HEALTH - The African Mirror

Jan

31

2021

Algeria launches coronavirus vaccination campaign

COVID-19

ALGERIA yesterday launched a coronavirus vaccination campaign, a day after receiving its first shipment of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, the government said. The campaign started in the Blida province, 40 km (25 miles) southwest of the capital, Algiers, where the country's first confirmed cases of the coronavirus were reported last March. Algeria received 50,000 doses of Sputnik V on Friday, said Djamel Fourar, head of the Scientific Committee in charge of dealing with the pandemic. The North African country will receive a shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday, Communication Minister Ammar Belhimer said, without providing the number of doses.…

Jan

31

2021

By The African Mirror

Novavax to produce 150 million vaccine doses per month

COVID-19

LUDWIG BURGER NOVAVAX expects to produce up to 150 million COVID-19 vaccine doses monthly by May or June, its chief executive told Reuters, after reporting interim data that showed its shot to be 89% effective in a UK trial. Novavax expects to complete the clinical trial for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the next few weeks, but is already working on manufacturing to be able to reach full production capacity quickly, Chief Executive Officer Stanley Erck said. "We should be at full capacity starting in May or June, maybe as much as one hundred and fifty million doses per month…

Sep

18

2021

By The African Mirror

Breastfeeding trends show most developing countries may miss global nutrition targets

HEALTH

EXCLUSIVE breastfeeding, the practice of giving only breast milk (no other food or water), is the ideal for an infant’s first six months. Breast milk contains all the essential nutrients an infant needs at this stage. DR DICKSON AMUGSI, Associate Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research Center Research has illuminated the longer-term health benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for the mother and child. These benefits include reducing the risk of overweight and obesity in childhood and adolescence and certain non-communicable diseases later in life and enhancing human capital in adulthood. Additionally, breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast and ovarian cancers,…

Jan

31

2021

By The African Mirror

In the midst of a pandemic, Nigeria battles to end a painful blinding disease

HEALTH

ADAOBI TRICIA NWAUBANI and NITA BHALLA FOR eight years Nigerian housewife Mallama Baraka suffered in silence as the eye disease trachoma, which can blind but is entirely preventable, slowly took its toll. It started with a watery discharge and a burning, itchy sensation in her eyes. Her eyelids swelled and her eyelashes turned inside them, causing her extreme pain each time she blinked. Over time, she began to see less clearly. "It became hard for me to do my daily chores ... but the clinic is far and it would take time and money to go there. I thought whatever…

Sep

17

2021

By The African Mirror

How will the COVID pandemic end?

COVID-19

AFTER over 18 months of this pandemic, with the social distancing, mask-wearing and on-off lockdowns, what we all want to know more than anything else is when it will all be over and how it will end. While nothing is certain, we have a lot of evidence on which to build some realistic expectations about how the pandemic will progress over the next year or so. PAUL HUNTER, Professor of Medicine, University of East Anglia COVID-19 may not be the first time a coronavirus has caused a dreadful global pandemic. It’s been hypothesised that the “Russian flu”, which emerged in…

Jan

30

2021

By The African Mirror

Kenya aims to vaccinate 16 million people by June 2022

COVID-19

DUNCAN MIRIRI KENYA is seeking an extra 11 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, on top of 24 million already ordered, and hopes to have 16 million people inoculated by June next year. Sourced from major pharmaceutical manufacturers like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, the extra doses will be acquired through the African Union's disease control and prevention body. The country will obtain supplies from manufacturers directly if needed, it said. The East African nation of more than 50 million people aims to vaccinate 1.25 million in phase one of the campaign by June this year, senior health ministry official Mercy…

Jan

30

2021

By The African Mirror

Division on vaccine funding model

COVID-19

EMMA RUMNEY AND ALEXANDER WINNING DAYS before coronavirus vaccinations start in South Africa, medical schemes have still not agreed how and to what extent they will contribute to the cost of inoculations for people without insurance cover, industry executives have told Reuters. South Africa is expecting its first 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to land on Monday and will start immunising health workers from mid-February. The country has been the hardest-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic on the continent, with more than 1.4 million cases and over 43,000 deaths to date. A top medical scheme administrator, Discovery Health ,…

Jan

30

2021

By The African Mirror

J&J vaccine adds to COVID-19 armoury

COVID-19

JULIE STEENHUYSEN JOHNSON & JOHNSON says its single-dose vaccine was 66% effective in preventing COVID-19 in a large global trial against multiple variants, giving health officials another weapon to tackle the pandemic. In the trial of nearly 44,000 volunteers, the level of protection against moderate and severe COVID-19 varied from 72% in the United States, to 66% in Latin America and just 57% in South Africa, from where a worrying variant has spread. The data showed that the vaccine's effect on the South Africa variant was diminished compared to the unaltered virus, but infectious disease and public health experts said…

Jan

30

2021

By The African Mirror

Guinea approves Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine

COVID-19

Guinea has approved the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for domestic use, becoming the second African country to do so, health authorities and Russia's sovereign wealth fund said on Friday. The West African country's approval of the vaccine for use for one year occurred two weeks after President Alpha Conde was seen receiving it on television under a trial run of what is expected to be a much large delivery of vials from Russia. Guinea is negotiating a bilateral deal to take an additional 2 million doses, a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Russia's vaccine diplomacy…

Jan

30

2021

By The African Mirror

WHO says vaccine hoarding ‘keeps pandemic burning’

COVID-19

RICH countries squabbling over COVID-19 vaccine supplies must consider the situation in poorer parts of the world, the World Health Organization has said, warning that hoarding of shots "keeps the pandemic burning". WHO officials were speaking after the European Commission said it had agreed a plan to control exports of vaccines from the European Union, including to Britain, arguing it needed to do so to ensure its own supplies. The EU, whose member states are far behind Israel, Britain and the United States in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West's biggest drugmakers slow deliveries…