HEALTH - The African Mirror

Aug

12

2020

Ancestors guide LGBT+ South African healers to mend mental scars

HEALTH

KIM HARRISBERG SMOKE swirled around Badanile Maci as she crouched on all fours, clapping and chanting with half a dozen other sangomas - South African traditional healers - to greet their ancestors' spirits. Widely respected by South Africans as spiritual guides, healers and counsellors, gay sangomas like 23-year-old Maci are also challenging the idea that being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT+) is unAfrican. "When we are together in our traditional ceremonies, we are free," said Maci, who knew she was gay at the age of 15 and brought her first girlfriend home a year later. "Our traditional beliefs have…

Aug

11

2020

By The African Mirror

As coronavirus steals jobs, urban Kenyans look to their rural families

COVID-19

CAROLINE WAMBUI IN the last three months, teacher Faith Njeri has been a regular customer at a courier service office in Nairobi, collecting parcels sent from her village three hours drive north of the capital. When the coronavirus pandemic closed the private school where she taught, "I was left jobless," she said. Efforts to feed her family by washing clothes failed "as people avoided any intrusions in their homes for fear of getting infected with the virus." With three hungry children and no alternatives, she called her parents in her home village, asking them to send food to keep the…

Aug

11

2020

By The African Mirror

Namibia to auction fishing quota to raise money for COVID-19 medicines

COVID-19

NYASHA NYAUNGWA THE Namibian government will for the first time auction its 60% share of the country's annual horse mackerel and hake output to the highest bidder by the end of October, as it scrambles to raise funds for equipment and medicines to fight the coronavirus pandemic, according to a government letter seen by Reuters. The government's 60% quota is normally reserved for state-owned company Fishcor, which has been caught up in a corruption scandal. "Government is in need of financial resources on an emergency basis with a view to mitigate the effects of COVID-19," Albert Kawana, the minister of…

Aug

10

2020

By The African Mirror

Covid19 and the provision of water and sanitation services to informal settlements

COVID-19

NEIL MACLEOD Recently, as a result of the Covid19 pandemic, there has been a recognition in South Africa of the importance of access to water and sanitation for residents living in informal settlements, together with hygiene education. However, the solutions adopted have been reactive to date, contradict stated government policy when it comes to both sanitation and water, and are not sustainable. The water and sanitation solutions currently adopted in South Africa make use of fixed water tanks that are filled by tankers and provide sanitation using communal chemical toilets. Ironically, while bucket toilets provided by the public sector are…

Aug

13

2020

By The African Mirror

Seven African countries to start testing for COVID-19 antibodies

COVID-19

GIULIA PARAVICINI SEVEN African countries will start administering coronavirus antibody tests from next week, as part of efforts to understand the extent of the outbreak on the continent. "Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco are the first set of countries that committed to it," said John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, based in Addis Ababa. Western governments are using antibody tests to find out how many of their citizens have been infected, in the hope that will help them reopen their economies. Africa has so far conducted 9.4 million coronavirus tests, a…

Aug

14

2020

By The African Mirror

South African speakeasies boost calls for end to COVID booze ban

COVID-19

TANISHA HEIDEBERG and EMMA RUMNEY IN an Italian bistro in an upmarket Johannesburg neighbourhood, smiling patrons chat at candle-lit tables in a scene reminiscent of less-troubled times before the COVID-19 pandemic. But there's no alcohol on the menu. Instead, diners order red or white "coffee" served in grey mugs, the tell-tale sign of a modern-day South African speakeasy. Under one of the world's strictest lockdowns, South Africa banned alcohol to lower hospital admissions for injuries from drink-related violence and accidents and ease the burden on healthworkers facing the worst coronavirus outbreak in Africa. But businesses from wine makers to restaurants…

Aug

16

2020

By The African Mirror

Facing COVID-19 and climate threats, Nairobi ramps up green efforts

COVID-19

WESLEY LANGAT PETER Njeru used to live in central Nairobi's rundown Michuki Memorial Park because he had nowhere else to go. Now the 28-year-old is restoring and guarding the green space, one of about 200 jobless former park residents hired to help with the work. "This park was my home with other street families, though people were dumping here illegally," he said, noting that he used to collect and sell plastic bottles and metal scraps to buy food. But after being evicted in 2017, he was hired for a few months to help clear trash in the park - and…

Aug

21

2020

By The African Mirror

Nigeria considers using private firms for coronavirus tests after foreign flights resume

COVID-19

ALEXIS AKWAGYIRAM NIGERIA is considering partnerships between state governments and private firms to ramp up testing and tracing of coronavirus cases after international flights resume this month, the head of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said. Nigeria will reopen its airports for international flights from August 29. They have been closed since March 23 to all but essential overseas flights to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa's most populous country. State governments are responsible for testing and tracing but the influx of travellers will increase the pressure on already stretched authorities in Nigeria, which has had 50,488…

Aug

21

2020

By The African Mirror

Africa beginning to “bend the curve” of coronavirus – Africa CDC

COVID-19

ELIAS BIRYABAREMA and GEORGE OBULUTSA AFRICA is beginning to slowly "bend the curve" of COVID-19 infections as measures like mask-wearing and social distancing slow down the spread of the pandemic on the continent, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak was slow in Africa in the early stages of the pandemic, the rate of infection gradually accelerated especially in South Africa, which now accounts for more than half of its caseload of more than 1.1 million. On average, there were signs of a decline in new infections across Africa over…

Aug

21

2020

By The African Mirror

Nigeria’s wet markets thrive despite coronavirus pandemic

COVID-19

ANGELA UKOMADU and LIBBY GEORGE JUST a few months after Epe Fish Market was under lockdown to stem the spread of the new coronavirus, vendors at the site in the southern Nigerian state of Lagos are back buying, selling and trading animals. A vendor descales an endangered pangolin with a machete. Nearby, grasscutter rodents are skinned. Most of the sellers wear masks. Experts say COVID-19, which has killed around 1,000 people in Nigeria, jumped from animals to humans, possibly at a wet market in China. But few in Epe were worried. "We are not afraid of it because the coronavirus…