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A variant of COVID-19 first diagnosed in India has been detected in Kenya, the health ministry said yesterday, days after the same variant was detected in neighbouring Uganda. The health ministry last week said Kenya was suspending flights to and from India.
THE world cannot act soon enough to put idle manufacturing capacity to work making COVID-19 vaccines to help redress a massive imbalance in global supply, the head of the World Trade Organization said yesterday. WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said equitable access to vaccines, diagnostics and treatments was "both the moral and economic issue of our time". The World Health Organization said in April that of 700 million vaccines globally administered, only 0.2% had been in low-income countries. Okonjo-Iweala told a meeting of the 164-member WTO that those who had ordered more vaccines than they needed must share with others. Members…
OMAR MOHAMMED TANZANIA hopes to join the COVAX global vaccine-sharing facility, the latest sign it has changed tack following the death in March of COVID-19- and vaccine-sceptic president John Magufuli. A World Health Organisation official said vaccines could arrive in the country of 58 million people within two weeks. Since taking office in March, new president Samia Suluhu Hassan has sought to gradually bring Tanzania into line with global public standards for tackling COVID-19. The country is one of only four in Africa that have yet to start vaccination campaigns, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.…
THE closing hours of Egyptian stores, malls and restaurants will be brought forward to 9 pm (1900 GMT) to help contain the coronavirus for two weeks from today, straddling the last days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Eid celebrations, the prime minister announced yesterday. Large gatherings and concerts will be banned over the same period and beaches and parks will be shut between May 12-16, Mostafa Madbouly said in a televised address. The number of new coronavirus cases has been steadily rising in Egypt in recent weeks and officials have warned of infections spreading further as families…
MAGGIE FICK WHEN Edith Serem received her COVID-19 vaccination last month at a hospital in Nairobi where she works as a doctor, nurses jokingly warned she might start speaking in a foreign language. Serem said some colleagues got the AstraZeneca shot after watching her closely for several days to see if she was okay, but others refused, still wary of possible side effects. Health experts worry that public scepticism about taking the relatively small number of doses African countries have battled to procure could prolong a pandemic that has already killed more than 3.3 million people worldwide. "I'm not an…
SOPHIA SUN THE COVID-19 crisis cost women around the world $800 billion in lost income in 2020, Oxfam said, as it demanded steps to tackle gender inequality. Women, overrepresented in low-paid, precarious sectors like retail, tourism and food services, lost more than 64 million jobs last year, said the charity, a 5% total loss, compared to a 3.9% loss for men. The pandemic has "dealt a striking blow" to recent gains for women in the workforce, said Oxfam Executive Director Gabriela Bucher, in a written statement. The $800 billion figure, based on International Labor Organisation data, likely underestimates the total…
SOUTH Africa has allocated an extra R4-billion rand to buy COVID-19 vaccines and extend a special distress grant to thousands of people hit by the pandemic, in a Special Appropriation Bill tabled by the finance minister on Tuesday. The bill, expected to be debated with the National Treasury in a parliamentary committee meeting later on Tuesday, allocates an additional 1.25 billion rand to the department of health to purchase COVID-19 vaccines and another 2.82 billion rands to social development for the distress grant of 350 rands per person. South Africa - the worst-hit country on the continent in terms of…
AMLAN CHAKRABORTY THE abrupt suspension of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Tuesday had several top international cricketers scrambling to return home but it is unlikely to be a smooth passage out of India for many of them. The Indian cricket board (BCCI) has promised "secure and safe passage" for all participants but existing travel restrictions make it a complicated process for many, especially the 40-odd Australian contingent, including 14 players, in India. Australia has banned travellers from India, including its own citizens, from entering the country until May 15, on pain of jail and fines. Cricket Australia (CA) could…
SOUTH African President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that Johnson & Johnson would send 2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the country by the end of the month, making up for the amount lost due to contamination at a U.S. ingredient supplier. Aspen Pharmacare, J&J's local producer, had to destroy 2 million doses of the vaccine after the contamination at a plant in Baltimore, Maryland, was discovered, the latest blow to South Africa's struggling vaccination campaign. "We have received an indication from Johnson & Johnson that it expects to deliver around 2 million vaccines to South Africa by the end of…
EQUATORIAL Guinea has purchased 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from China's Sinopharm, according to its health ministry. "At the Beijing airport, the 500,000 doses... to continue the vaccination campaign are ready to be shipped," the health ministry said on Twitter, adding a video of crates labelled "Sinopharm" being loaded from a semi-truck. The tweet did not specify the price Equatorial Guinea had agreed to pay for the shots. The ministry could not be reached for further comments. China sent 100,000 doses of Sinopharm's vaccine to Equatorial Guinea in February, as part of a series of donations to African countries struggling to…
