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Jun
23
2021
By The African Mirror
COVID SCIENCE – Latest

COVID SCIENCE – Latest

COVID-19
NANCY LAPID THE following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. COVID-19 brains show inflammation, "circuitry" problems The brain inflammation and impaired "brain circuitry" seen in people who die of COVID-19 look a lot like what doctors see in the brains of people who die of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, researchers reported in the journal Nature. Analyses of brain tissue from eight people who died from COVID-19 and 14 others who died from…
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May
10
2021
By The African Mirror
Four cases of ‘Indian variant’ in South Africa

Four cases of ‘Indian variant’ in South Africa

COVID-19
SOUTH Africa has detected the first four cases of a new coronavirus variant that emerged in India and was responsible for a surge of infections and deaths in the Asian country. Testing had also picked up 11 cases of the variant B.1.1.7 first detected in the UK, the health ministry said in a statement. "The Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa confirmed today that two variants of concern, other than the B.1.351 already dominating in South Africa, have been detected," Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said. The four positive cases were detected in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, and all had…
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Jun
21
2021
By The African Mirror
Ramaphosa accuses Big Pharma of ‘selfish, unjust’ vaccine policy

Ramaphosa accuses Big Pharma of ‘selfish, unjust’ vaccine policy

COVID-19
TIM COCKS THE "selfish, unjust" refusal of pharmaceutical companies and allied Western governments to entertain emergency patent waivers on COVID-19 vaccines was endangering the entire world, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has said. In unusually impassioned remarks, Ramaphosa lambasted a resistance to calls by India and South Africa for temporary patent waivers to ramp up production. "It is selfish, it is unjust, it is wholly unfair," Ramaphosa, proponent of the waiver, told the opening virtual session of the Qatar Economic Forum, a day after South Africa registered 13,000 new cases in a third COVID-19 wave. "We are facing an emergency…
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May
10
2021
By The African Mirror
Tanzanian president’s COVID-19 u-turn

Tanzanian president’s COVID-19 u-turn

COVID-19
TANZANIA’S new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, has stressed the importance of face masks in fighting COVID-19, ditching one of the most controversial policies of her late coronavirus-sceptic predecessor. Hassan took office in March after the death of John Magufuli, who had urged Tanzanians to shun masks and denounced vaccines as a Western conspiracy, to the frustration of the World Health Organization. Last month, she formed a committee to research whether Tanzania, which under Magufuli stopped reporting coronavirus data, should follow the course that the rest of the world has taken against the pandemic. Wearing a face mask and flanked by…
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Jun
22
2021
By The African Mirror
Children with hearing problems: why acting early can make all the difference

Children with hearing problems: why acting early can make all the difference

HEALTH
EARLY hearing detection and intervention is the gold standard for any practising audiologist and families of infants and children with hearing impairment. KATIJAH KHOZA-SHANGASE, Associate professor, University of the Witwatersrand The goal of early hearing detection and intervention programmes is to identify, diagnose and take action early in a child’s life. The ideal sequence of events is: screening by six weeks of age, diagnosis by four months of age and commencement of intervention by eight months of age. This offers a much better chance of helping children develop and achieve at the same level as their hearing peers. Research has…
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Jun
22
2021
By The African Mirror
Africa to make own COVID-19 vaccines

Africa to make own COVID-19 vaccines

COVID-19
THE World Health Organization (WHO) is setting up a technology transfer hub for producing mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in South Africa, which could start manufacturing doses in 9 to 12 months. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement aimed at boosting access to vaccines across the African continent, where cases and deaths had increased by almost 40% over the past week. "Today I am delighted to announce that WHO is in discussions with a consortium of companies and institutions to establish a technology transfer hub in South Africa," Tedros told a news conference. "The consortium involves a company Afrigen Biologics…
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Jun
22
2021
By The African Mirror
US to share millions of vaccines

US to share millions of vaccines

COVID-19
JEFF MASON THE White House has laid out a plan to share 55 million U.S. COVID-19 vaccine doses globally, with roughly 75% of the doses allocated to Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Africa through the COVAX international vaccine-sharing program. The plan fulfils President Joe Biden's commitment to share 80 million U.S.-made vaccines with countries around the world. The president sketched out his priorities for the first 25 million doses from that pledge earlier this month. "As we continue to fight the COVID-19 pandemic at home and work to end the pandemic worldwide, President Biden has promised that the…
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May
09
2021
By The African Mirror
Pope backs vaccines rights waiver

Pope backs vaccines rights waiver

COVID-19
POPE Francis yesterday came out in support of waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, backing a proposal by U.S. President Joe Biden that has been rebuffed by some European nations, including Germany. In a speech to a global fundraising concert to promote fair access to vaccines, the pope said the world was infected with the "virus of individualism". "A variant of this virus is closed nationalism, which prevents, for example, an internationalism of vaccines," he said in the pre-recorded video message. "Another variant is when we put the laws of the market or of intellectual market or intellectual property…
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May
09
2021
By The African Mirror
WHO approves Sinopharm

WHO approves Sinopharm

COVID-19
STEPHANIE NEBEHAY THE World Health Organization (WHO) has approved for emergency use a COVID-19 vaccine from China's state-owned drugmaker Sinopharm, bolstering Beijing's push for a bigger role in inoculating the world. The vaccine, one of two main Chinese coronavirus vaccines that have been given to hundreds of millions of people in China and elsewhere, is the first developed by a non-Western country to win WHO backing. It is also the first time the WHO has given emergency use approval to a Chinese vaccine for any infectious disease. Earlier this week, separate WHO experts had expressed concern about the quality of…
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May
09
2021
By The African Mirror
New tougher rules in Egypt

New tougher rules in Egypt

COVID-19
EGYPT will require all visitors arriving from "countries where variants of the virus have appeared" to take a rapid COVID-19 test upon arrival, its health ministry said in a statement. The statement did not specify the countries from which passengers would take the 15-minute DNA test, called ID NOW. Egypt's new coronavirus cases have been steadily rising in recent weeks. On Saturday it reported 1,125 new cases and 65 deaths, although experts say that reflects only a fraction of total cases. In a statement on Saturday, Egypt's tourism ministry clarified that restaurants and coffee shops attached to hotels were exempt…
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