workload.

“Our members complained that they cannot take it,” Roberts said. “It is too much for them. There is not enough staff and there’s also not enough beds.” The result, she said, is that “they have to struggle to put the COVID patients away from the other patients.”

She said she thought the vaccination drive underway in the country was helping to some extent.

“I think the vaccinations in this case did help,” she said, but progress remained slow in Western Cape. As of last Thursday, she said, it was her understanding that less than 70 percent of nurses had been vaccinated, so “we are still are at a great risk.”

The province’s premier, Alan Winde, is due to give an update on the situation at a digital news briefing Thursday.

 

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is in the process of delivering 25 million vaccine doses to African countries in a massive effort to help African nations beat the COVID-19 pandemic. VOA’s Hayde Adams, the host of “Straight Talk Africa,” spoke with Akunna Cook, the U.S. deputy assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, about how the effort is going. The interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: These are difficult times all over the world In Africa, only about 1% of the continent’s population is fully vaccinated. Please tell us more about what the United States is doing to get much needed vaccines to African countries and where those doses are going first.

COOK: It’s a pleasure to be with you, particularly talking about this topic of ending the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a top priority of the Biden-Harris administration. The president has been very clear that we have to approach, vaccine, vaccine contributions around the world with the same urgency that we have here in the United States, and so we are working tirelessly to get out this first tranche of 25 million doses to Africa. We have already, in the past two weeks or so, donated the first five million doses into 16 African countries. Burkina Faso and Djibouti were among the first.

But there’s many more coming… We will be delivering the largest sum of doses to any country, to South Africa at, 5.6 million doses, and then to Nigeria at just over four million doses coming up.

And so this is just the beginning. This are the initial tranche. We remain the largest contributor to (global vaccine distribution scheme) COVAX and are committed to getting vaccines out as quickly as possible because we know that we cannot end this pandemic anywhere until we’ve ended it everywhere.

VOA: The World Health Organization says Africa needs about 200 million doses to vaccinate 10% of its population by September this year. Is the United States prepared to do more? Is this a once off donation?

COOK: So our vaccine contributions are, what, multitiered and multilayered, right? So these initial this initial tranche of 25 million, it’s the first step. But we are also doing other things including supporting vaccine manufacturing on the continent. And so we have invested in vaccine manufacturing in South Africa and in Senegal to ensure that Africa can then produce its own vaccines moving forward. We are also providing economic assistance to countries that have been impacted by COVID-19 with over $541 million in assistance to respond to the economic aftereffects of the pandemic. And so this is just the beginning. This is an initial tranche of our assistance. And I’m sure that we will see more rolling out over, over the next couple of months.

VOA: Something we are seeing in the United States and something that is very prevalent across the African continent is misinformation around vaccines. There is a lack of trust as people feel that in the past, Africans, have been used as guinea pigs for scientific experiments, and of course there was an element of that here in the United States as well. What is your message to people in Africa about taking a vaccine coming from the West? How can they feel safe to trust the vaccines?

COOK: Well, you know what I will say is we absolutely acknowledge that there have been past reasons for there to be distrust here in the United States and around the world. But it is absolutely the case that these vaccines are safe and they are effective. And we are working to disseminate best practices, including working with trusted messengers to get the word out that these vaccines are safe and they are effective, and that is absolutely critical that populations around the world including here in the United States, avail themselves of these vaccines so that we can end this pandemic once and for all.

 

Source: Voice of America

NAIROBI – The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the continent’s death toll from COVID-19 has jumped 17 percent in the past month. In a media briefing Thursday, the Africa CDC said the infection rate has also increased and warned some countries are testing less often for the virus than needed.

In his weekly online press briefing from Ethiopia, the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengosong, gave a grim picture of the continent’s COVID-19 situation during the month of July.

“There has been an average increase of four percent of new cases over that time period … in terms of new deaths in the last four weeks, we’ve recorded an average of 17 percent new deaths [in the continent’s most populous countries] over same period … in terms of testing as a continent, as of today we have conducted about 58 million COVID tests and last week alone the continent conducted about 1.3 million tests but that represents a decrease of 19 percent over the previous week,” Nkengosong said. “Overall positivity rate stands at 11.2 percent.”

Overall, the continent recorded 239,000 coronavirus cases last week and 6,700 deaths, an increase of 700 deaths over the previous week.

The Africa CDC blames the increased deaths on virus-spreading events like the recent looting in South Africa and the celebration of Eid al-Hajj, the end of the Muslim pilgrimage in Mecca.

It also blames the delta variant, the most contagious form of coronavirus, which has spread across the globe in recent weeks.

The continent’s public health agency was happy that some African countries like South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya have managed to limit the virus while allowing economic activities to go on.

Africa has so far received about 80 million vaccine doses from COVAX, the UN-backed global initiative to distribute vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.

The senior director for Africa at the U.S. National Security Council, Dana Banks, said Wednesday her country has started to ship some ten million vaccines to Africa.

“We are happy to announce that we will be sending over 5 million doses to South Africa … of Pfizer vaccines as well as 4 million doses of Moderna vaccine to Nigeria…. So we’re very excited about that and we hope that these will go a long way in helping to provide safety and health security for the people of Nigeria and South Africa, which will then enable them to get back to their regular activities, their economic activities, and help them to build back better,” Banks said.

The World Health Organization has said at least 700 million vaccines will be sent to Africa by the end of the year, enough to vaccinate about 30 percent of the continent’s 1.3 billion people.

However, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director, said African governments and health officials need to do more to encourage people to get the vaccines.

“With the expected influx of vaccines, it’s crucial that countries scale up all the aspects of vaccine rollout to reach as many people as possible,” Moeti said. “This entails mobilizing adequate resources including finances for the vaccination activities, for the logistics and for the personnel as well as addressing any concerns by communities including those fueled by misinformation to increase vaccine confidence and demand.”

So far, less than 2 percent of Africans have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The continent has officially recorded 6.5 million cases of the disease, although the real number is believed to be significantly higher.

Source: Voice of America