HEALTH - The African Mirror

Jan

19

2021

WHO close to vaccine deal for the poor

COVID-19

EMMA FARGE and STEPHANIE NEBEHAY THE World Health Organization is in advanced negotiations with Pfizer to include the firm's COVID-19 shot in the body's vaccine-sharing scheme, which would speed vaccine deliveries to poorer countries, according to a senior WHO official. The COVAX scheme -- led by the WHO and GAVI vaccine alliance -- is due to start rolling out vaccines to poor and middle-income countries in February, with 2 of 3 billion doses expected to be delivered this year. "We are in ... detailed discussions with Pfizer. We believe very soon we will have access to that product," WHO senior…

Jan

19

2021

By The African Mirror

Nigeria requests 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses

COVID-19

FELIX ONUAH NIGERIA has written to the African Union to request 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to supplement the COVAX programme and has allocated $26 million for licensed vaccine production, the health minister said yesterday. Nigeria, like other countries across Africa, is grappling with a second wave of the novel coronavirus. As of Monday, Nigeria, the continent's most populous country of 200 million inhabitants, had 110,387 confirmed cases and 1,435 deaths. The African Union has secured a provisional 270 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from manufacturers for member states, its chair South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said last week. "Nigeria has…

Jan

19

2021

By The African Mirror

S.A fears post-Christmas homecoming, funerals

COVID-19

SOUTH Africa's second wave of COVID-19 cases, which has already far outpaced its first, could be driven even higher by post-Christmas holiday homecoming and overcrowded funerals, according to the health minister. Africa's most industrialised nation has recorded 1.34 million cases of COVID-19 so far, and some 37,000 deaths. Daily new cases, which surged to a record high of 21,000 earlier this month, have since fallen to just over 12,000 a day -- around the level its first-wave peak back in July. The pandemic and lockdowns to tackle it have damaged an economy that was already in recession and left millions…

Jan

19

2021

By The African Mirror

Norway says advice on use of Pfizer vaccine is unchanged

COVID-19

NORWAY does not plan to change its policy on the use of Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine following reports of deaths in highly frail recipients after the inoculation was given. BioNTech had earlier say that "Norwegian Health Authorities have now changed (their) recommendation in relation to vaccination of the terminally ill". But the company later retracted the statement following clarification from Norway. The Nordic country is currently vaccinating residents of care homes, including those with serious underlying diseases. COVID-19 vaccines Of these 23 reports, 13 have been looked into by Norwegian health authorities. These concerned individuals who were described as…

Jan

18

2021

By The African Mirror

Malawi to close schools, bars to shut early

COVID-19

MALAWI’S schools are to shut for at least 15 days, and all bars must close at 8 p.m., under new coronavirus restrictions announced by President Lazarus Chakwera in a television address. After reporting no positive cases for almost two months, the country has seen a sudden resurgence in coronavirus cases since the middle of last month. The new measures concerning schools and bars will take effect from Monday. Chakwera also said the government has allocated an additional 1.6 billion kwacha ($2.10 million) in funds to be spent on recruiting frontline healthcare workers, 1,000 intensive care unit beds and 1,000 oxygen…

Jan

18

2021

By The African Mirror

Why resistance is common in antibiotics, but rare in vaccines

HEALTH

CELIA SOUQUE, Postdoctoral Researcher, Microbiology, University of Oxford LOUIS DU PLESSIS, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Oxford ANTIBIOTIC resistance is a worldwide problem to the extent that there is a grave risk that common infections will soon become untreatable. Meanwhile, vaccines developed nearly a century ago still protect us from deadly diseases. What might explain this difference? Bacteria have evolved resistance to every antibiotic ever developed. Sometimes this happened very soon after an antibiotic was first introduced. It took just six years for resistance to penicillin, the first antibiotic, to become widespread in British hospitals. But resistance against vaccines has…

Jul

04

2020

By The African Mirror

Africa waited for solutions to past health crises: will it be different for COVID-19?

COVID-19

HAILAY GESESEW, NHMRC Research Fellow (Public Health), Flinders University The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently noted that “researchers are working at break-neck speed” to understand SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19). They are also working to develop potential vaccines, medicines and other technologies that are affordable and equitable. By June 2020 – six months since it was first identified – thousands of therapeutic trials and dozens of vaccine development studies were underway, including one vaccine study each in South Africa and Nigeria. As a public health specialist and infectious diseases epidemiologist, I am very happy and impressed to…

Jul

03

2020

By The African Mirror

EXCLUSIVE: Health woes, outrage, and toxins near Ethiopia gold mine

HEALTH

TOM GARDNER IN THE villages around Shakiso, children have been born with deformities, and women have had so many miscarriages they believe they are cursed; the bones of cattle have snapped like twigs, and men’s bodies have crumbled and collapsed without warning. Residents who live near Ethiopia’s largest gold mine, Lega Dembi, say that for the past 15 years or so, life-threatening illnesses, disabilities, and mysterious ailments have become so widespread that almost no household has been left untouched. “We are the walking dead,” Dembela Megersa told The New Humanitarian, describing the unaccountable pain in his back that has afflicted…

Jul

02

2020

By The African Mirror

More than 40,000 people forcefully evicted in East Africa

COVID-19

MORE than 40,000 people across East Africa have been forcibly evicted from theirhomes since March, putting them at risk of contracting the new coronavirus, saidcharities on Wednesday, calling for a moratorium on all evictions during thepandemic. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) found that communities already displacedby violence, droughts and floods in Somalia were worst hit, while in Kenya andEthiopia, people living in informal settlements had also seen their homes demolished."Evictions expose vulnerable people to greater risk of infection as they are forced intomore crowded and unsanitary conditions," said Evelyn Aero, NRC's legal assistanceregional advisor in East Africa. "Evicted people do…

Jun

30

2020

By The African Mirror

Chinese researchers warn of new virus in pigs with human pandemic risk

COVID-19

A NEW flu virus found in Chinese pigs has become more infectious to humans and needs to be watched closely in case it becomes a potential "pandemic virus", a study said, although experts said there is no imminent threat. A team of Chinese researchers looked at influenza viruses found in pigs from 2011 to 2018 and found a "G4" strain of H1N1 that has "all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus", according to the paper, published by the U.S. journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Pig farm workers also showed elevated levels of the virus…