HEALTH - The African Mirror

Sep

27

2020

Overcoming COVID-19 at 99 years-old in Guinea

COVID-19

WHEN Bagama Guehara walked out of Donka Hospital in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, on July 7 this year, leaning on a walking stick for support, she was met with rapturous applause from the medical staff and fellow patients. At 99, Guehara is the oldest person to have tested positive for COVID-19 in Guinea since the country’s first positive case was detected on March 13. Guinea has since recorded 10 344 infections and 65 deaths. The highest case fatality rate has been in patients over 60 years old, which made Guehara’s recovery all the more significant. “My family were very worried because…

Sep

26

2020

By The African Mirror

Global COVID-19 death toll could hit 2 million before vaccine in wide use -WHO

COVID-19

THE global death toll from COVID-19 could double to 2 million before a successful vaccine is widely used and could be even higher without concerted action to curb the pandemic, according to an official at the World Health Organization. "Unless we do it all, (2 million deaths) ... is not only imaginable, but sadly very likely," Mike Ryan, head of the U.N. agency's emergencies programme, told a briefing. The number of deaths about nine months since the novel coronavirus was discovered in China is nearing one million "We are not out of the woods anywhere, we are not out of…

Sep

26

2020

By The African Mirror

There’s only one way to protect women and children from the pandemic: cooperation

HEALTH

VIVIAN M LOPEZ GOOD news first: more than a billion children were vaccinated over the past decade. Maternal deaths declined by 35 per cent since 2000. Deaths of children under five reached an all-time low in 2019, a year when more girls were attending school than ever before. The progress was not universal, of course. Women and children living in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia accounted for over 80 percent of under-5 deaths and maternal deaths. Then, in just a few short months, the COVID-19 pandemic set back this progress, reversing hard-won advances in maternal and child health, women’s rights,…

Sep

25

2020

By The African Mirror

China’s BGI wins 1.5 million coronavirus test kit order from Ethiopia

COVID-19

ETHIOPIA has agreed to purchase 1.5 million coronavirus testing kits that will be manufactured at a factory in the African country that has been newly built by China's BGI Group, China's state media agency Xinhua has announced. The BGI factory, the first coronavirus test production facility in Ethiopia that opened earlier this month, is designed to be able to make 6-8 million tests in a year and can expand the annual capacity to up to 10 million in accordance with local demand, Xinhua reported. BGI, which makes genome sequencing and medical devices, is hoping to use its footprint in Ethiopia…

Sep

25

2020

By The African Mirror

Top adviser steps aside from FDA COVID-19 vaccine reviews over potential conflict

COVID-19

DAN LEVINE and MARISA TAYLOR A physician who heads the influential U.S. Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee recused herself from the panel's review of COVID-19 vaccines because of her role overseeing a clinical trial for Moderna Inc's candidate, her spokeswoman told Reuters. Hana El Sahly, associate professor of virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Hana El Sahly, associate professor of virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, last year became chairwoman of the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee - the panel of outside experts that will make recommendations…

Sep

24

2020

By The African Mirror

J&J kicks off final study of single-shot COVID-19 vaccine in 60,000 volunteers

COVID-19

JULIE STEENHYSEN JOHNSON & Johnson has kicked off a final 60,000-person trial of a single-shot COVID-19 vaccine that potentially would simplify the distribution of millions of doses compared with leading rivals using two doses. The company expects results of the Phase III trial by year end or early next year, Dr. Paul Stoffels, J&J's chief scientific officer, said in a joint press conference with officials from the National Institutes of Health and the Trump administration. Rival vaccines from Moderna Inc, Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca all require two shots separated by several weeks, which make them much more difficult to administer.…

Sep

24

2020

By The African Mirror

Egyptian orchestra for visually-impaired women resumes concerts amid coronavirus

COVID-19

EGYPT’S Al Nour Wal Amal (light and hope) chamber orchestra, a music group of visually-impaired women, has faced many challenges over the decades, yet none was like this year's pandemic. After months without playing, the orchestra members resumed rehearsals three weeks ago and held their first concert since the start of the global health crisis on Sunday at the Manasterly Palace in Cairo. The orchestra, made up entirely of visually-impaired women apart from their conductor, played for a small group, wearing masks and exercising social distancing. In March, Egypt imposed several restrictions to contain the spread of coronavirus including banning…

Sep

23

2020

By The African Mirror

Will COVID-19 change our relationship with meat?

HEALTH

THIN LEI WIN IN a vast, illuminated greenhouse set among Iceland's otherworldly lava fields, the genetically modified shoots of an ancient cereal crop may hold the key to the food of the future. Using abundant geothermal waters for heating and volcanic ash instead of soil, biotech company ORF Genetics is growing barley here to produce growth factors - one of the most important, and costly, ingredients in laboratory-grown meat. Sales of plant-based meats have soared during the pandemic as customers shift diets due to growing unease about factory farming, working conditions in meat-packing plants and suspicion over a possible link between…

Sep

23

2020

By The African Mirror

Zimbabwe to gradually re-open schools from October 26

COVID-19

ZIMBABWE will gradually re-open primary and secondary schools from October 26 for all pupils, ending a break of seven months that was precipitated by the coronavirus outbreak, the information minister has announced. The government had earlier this month said only students who are taking their final examinations would return to school. Tuesday's announcement by information minister Monica Mutsvangwa came after teachers unions said their members would boycott classes to press authorities to pay them a COVID-19 risk allowance and a pay rise. Mutsvangwa said the first group of primary and secondary pupils would go back to class on Oct. 26…

Sep

22

2020

By The African Mirror

Swimming in tomatoes and bananas, Kenyan farmers count cost of COVID

COVID-19

CAROLINE WAMBUI IN a change from the droughts and floods that often plague his tomato plantation in central Kenya, David Kariuki's latest harvest has been more bountiful than he could have hoped - and yet, he is not sure he can afford his children's school fees. A stretch of favourable weather has led to a bumper crop for Kariuki, 34, and other farmers in Kirinyaga County, whose numbers have swelled as workers made jobless by the coronavirus pandemic turned to farming to make ends meet. With the market flush with fresh produce, buyers are offering only a fraction of the…