HEALTH - The African Mirror

Dec

04

2021

Top Kenyan scientist shares the joys and challenges of creating life-saving vaccines

HEALTH

PROFESSOR George Warimwe should be a household name in Kenya. He’s a leading scientist who has created a life-saving vaccine against Rift Valley Fever. He is also leading policy-changing work on Yellow Fever vaccines. Warimwe has now been awarded the Royal Society Africa Prize for his work on vaccine development and capacity building in Africa. Moina Spooner, from The Conversation Africa, spoke to Warimwe about his life as a vaccinologist. Author GEORGE WARIMWE, Group Leader, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kenya; Associate Professor, Centre for Tropical Medicine & Global Health, University of Oxford What types of vaccines have you helped to…

Dec

03

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Omicron ‘blaming’ shows persistence of racism in healthcare’

HEALTH

DONNA BRYSON THE persistence of racism is evident once again with the "blaming and shaming" of African nations for the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, health advocate Dr Joia Crear-Perry said on Wednesday. Speaking at a Reuters Next panel on racial disparities in Black maternal healthcare, Crear-Perry said the medical profession in the United States needed to stop resorting to racist tropes and start truth-telling. "Even if you look at the latest blaming and shaming that's happening around the latest Omicron variant you see the same history, the same racist trope of blaming certain places, assuming white nations and nations…

Dec

03

2021

By The African Mirror

Ghana says 34 samples from returning travellers test positive for Omicron

COVID-19

GHANA detected the Omicron coronavirus variant in 34 samples from travellers who returned to the country from November 21-25, according to data from the state institute responsible for coronavirus testing. The health ministry on Wednesday announced it had detected the country's first imported cases of the variant, but did not say how many cases had been identified. A graphic released by the Noguchi research institute on Thursday said it had checked 120 samples from returning travellers and found 34 that were positive for the variant. It gave no further details about the travellers that were tested. "These are the first…

Dec

03

2021

By The African Mirror

FACTBOX-What COVID-19 vaccine and drug makers have to say about Omicron

COVID-19

THE Omicron variant of the coronavirus has sparked fears that existing COVID-19 vaccines and treatment could be less effective against it. South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases said early epidemiological data suggested Omicron was able to evade some immunity, but existing vaccines should still protect against severe disease and death. Here's what companies that make COVID-19 vaccines and drugs have said: MODERNA CEO Stéphane Bancel has warned that COVID-19 vaccines are unlikely to be as effective against the Omicron variant. The company has said a new vaccine tailored for Omicron should be available as soon as March. PFIZER-BIONTECH "We…

Dec

02

2021

By The African Mirror

S.Africa festival halted after 36 test positive for COVID on site

COVID-19

ROGAN WARD ORGANISERS halted a music festival for young people on the South African coast on Wednesday after 36 people tested positive for COVID-19 at the site, the latest impact from a new wave of infections sweeping across the country. South Africa has found itself in the international spotlight since announcing last week that it had detected the new Omicron variant, which the World Health Organisation said posed a very high global risk of infection surges. New infections in the country rose to 4,373 cases on Tuesday from 2,273 on Monday. Omicron is expected to trigger a fourth wave, with…

Dec

02

2021

By The African Mirror

Pfizer to allow generic versions of its COVID-19 pill in 95 countries

COVID-19

MICHAEL ERMAN and EMMA FARGE PFIZER Inc said on Tuesday it will allow generic manufacturers to supply its experimental antiviral COVID-19 pill to 95 low- and middle-income countries through a licensing agreement with the international public health group Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). The voluntary licensing agreement between Pfizer and the MPP will allow the United Nations-backed group to grant sub-licenses to qualified generic drug manufacturers to make their own versions of PF-07321332. Pfizer will sell the pills it manufactures under the brand name Paxlovid. Pfizer, which also makes one of the mostly widely used COVID-19 vaccines, has said the pill…

Dec

02

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 took toll on AIDS fight, UNAIDS chief says

HEALTH

JULIE STEENHUYSEN NEW infections and deaths from HIV/AIDS may increase as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted prevention measures, said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima in an interview airing on Wednesday at the Reuters Next conference. Byanyima, who is also United Nations under-secretary-general, said that during the first pandemic phase in particular, fewer people opted to be tested and some dropped out of treatment because of long lines at clinics or other public safety measures that impeded access to prevention measures. "We do expect that in the coming years, we might see more deaths, we might see more new infections as…

Dec

01

2021

By The African Mirror

The race is on to trace the new COVID-19 variant

COVID-19

ALISTAIR SMOUT, FRANCESCO GUARASCIO and CHEN LIN GOVERNMENTS around the world are urgently scouring databases for recent cases of COVID-19 infections, screening travellers and decoding the viral genomes of the new variant as they try to measure how far it has spread. The pace of the work highlights the pressure on governments and public health authorities to decide quickly whether they need to take unpopular, economically damaging steps to curb Omicron's spread. Data shows it was circulating before it was officially identified in southern Africa last week and it has since been detected in more than a dozen countries. Work…

Dec

01

2021

By The African Mirror

How South African scientists spotted the Omicron COVID variant

COVID-19

TIM COCKS ON Friday, November 19, Raquel Viana, Head of Science at one of South Africa's biggest private testing labs, sequenced the genes on eight coronavirus samples - and got the shock of her life. The samples, tested in the Lancet laboratory, all bore a large number of mutations, especially on the spike protein that the virus uses to enter human cells. "I was quite shocked at what I was seeing. I questioned whether something had gone wrong in the process," she told Reuters, a thought that quickly gave way to "a sinking feeling that the samples were going to…

Dec

01

2021

By The African Mirror

WHO’s Tedros warns against over-reaction to Omicron

COVID-19

STEPHANIE NEBEHAY THE head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has voiced concern that some countries were introducing blanket measures against the Omicron coronavirus variant that may not be necessary and penalised African nations unfairly. "I well understand the concern of all countries to protect their citizens against a variant that we don't yet fully understand," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "But I am equally concerned that several Member States are introducing blunt, blanket measures that are not evidence-based or effective on their own, and which will only worsen inequities." First reported in southern Africa a week ago, the variant has…