HEALTH - The African Mirror

Nov

06

2020

AstraZeneca aims to bring non-U.S. vaccine data before the FDA

COVID-19

ASTRAZENECA will start discussing emergency approval of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine with U.S. regulators once it has good trial data from Britain, South Africa and Brazil, as it has no indication the watchdog would favour U.S. data. If and when AstraZeneca reaches the first statistically reliable efficacy and safety results from those trials, based on more than 25,000 volunteers in total, it would present them to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) even though any read-out from an ongoing U.S. trial will be months later. "If you hit those thresholds we are going to have a conversation with them,"…

Nov

06

2020

By The African Mirror

Doctor’s self-funded test lab leads way in Somalia’s COVID fight

COVID-19

ABDI SHEIKH HAVING scraped money together following medical studies abroad, Somali doctor Abdullahi Sheikdon Dini opened Mogadishu's first advanced diagnostic laboratory in January. Its arrival could hardly have been better timed because, just two months later, the coronavirus epidemic reached the Horn of Africa country. Since then Medipark Diagnostics, which he runs with five other doctors who pooled $1 million to buy equipment, has become a linchpin of the country's creaking, donor-supported health infrastructure. Hospitals in the battle-scarred city that once had to wait weeks for blood test results now use the lab to test for conditions including HIV and…

Nov

05

2020

By The African Mirror

Kenya extends COVID-19 night curfew beyond Christmas and New Year’s Day

COVID-19

OMAR MOHAMMED KENYA’S President Uhuru Kenyatta has extended the country's nightly curfew to January 3 as part of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 after numbers surged in October. Kenyatta said that in October alone, the number of new confirmed coronavirus cases had risen by 15,000 and the East African nation reported about 300 deaths. "October has gone down as the most tragic month in our fight against COVID-19," Kenyatta said, adding that the rate of infections from tests carried out had shot up to 16% in the month, four times what it was a month earlier. The government…

Nov

04

2020

By The African Mirror

How ending polio in Africa has had positive spinoffs for public health

HEALTH

CHARLES SHEY WIYSONGE, Director, Cochrane South Africa, South African Medical Research Council POLIO is a highly infectious disease. It’s caused by a virus that enters the body through the mouth. The virus then multiplies in the intestine and attacks the central nervous system – causing paralysis. Polio was one of the most dreaded diseases in the world in the 20th century. Four decades ago, an estimated 350,000 people were paralysed each year by the poliovirus in more than 125 countries. This led the World Health Assembly in 1988 to adopt a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio, drawing inspiration…

Nov

04

2020

By The African Mirror

Kenya’s blind students struggle with social distancing as schools re-open

COVID-19

KENYAN students Purity Nduku and Blessing Cheroo, who go to a boarding school for blind and partially blind children near Nairobi, often walk holding hands. That way "you are sure you have the support and if something happens, your friend will help," Nduku says. Visually impaired pupils hold on to each other for confidence as they walk after attending a lesson, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Thika school for the blind in Thika town of Kiambu county in Kenya October 29, 2020. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi However, this simple yet vital tool of holding hands makes it…

Nov

04

2020

By The African Mirror

Algerian president has COVID-19 but improving, presidency says

COVID-19

ALGERIAN President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has tested positive for COVID-19, but his condition is gradually improving as he receives treatment in a German hospital, the presidency has disclosed. Algerian authorities had previously said Tebboune was in Germany for medical checks when he flew there last week, after saying people in his administration had the coronavirus. Tebboune, 75 and a smoker, was elected less than a year ago as Algeria faced its biggest political crisis in decades with a mass protest movement demanding the entire ruling class be replaced. Backed by the powerful military, he pushed for changes to the constitution as…

Nov

03

2020

By The African Mirror

South Africa’s Aspen agrees initial deal to make J&J vaccine candidate

COVID-19

TANISHA HEIBERG SOUTH African pharmaceutical company Aspen Pharmacare said on Monday it had reached a preliminary agreement with Johnson & Johnson to commercially manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, sending its shares higher. The country's biggest drugmaker said it had agreed to provide capacity required for the manufacture of J&J's vaccine candidate, which is still in clinical trials, at its Port Elizabeth facility. The agreement with J&J will see Aspen perform formulation, filling and secondary packaging of the vaccine for the U.S. firm, the company said. Aspen's shares rose more than 4% on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on the announcement. The…

Nov

03

2020

By The African Mirror

Europe to provide Mozambique with $116 million in virus aid

COVID-19

THE European Union (EU) has agreed to provide Mozambique with 100 million euros ($116.30 million) in coronavirus-related aid, according to EU Ambassador Antonio Sanchez-Benedito Gaspar. The EU cut off direct budget support to Mozambique in 2016 after the country revealed the existence of hefty state-guaranteed loans that it had not previously disclosed. A number of other donors including the International Monetary Fund also halted aid to Mozambique. Sanchez-Benedito Gaspar told a press conference in the capital Maputo that the agreement had "different characteristics" to the direct budget support the EU used to provide and was focused specifically on helping with…

Nov

02

2020

By The African Mirror

WHO chief says he is identified as contact of COVID-19 positive person

COVID-19

WORLD Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has revealed that he had been identified as a contact of someone who tested positive for COVID-19, but added that he was feeling well and did not have any symptoms. "I have been identified as a contact of someone who has tested positive for #COVID19. I am well and without symptoms but will self-quarantine over the coming days, in line with @WHO protocols, and work from home," Tedros said in a tweet. - Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Nov

02

2020

By The African Mirror

COVID stress syndrome: 5 ways the pandemic is affecting mental health

HEALTH

GORDON J. G. ASMUNDSON, Professor of Psychology, University of Regina IN addition to its staggering impact on physical well-being and mortality, COVID-19 is also taking an unprecedented toll on our mental health. Numerous recent studies have shown global increases in the prevalence and severity of depression and anxiety as well as increases in post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse. These increases likely stem from the changes to daily life we have all been asked to make in attempts to mitigate viral spread. Yet conventional mental health approaches and diagnoses do not fully capture the nuanced mental health impacts of this…