COVID-19 - The African Mirror

Feb

06

2022

UAE lifts travel ban to 12 African countries for vaccinated citizens

COVID-19

THE United Arab Emirates announced that it will lift a travel ban to 12 African countries for citizens who are fully vaccinated, state news agency WAM said on Friday. The countries include Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. Fully vaccinated citizens who had booster doses will be allowed to travel starting from February 6. The move also allows medically exempted unvaccinated persons and "humanitarian cases" to travel, according to WAM.

Feb

05

2022

By The African Mirror

COVID: WHO recommends two new treatments – here’s how they work

COVID-19

BACK in early 2020, if you got ill with COVID there were no proven treatments for doctors to give you – it was one of the main things that made this disease so scary. Fast forward to 2021 and scientists have since uncovered a handful of options, but the hunt is continuing. More than 5,000 trials for COVID drugs are registered or ongoing. Author FILIPA HENDERSON SOUSA, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Infectious Diseases, Edinburgh Napier University Thankfully, these are now bearing fruit. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently added two additional drugs to its COVID treatment guidelines. COVID disease…

Feb

04

2022

By The African Mirror

Omicron sub-variant BA.2 harder to identify, found in 5 African nations -WHO

COVID-19

THE BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has been found in five African countries, a World Health Organization scientist said on Thursday, adding she was concerned about the development because samples of BA.2 may not be spotted as a form of Omicron. The BA.2 sub-variant has begun to replace Omicron's more common "original" BA.1 variant in countries such as Denmark. Data from there suggests no difference in disease severity, according to another WHO official. "BA.2 ... has been reported in five countries, that is Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Senegal as well as South Africa," Dr Nicksy Gumede-Moeletsi told an online media briefing. "We…

Feb

04

2022

By The African Mirror

In world first, S.Africa’s Afrigen makes mRNA COVID vaccine using Moderna data

COVID-19

WENDELL ROELF SOUTH Africa's Afrigen Biologics has used the publicly available sequence of Moderna Inc's mRNA COVID-19 vaccine to make its own version of the shot, which could be tested in humans before the end of this year, Afrigen's top executive said. The vaccine candidate would be the first to be made based on a widely used vaccine without the assistance and approval of the developer. It is also the first mRNA vaccine designed, developed and produced at lab scale on the African continent. The World Health Organization (WHO) last year picked a consortium including Afrigen for a pilot project to…

Feb

02

2022

By The African Mirror

South African scientists will study link between COVID variants and untreated HIV

COVID-19

JENNIFER RIGBY LEADING South African scientists are set to investigate COVID-19 and HIV in tandem, amid mounting evidence that the collision of the two pandemics could be generating new coronavirus variants. The team at the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA), which first alerted the world to the COVID variant Omicron, said it was time for a "systematic" investigation of what happens when patients with untreated HIV get COVID-19. A number of studies, including one published by the team last week, have found that people with weakened immune systems – such as patients with untreated HIV – can suffer…

Feb

01

2022

By The African Mirror

Taiwan tries hand at COVID diplomacy again with Somaliland vaccine gift

COVID-19

TAIWAN'S gift of 150,000 doses of its domestically developed Medigen COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Somalia's breakaway Somaliland region, the Taiwanese foreign ministry said on Monday, part of the island's renewed pandemic diplomacy push. Taiwan has donated millions of face masks and other goods around the world in what the government has called the "Taiwan can help, Taiwan is helping" programme to show the island is a responsible member of the international community, despite being locked out of most global bodies because of China's objections. Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said the vaccine doses, made by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp, arrived in…

Aug

23

2022

By The African Mirror

How the pandemic lockdown in South Africa affected mental health

COVID-19

WHEN SARS-CoV-2 emerged in South Africa, the country took measures to restrict people’s movements and activities, to slow the spread of infections. There were various levels of restrictions, the most severe being in place in March and April 2020. During this “hard lockdown”, many people in South Africa really struggled. Not only did they have financial difficulties but the lockdown took an emotional and mental toll. The common themes, no matter where people lived, were feelings of anxiety, frustration and isolation. And as lockdown went on, those feelings got worse. Author CAROLINE SOUTHEY, Founding Editor, The Conversation In today’s episode…

Aug

22

2022

By The African Mirror

How African countries coordinated the response to COVID-19: lessons for public health

COVID-19

THE COVID-19 pandemic spread much slower on the African continent than in the rest of the world, contrary to predictions. As of 20 July 2022, a total of 562,672,324 COVID-19 confirmed cases and 6,367,793 deaths had been recorded globally. Only 1.63% (9,176,657) of the global cases and 2.73% (173,888) of global deaths recorded were from the African continent – which has around 17% of the world’s population. Multiple reasons for the slower spread have been put forward. One was that the continent’s population is relatively young and younger people were at lower risk of severe illness in the event of…

Aug

16

2022

By The African Mirror

The COVID lab leak theory is dead. Here’s how we know the virus came from a Wuhan market

COVID-19

MY colleagues and I published the most detailed studies of the earliest events in the COVID-19 pandemic last month in the journal Science. Together, these papers paint a coherent evidence-based picture of what took place in the city of Wuhan during the latter part of 2019. The take-home message is the COVID pandemic probably did begin where the first cases were detected – at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. At the same time this lays to rest the idea that the virus escaped from a laboratory. Author EDWARD C HOLMES, ARC Australian Laureate Fellow and Professor, University of Sydney Huanan…

Jun

08

2020

By The African Mirror

Uganda to lose $1.6 bln in tourism earnings because of COVID-19

COVID-19

ELIAS BIRYABAREMA UGANDA will lose $1.6 billion a year in earnings from tourism as visitors stay away due to the impact of the coronavirus, President Yoweri Museveni said. Tourism is one of Uganda's economic mainstays as the east African country attracts visitors to see a range of game including lions, giraffes, buffalos and others that roam its savannahs. Others are drawn by the mountain gorillas in forest in the southwest of the country on the border with Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. "Already Ugandan will lose 1.6 billion dollars per annum from the loss of tourism," Museveni said in…