HEALTH - The African Mirror

Feb

25

2021

Zimbabwe to buy 1.2 million more vaccines

COVID-19

ZIMBABWE will buy an additional 1.2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from China at a preferential price, President Emmerson Mnangagwa's spokesman yesterday after Beijing agreed to give more free doses to the southern African country. Zimbabwe began COVID-19 vaccinations last week after receiving a donation of 200,000 doses from the China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm). The government initially aims to inoculate health workers, security forces and journalists, among others. Chinese Ambassador Guo Shaochun said in a statement that his country had decided to double its donation of vaccines to 400,000 as part of its "solidarity and action" with Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa's spokesman…

Jul

22

2021

By The African Mirror

The poor nations trailing in the fight against COVID-19

COVID-19

NITA BHALLA and ANASTASIA MOLONEY AT a private hospital in Burundi's capital, emergency specialist Emmanuel Kubwayo is worried for the first time since the coronavirus started spreading around the world last year. Kubwayo initially shared the government's view that the small central African country did not need COVID-19 vaccines because it had so few cases. But as deaths and infections surge across Africa, he has changed his mind. Along with Eritrea, Tanzania and North Korea, Burundi is one of a handful of nations that have not started vaccinations, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), potentially threatening global efforts to…

Jul

22

2021

By The African Mirror

Landmark deal to make vaccine in SA

COVID-19

PFIZER and BioNTech have struck a deal for South Africa's Biovac Institute to help manufacture around 100 million doses a year of their COVID-19 vaccine for the African Union, the firms said on Wednesday. The deal is to "fill and finish" the vaccine, the final stages of manufacturing where the product is processed and put into vials. It does not cover the complicated processes of mRNA drug substance production, which Pfizer and BioNTech will do at their own facilities in Europe. The agreement comes as Pfizer and BioNTech try to sway World Trade Organization (WTO) members from supporting a waiver…

Jul

22

2021

By The African Mirror

Tunisian army to take over COVID-19 management

COVID-19

TUNISIAN President Kais Saied has announced that the military health department will take over management of the health crisis in the country amid a COVID-19 outbreak - an escalation of a battle that overpowers the prime minister. Tunisia is struggling to cope with a resurgence of the virus, with intensive care wards full and doctors overburdened by a rapid rise in cases and deaths and a lack of oxygen supplies. Saied's comments come after Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi sacked Health Minister Faouzi Mehdi on Tuesday amid an exchange of accusations over performance in the fight against the pandemic and the…

Jul

22

2021

By The African Mirror

SA aims to vaccinate 35 million by Christmas

COVID-19

SOUTH Africa aims to have given at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine to 35 million of its 60 million people by Christmas, a senior health official has disclosed. The Department of Health's Nicholas Crisp added during a briefing to a parliamentary committee that roughly 25,000 vaccine doses had been either stolen or destroyed during riots last week. The country is the worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic on the African continent in terms of recorded infections and deaths, and is experiencing a "third wave" of infections. Its vaccination campaign started slowly due to a mix of bureaucratic failures, bad…

Feb

24

2021

By The African Mirror

Vaccines for “immediate use” in S.A.

COVID-19

SOUTH Africa's health minister said yesterday that government advisers had grouped COVID-19 vaccines into three groups and those considered for "immediate use" were the Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Pfizer and Moderna shots. The country started rolling out the J&J vaccine in a research study targeting healthcare workers last week and hopes to receive Pfizer doses in the coming months. It has paused AstraZeneca vaccinations because of a small trial showing the British company's shot offered minimal protection against mild to moderate illness caused by the dominant local coronavirus variant. Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said the government had placed "huge orders…

Feb

24

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 passports: What you need to know

COVID-19

UMBERTO BACCHI AS Britain announces its roadmap out of lockdown, vaccine certificates have once again come into the spotlight. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there would be a review into the issue although he added some form of vaccine passport would be "going to come on the international stage whatever" for foreign travel. Governments and developers around the world are exploring how certificates and passports could help to reopen economies by identifying those protected against COVID-19. Proponents say identifying people who are immune to the novel coronavirus or at lower risk of spreading it could help open up travel…

Feb

24

2021

By The African Mirror

Senegal begins vaccinating

COVID-19

DIADE BA and NGOUDA DIONE SENEGAL began its coronavirus vaccination campaign yesterday, with 200,000 doses that it purchased from China's Sinopharm, which it received last week. The first shots were given to government ministers and health workers at the health ministry in the capital, Dakar. The West African country is one of the first in the region to start vaccinating its population against COVID-19. It has so far recorded 33,242 cases and 832 deaths from the disease. "We are going to continue so that all the Senegalese who must be vaccinated can be," said Health Minister Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr in…

Feb

24

2021

By The African Mirror

India sends vaccine to Africa

COVID-19

INDIA has made its first shipment of a locally made COVID-19 shot to the WHO-backed equitable vaccine distribution network COVAX, the government said. "Fulfilling our commitment to help the world with COVID-19 vaccines, supplies of Made-in-India vaccine commence today for Africa under COVAX facility," Anurag Srivastava, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs, said on Twitter. The World Health Organization this month paved the way for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine's global roll-out by approving emergency use of the product produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine maker, and SK Bioscience of South Korea. SII will…

Jul

22

2021

By The African Mirror

TB prevention has relied on the same vaccine for 100 years. It’s time for innovation

HEALTH

TB is one of the oldest infectious diseases in recorded history. Most of the people who are ill with TB live in low- and middle-income countries where this disease is one of the leading causes of death. This is particularly distressing given the fact that TB is preventable, treatable and curable. But there’s currently only one vaccine approved against TB. And it is 100 years old. The first dose of the Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine was administered on July 18 1921. The Conversation Africa’s Ina Skosana poses key questions to Bavesh Kana, one of South Africa’s leading TB researchers. BAVESH…