HEALTH - The African Mirror

Jun

09

2021

Bafana wins, despite Covid-19 problems

COVID-19

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER THE South African national football team - Bafana Bafana - overcame setbacks induced by COVID-19 to defeat the visiting Ugandan national team 3-2 in a friendly match at Orlando Stadium, Soweto, yesterday. Bafana took on the cranes without its assistant coach and six players. Hellman Mkhelele, the assistant coach, led the team in the absence of Hugo Broos, the national coach who missed the match. Bafana Bafana's three goals were scored by debutant Evidence Makgopa, who netted a brace and Bongokuhle Hlongwane. Ibrahim Orit and Abdu Lumala scored for The Cranes. One of the team’s assistant coach…

Jun

10

2021

By The African Mirror

Vaccine supply talks start

COVID-19

WORLD Trade Organization members agreed on Wednesday to start formal negotiations on a plan to boost COVID-19 vaccine supply to developing countries, but face rival proposals - one with and one without a waiver of intellectual property rights. South Africa and India, backed by many emerging nations, have been pushing for eight months for a temporary waiver of IP rights on vaccines and other treatments. This could allow local manufacturers to produce the shots, something the proponents say is essential to redress "staggering" inequity of supply. Developed nations, many home to large pharmaceutical companies, have resisted, arguing that a waiver…

Apr

23

2021

By The African Mirror

Tributes for ANC MP, who died of COVID-19

COVID-19

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER Jacqueline Mofokeng, the ANC MP who succumbed to COVID-19 complications, 24 hours after her daughter succumbed to the same, has been praised by presiding officers of Parliament and her colleagues in the ANC. Mofokeng, 62, died at home in Centurion, where she had been in quarantine. Her daughter, Thato, 28, passed to COVID-19 at a hospital in Pretoria. Mofokeng was a former member of the Gauteng Legislature. In a joint statement, the Speaker of the National Assembly Thandi Modise and Amos Masondo, the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces described Mofokeng as an MP who served…

Apr

23

2021

By The African Mirror

“Don’t waste vaccines”

COVID-19

ALEXANDER WINNING and OMAR MOHAMMED THE African Union's disease control body and World Health Organization yesterday urged African countries not to waste COVID-19 vaccines donated to them, after confusion in Malawi and South Sudan about whether doses they received had expired. "My appeal to member states is: if we are doing our part to mobilise these vaccines, you do your part and use the vaccines," John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told a news conference. Malawi has said it plans to destroy more than 16,000 doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine manufactured by the…

Apr

23

2021

By The African Mirror

WHO to review COVID-19 vaccines

COVID-19

TECHNICAL experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) will review on April 26 Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine for possible emergency use listing, to be followed by the Sinovac jab on May 3, the agency said on Thursday. "We would expect a decision a couple of days later," the WHO said in response to a Reuters query. So far COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have received a WHO listing - an endorsement of their safety and efficacy that helps to guide countries' regulatory agencies.

Apr

23

2021

By The African Mirror

Tunisia runs out of intensive care beds

COVID-19

TUNISIAN hospitals have run out of intensive care beds amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, a member of the independent scientific committee that advises the government said yesterday. Amenallah Messadi told Reuters the health system had been pushed to the point of collapse by a rise in cases driven by the more infectious coronavirus variant first detected in Britain. The scientific committee was considering whether to recommend another border closure to avoid the spread of another variant first detected in Brazil, he added. Tunisia briefly closed its borders during the first wave of the virus. "The situation is very critical,…

Jun

09

2021

By The African Mirror

HIV 40 years on: four action points to end AIDS as a health threat

HEALTH

ON 5 June 1981 a short report of five cases of pneumocystis pneumonia in young homosexual men in Los Angeles marked the discovery of AIDS, the first pandemic of the 20th century caused by a completely new virus, HIV. GILLES VAN CUTSEM, Honorary Research Associate, Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research, University of Cape Town Since then HIV has killed 33 million and infected 76 million people. Of the 38 million people living with HIV 27 million are now on life-saving treatment. This is a three-fold increase since 2010. But it still falls short of the global target of…

Jun

08

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 crisis makes electricity too costly for millions in Africa, Asia

COVID-19

THE economic toll from the COVID-19 pandemic has left more than 25 million people in Africa and Asia unable to afford electricity, threatening a global goal to provide power to everyone by 2030, international agencies have on Monday. Two-thirds of those affected were in sub-Saharan Africa, deepening disparities in the region's access to electricity, according to an annual global report tracking progress on sustainable energy. Millions struggled to pay for essential electricity services to power lighting, fans, televisions and mobile phones as the COVID-19 crisis hit jobs and incomes in 2020, the report said. This threatens progress in the last…

Jun

09

2021

By The African Mirror

Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

COVID-19

JAPAN is leaning towards allowing domestic spectators at the Olympics despite the pandemic, media reports said, while Australia's second-largest city Melbourne will exit a hard lockdown as planned tomorrow. DEATHS AND INFECTIONS * Eikon users, see COVID-19: MacroVitals for a case tracker and summary of news EUROPE * The European Union's executive body urged caution in the face of calls for a public-private scheme for insuring companies against economic lockdowns in future pandemics. * Some Russian drugmakers say they will only manufacture the single-dose Sputnik Light COVID-19 vaccine for the time being because it is easier to make than Sputnik…

May

13

2021

By The African Mirror

“How the WHO, states failed on COVID-19”

COVID-19

STEPHANIE NEBEHAY THE International Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response issued its report yesterday into the global handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling for a new transparent global system to be set up for investigating disease outbreaks. The report, "COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic", is to be debated at the World Health Organization's annual ministerial assembly opening on May 24. Here are the main findings and recommendations of the panel of independent experts led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: FAILINGS 1) The World Health Organization (WHO) should have declared…