COVID-19 - The African Mirror

Jul

09

2021

COVAX to deliver 520 million doses to Africa

COVID-19

ALEXANDER WINNING and GEORGE OBULUTSA THE global vaccine distribution scheme COVAX aims to deliver 520 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa this year, its managing director said, with supplies ramping up from September after delays caused by Indian export restrictions. Aurelia Nguyen told a news conference organised by the World Health Organization's Africa region that the scheme had delivered around 25 million doses to 44 African countries so far, but she was not happy with progress. In early March, the CEO of vaccine alliance Gavi, one of the organisations co-leading COVAX, had said the aim was to supply Africa -…

Jul

09

2021

By The African Mirror

Tunisia’s health care system collapsing

COVID-19

TUNISIA’S health care system is collapsing due to the coronavirus, with intensive care departments full and doctors overburdened by a rapid outbreak of cases and deaths, the health ministry said has revealed. Tunisia recorded near 10,000 new coronavirus cases and 134 deaths on Wednesday, a daily record since the start of the pandemic, as concerns grow that the country will not be able to control the pandemic. "We are in a catastrophic situation ... the health system collapsed, we can only find a bed in hospitals with great difficulty," ministry spokesperson Nisaf Ben Alaya said. "We are struggling to provide…

Jul

09

2021

By The African Mirror

U.N. warns excluding women from top jobs threatens COVID-19 recovery

COVID-19

SHARON KIMATHI GLOBAL efforts to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic are under threat because women are being excluded from critical decision-making roles, according to the United Nations. Only 6% of coronavirus task forces, which are responsible for coordinating government responses to the deadly virus, have equal numbers of men and women, while 11% have no women at all, found the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP). "The pivotal decisions being made today will affect the well-being of people and planet for generations to come," Achim Steiner, UNDP's administrator, said in a statement. "Sustainable recovery is only possible when women are able to…

Jul

09

2021

By The African Mirror

Zimbabwe gets 2 million doses

COVID-19

ZIMBABWE has received 2 million COVID-19 vaccines from China's Sinovac, its single largest shipment that it hopes will boost a vaccination campaign that had been slowed by shortages while infections and deaths rise. The southern African nation imposed a dusk to dawn curfew and curbed the movement of people on June 29 in a bid to contain infections, which have since increased by 24% to 60,227. Zimbabwe has only registered vaccines from China, India and Russia and not from Western countries. The three countries have made donations to Zimbabwe. Thursday's delivery took Zimbabwe's total number of vaccines from purchases and…

Apr

07

2021

By The African Mirror

It’s a ‘travesty’ that some nations are unable to start COVID-19 vaccinations – WHO

COVID-19

IT is a travesty that some countries still have not had enough access to vaccines to begin inoculating health workers and the most vulnerable people against COVID-19, the head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. "Scaling up production and equitable distribution remains the major barrier to ending the acute stage of the COVID-19 pandemic," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference. "It's a travesty that in some countries health workers and those at-risk groups remain completely unvaccinated." The president of Namibia, Hage Geingob, one of several world leaders invited to address the WHO news conference for…

Apr

07

2021

By The African Mirror

SA signs deal for 20 million Pfizer doses

COVID-19

SOUTH Africa has signed an agreement to buy 20 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech dual-shot COVID-19 vaccine, a senior government official has announced, boosting plans to ramp up vaccinations from this month. The deal is a boost for the country worst hit by coronavirus infections in Africa, as it adds to 31 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's single-shot vaccine that the government has already secured. The first batch from Pfizer is expected to arrive later in April, Anban Pillay, deputy director-general at the Department of Health, told Reuters. He said he was not allowed to disclose the price, but…

Apr

07

2021

By The African Mirror

Africa needs $12 billion for vaccines

COVID-19

THE World Bank estimates that Africa would need about $12 billion for COVID-19 vaccines and their distribution to attain sufficient levels of vaccination coverage to interrupt virus transmission, according to new paper by the bank and the IMF. The paper argued for a further extension of the Group of 20's debt service moratorium through year-end, noting the continued high liquidity needs of developing countries and their deteriorating debt sustainability outlooks. It said the amount of money Africa needed to interrupt transmission of the virus was about the same as the total amount of official debt service payments already deferred by…

Apr

07

2021

By The African Mirror

WHO does not back vaccination passports

COVID-19

THE World Health Organization does not back requiring vaccination passports for travel due to uncertainty over whether inoculation prevents transmission of the virus, as well as equity concerns, a spokeswoman has said. "We as WHO are saying at this stage we would not like to see the vaccination passport as a requirement for entry or exit because we are not certain at this stage that the vaccine prevents transmission," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said. "There are all those other questions, apart from the question of discrimination against the people who are not able to have the vaccine for one reason…

Apr

07

2021

By The African Mirror

Global COVID-19 death toll surpasses 3 million

COVID-19

ROSHAN ABRAHAM and ANURAG MAAN COVID-19-related deaths worldwide crossed 3 million yesterday, according to a Reuters tally, as the latest global resurgence of COVID-19 infections is challenging vaccination efforts across the globe. Worldwide COVID-19 deaths are rising once again, especially in Brazil and India. Health officials blame more infectious variants that were first detected in the United Kingdom and South Africa, along with public fatigue with lockdowns and other restrictions. (Open in an external browser for global COVID graphic) According to a Reuters tally, it took more than a year for the global coronavirus death toll to reach 2 million.…

Jul

08

2021

By The African Mirror

UK to track COVID-19 variants with genomic sequencing across the world

COVID-19

BRITAIN has announced that it would provide genomic sequencing support to Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan to help identify, assess and track new variants of the novel coronavirus. The novel coronavirus, which has killed 4 million people globally since it emerged in China in late 2019, mutates around once every few weeks, slower than influenza or HIV, but enough to require tweaks to vaccines. Public Health England will extend support to Britain's partners through the New Variant Assessment Platform Programme which tracks changes in the virus. About a third of all SARS-CoV-2 sequences submitted to the international GISAID database…