Africa CDC - The African Mirror

May

2021

COVID is a global humanitarian emergency – act like it

DR AYOADE ALAKIJA THE world has been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health crisis, but it’s time we shift gears and recognise it for the global humanitarian emergency that it is. The events in India have shown there is no room for complacency. When you have a fire, you call the firefighters, and in this interconnected global community, the humanitarian agencies are our firefighters. The worldwide COVID pandemic is not nearly over – even as some countries reopen. I think sadly for us on the African continent, the pandemic is only just beginning. The extremely limited diagnostics…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

India’s COVID-19 emergency is wake-up call to Africa -AU health chief

NEWS

THE raging state of the COVID-19 pandemic in India is a wake-up call for Africa that its governments and citizens must not let their guards down, the African Union's disease control agency has warned. African nations generally do not have sufficient numbers of health care workers, hospital beds, oxygen supplies, and the continent of 1.3 billion would be even more overwhelmed than India if cases surged in a similar way, said John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. "We are watching with total disbelief...What is happening in India cannot be ignored by our continent," he…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

“Don’t waste vaccines”

COVID-19

ALEXANDER WINNING and OMAR MOHAMMED THE African Union's disease control body and World Health Organization yesterday urged African countries not to waste COVID-19 vaccines donated to them, after confusion in Malawi and South Sudan about whether doses they received had expired. "My appeal to member states is: if we are doing our part to mobilise these vaccines, you do your part and use the vaccines," John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told a news conference. Malawi has said it plans to destroy more than 16,000 doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine manufactured by the…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Africa CDC cannot predict date for 2nd shots

COVID-19

MANY Africans who have received their first COVID-19 vaccine do not know when they will get a second shot because deliveries are delayed, the continent's top public health official has said. "We cannot predict when the second doses will come and that is not good for our vaccination programme," John Nkengasong, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told reporters. Africa lags behind most other regions in COVID-19 vaccinations, with just less than 14 million doses having been administered on the continent of 1.3 billion, according to the Africa CDC. Ghana, for example, has…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Africa must expand vaccine production, leaders say

NEWS

ALEXANDER WINNING AFRICA must expand vaccine manufacturing to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and future health emergencies, including by forging partnerships to boost expertise and investment, continental leaders and international health officials said yesterday. Africa has struggled to acquire coronavirus vaccines and imports the vast majority of its medicines and medical equipment, leaving it at the mercy of overseas supplies. Its mainly poor nations are falling behind in the global coronavirus vaccination race with under 13 million doses administered so far to the continent's 1.3 billion people, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said last week. World…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Ethiopia to get 300,000 doses of vaccines

COVID-19

ETHIOPIA is to receive 300,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from China's state-backed China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm). The Sinopharm doses are the first shots Ethiopia has secured outside the global COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative, Health Minister Lia Tadesse told Reuters in a text message. Ethiopia is struggling to administer shots and tame infections that have spiked. In the past month, it has recorded a 26% increase in coronavirus infections and deaths rose by 18%, health ministry data shows. On Thursday, Africa's disease control body, the Africa CDC, said Ethiopia had reported the highest number of new cases in the last week of…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

Botswana gives AstraZeneca the nod

COVID-19

BOTSWANA will move ahead with plans to use AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, the southern African country's health minister said yesterday, despite neighbour South Africa pausing the rollout of the shots. South Africa's decision to suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine was based on preliminary data showing it offered minimal protection against mild to moderate illness caused by the dominant coronavirus variant there. That more contagious variant - called 501Y.V2 - has been detected in Botswana too. Asked whether Botswana would be using the AstraZeneca vaccine, Health Minister Edwin Dikoloti said in parliament: "Our intended outcome is well-covered by what AstraZeneca offers."…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

Drugmakers should cut COVID-19 vaccine prices for Africa – Africa CDC

COVID-19

OMAR MOHAMMED PHARMACEUTICAL companies should sell COVID-19 vaccines to African countries at discounted rates and allow them to be produced locally to potentially cut costs, according to the head of the continent's disease control body. Africa is aiming to vaccinate up to 60% of its 1.3 billion people in the next two years, but may need several years of inoculations, John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told reporters. How frequently people will need vaccinations against COVID-19 remains uncertain, he said. "Because of this, local manufacturing becomes imperative so that we can meet our…

Aug

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…