COVID-19 - The African Mirror

Mar

20

2021

Ethiopian doctor warns of oxygen shortages

COVID-19

EMELINE WUILBERCQ ETHIOPIA rolling out its first COVID-19 vaccines among frontline health workers, but the vast country of 110 million people still faces an uphill struggle to beat the pandemic, according to a senior doctor in Addis Ababa. The mass vaccination drive began on Saturday, exactly a year after a Japanese man in the capital became the Horn of Africa nation's first confirmed coronavirus case. Natnael Bekuretsion, the 28-year-old medical director of Eka Kotebe General Hospital, was not among the first group of healthcare employees to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, but he said the arrival of the doses was "light…

Mar

20

2021

By The African Mirror

Cameroon suspends use of AstraZeneca vaccine

COVID-19

CAMEROON’S health ministry has suspended the administration of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine it was scheduled to receive on March 20 as part of the global vaccines sharing scheme COVAX. The ministry said that the suspension was for precaution and prudence. It gave no further reasons for the decision or if it will go ahead and take delivery of its share of the vaccine. Several countries have resumed use of shots on Friday after the European Union and British regulators said the benefits outweighed any risks after reports of rare instances of blood clotting that temporarily halted inoculations. Cameroon has approved Russia's…

Mar

20

2021

By The African Mirror

Countries resume use of AstraZeneca vaccine

COVID-19

MANY countries are resuming the use of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine after the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization said the benefits outweighed the risks following investigations into reports of blood clots. At least 17 countries in Europe had suspended or delayed use of the vaccine after reports of people being admitted to hospitals with clotting issues and bleeding after being inoculated. AstraZeneca and the EMA have said concerns about coagulation disorders did not emerge in human trials, with the WHO recommending inoculations continue as the global coronavirus death toll passes 2.8 million. Below is a list of countries…

Mar

19

2021

By The African Mirror

AU urges use of AstraZeneca shot

COVID-19

THE African Union has urged African countries should continue to use AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, echoing the World Health Organization (WHO) by saying the shot's benefits outweigh risks. The recommendation comes after more than a dozen European countries suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine amid concerns over the risk of blood clots. Africa has lagged wealthier parts of the world in vaccinations, with many countries on the continent using free AstraZeneca shots distributed by a global scheme co-led by the WHO to kick-start immunisation campaigns. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference…

Mar

18

2021

By The African Mirror

Uganda launches COVID-19 rapid test kit

COVID-19

UGANDA yesterday launched a rapid COVID-19 antibody test partly funded by France that developers hope to market in sub-Saharan Africa, where the laboratory infrastructure needed for extensive novel coronavirus testing is thin. The test, which requires a finger prick to draw blood, was developed by a team at Makerere, Uganda's oldest public university, with partial funding from the French embassy. The east African country has long experience of infectious diseases like HIV and Ebola which it has drawn on to develop diagnostics expertise. "This is a point-of-care test that can be used within equatorial Africa village settings, remote areas where…

Mar

17

2021

By The African Mirror

Will COVID-19 inspire young women to become social entrepreneurs?

COVID-19

MICHAEL TAYLOR THEY have been called a lost generation - fledgling careers, studies and social lives upturned by the chaos wrought by COVID-19. But as the pandemic exposes long-standing social problems, and creates new ones, some young people have seized the opportunity to apply business-minded solutions. The Thomson Reuters Foundation asked three young, female social entrepreneurs to reflect on their experiences over the last year and what advice they can give to other youths hoping to set up socially conscious businesses. We spoke to Harsha Ravindran, 18, co-founder of Ascendance, a Malaysia-based social enterprise and youth movement that connects and empowers students…

Mar

17

2021

By The African Mirror

SA approves vaccine for emergency use

COVID-19

SOUTH Africa's drugs regulator SAHPRA said yesterday that it had approved a "section 21" emergency use application for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. SAHPRA added in a statement that the approval was subject to further efficacy and safety surveillance of the vaccine in the country, including monitoring its efficacy against the dominant local coronavirus variant. South Africa is the hardest-hit country on the African continent in terms of recorded coronavirus cases and deaths and suffered a severe second wave of infections driven by the more infectious 501Y.V2 variant, first identified late last year. It kick-started its vaccination…

Mar

17

2021

By The African Mirror

Morocco’s vaccination drive bypasses undocumented migrants

COVID-19

AHMED ELJECHTIMI MOROCCO is further ahead with its COVID-19 vaccination programme than any other African country, but undocumented migrants are not a part of its plans, potentially undermining efforts to come to grips with the disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged Morocco's tourism sector, and led to a drop in industrial exports. The country hopes that the inoculation programme will help its economy recover. Its vaccination rate of 14 doses per 100 people has outperformed that of much wealthier France and Italy. So far, the programme has concentrated on medics, other key workers, older people and those with chronic ailments,…

Mar

16

2021

By The African Mirror

Don’t panic, says WHO on vaccine safety fears

COVID-19

THOMAS ESCRITT and STEPHANIE NEBEHAY GERMANY, France and Italy announced that they would suspend AstraZeneca COVID-19 shots after several countries reported possible serious side-effects, but the World Health Organization (WHO) said there was no proven link and people should not panic. Still, the decision by the European Union's three biggest countries to put inoculations with the AstraZeneca shot on hold threw the already struggling vaccination campaign in the 27-nation EU into disarray. The Democratic Republic of Congo has announced that it is delaying using AstraZeneca until concerns about safety have been addressed. Denmark and Norway stopped giving the shot last…

Mar

16

2021

By The African Mirror

No vaccine yet, for “careful” Ugandan leader

COVID-19

UGANDA’S President Yoweri Museveni has said he has not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 because he is "careful" and is still weighing which jab to take, days after the East African country began its inoculation campaign. The apparent hesitation may fuel already significant vaccine scepticism in the country, which is in the earliest stages of its roll out of the jab. Many African countries have struggled to get doses and have not administered a single shot. Uganda began vaccinating health workers and the elderly last week after receiving 864,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from COVAX, the World Health Organisation-backed programme…