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A leading US Intelligence advisor has taken a firm stance on the origins of COVID-19, insisting that the virus came from a biological weapons lab in Wuhan.
A November 26 letter from the presidency asked the head of Uganda's national drug authority to 'work out a mechanism' to clear the importation of the vaccines.
China has about five COVID-19 vaccine candidates at different levels of trials. It was not clear what vaccine was being imported into Uganda.
One of the frontrunners is the Sinopharm vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Product, a unit of Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group (CNBG).
On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates said the vaccine has 86% efficacy, citing an interim analysis of late-stage clinical trials.
China has used the drug to vaccinate up to a million people under its emergency use program.
On Tuesday, Morocco said it was ordering up to 10 million doses of the vaccine.
Record cases
Uganda on Monday registered 701 new COVID-19 cases, the highest-ever daily increase, bringing its national count to 23,200.
The new cases were out of the 5,578 samples tested for the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said in a statement.
Tuesday's tally was 606, the second-highest ever number of new infections, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the east African country to 23,860.
Health authorities have blamed ongoing election campaigns which have drawn huge crowds for the rise in infections.
The MTV Staying Alive Foundation (SAF) in partnership with the World Health Organisation, United Nations and other stakeholders have supported a 65 part mini-series of MTV Shuga to raise awareness in the fight to flatten the Covid-19 curve – ‘MTV Shuga Alone Together’
Produced remotely, MTV Shuga Alone Together is a self-shot series, written and directed by MetFilm School Berlin graduate and acclaimed Nigerian actress and screenwriter, Tunde Aladese and is available on YouTube for streaming.
Tunde told us: “My love for writing started with prose, making sorry imitations of any book I enjoyed in order to somehow prolong the experience that the book had given me.
“I guess primary school drama club was my first proper sense of trying to create a narrative out of thin air and get other people to help bring it to life.
Tunde studied English Literature at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and her first job after graduating led to an introduction between her boss and a producer who was about to make a radio drama series for the BBC in Nigeria.
She said: “Success was not immediate but over the next couple of years, enough opportunities came my way that when an international cable company became interested in producing a Nigerian series, I actually had a little experience under my belt and could pitch myself for some writing opportunities.”
\"There are over 123,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases on the African continent - with more than 50,000 recoveries and 3,600 deaths,\" it said.
The figures show that South Africa, Algeria and Nigeria have the highest reported cases in the continent.
According to the report, South Africa has 25,937 cases and 552 deaths, followed by Algeria with 8,857 cases and 623 deaths, while Nigeria has 8,733 confirmed cases and 254 deaths.
It said that Lesotho had only two confirmed cases with zero death.
Seychelles had 11 reported cases and zero death, while Namibia recorded 22 confirmed cases with no death.
The African Union (AU) will test the controversial herbal remedy for Covid-19 from Madagascar.
“I am excited to update you that the Republic of Madagascar, through its Ministry of Health, has agreed to collaborate with the African Union and Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC) to explore further the remedy they have discovered for the treatment of Covid-19 to benefit the continent at large,” Mr Kwesi said on Twitter.
Last week, South Africa’s health minister Zweli Mkhize confirmed that they had received a scientific research request from Madagascar on the remedy.
Last week, the AU received data on the remedy for review based on global technical and ethical norms.
“Once furnished with the details, the Union, through the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, will review the scientific data gathered so far on the safety and efficacy of the Covid-19 Organics.
It said that the voluntary pooling of patents in response to the pandemic needed to be ‘be narrowly tailored in scope and duration to the medical needs of the current crisis’, raising uncertainty about how the US intends to respond if it is the first nation with a viable vaccine.
Apart from spelling out the public health issues the Caribbean has had to address, the need to recognise vulnerability when it comes to eligibility for development assistance, and recognising Cuba’s ‘palpable’ and ‘unswerving assistance’ to the region, Barbados’ Prime Minister shone a light on the crisis in global governance that the pandemic has highlighted.
Last month Roberto Azevêdo, its Brazilian born head resigned early and there is a growing body of opinion that if the institution is to survive in any meaningful way his successor will need somehow to bridge the divide between China and the US and reform the organisation so that it is better designed for a different world.
How achievable this might be given the WTO’s consensus-based decision-making approach, a US President who sees trade as bilateral and Manichean, and China’s professed multilateralism and global role in driving trade and investment, is open to question.
However, if such exceptionalism proves incorrect, the answer comes from China, Cuba or elsewhere, and is offered at cost or free to the world, and the US Administration objects, it will struggle to justify its unilateralism or objections to global interdependence.
The patient was resistant to 14 antibiotics, five drugs showed promise of clearing the infection and were to be administered into the vein, and three had a 50-50 chance of curing the UTI.
The overselling of over-the-counter antibiotics by unscrupulous drug store owners and over-consumption of the medicines by uninformed patients is to blame for the drug resistance.
In most chemists, especially those located in low-income areas, any patient who walks in, with or without a doctor's prescription, is likely to walk out with an antibiotic, whether he has a flu, headache or stomach pain.
Buying fakes, dispensing antibiotics without prescriptions and patients abandoning the medicines are some of the factors fuelling antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which occurs when a bacteria, virus or parasite stops an antibiotic, antiviral and antimalarial drug from working against it.
Just like Mr Ouma in Kibera, she does not buy drugs in bulk and mostly stocks antibiotics, antimalarial, cough syrups, painkillers and pessaries, in small quantities.
[Premium Times] The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Congo, has said there have been over 25,000 COVID-19 deaths on the African continent.
Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa said Saturday the lockdown imposed to control the spread of coronavirus would stay in place for the moment, but would be reviewed every two weeks.
Mnangagwa said the World Health Organisation had classified coronavirus transmission in Zimbabwe as \"sporadic, with one or more cases imported or locally detected.
\"This may suggest that despite the small numbers tested, our country might have a reduced COVID-19 trajectory,\" he said in a speech broadcast on public television.
\"Zimbabwe will therefore continue on ... lockdown for an indefinite period.
Local doctors have warned that Zimbabwe's poorly equipped health service could not cope with a coronavirus pandemic.
Deadlock in Westmoreland Eastern after official count The official count of votes in Westmoreland Eastern has ended in a tie, it was revealed yesterday. The Jamaica Labour Party’s candidate, Daniel Lawrence, and the People’s National Party...
Maputo — Mozambique's National Director of Public Health, Rosa Marlene, announced on Tuesday that a further 20 cases of the Covid-19 respiratory disease have been diagnosed, bringing the total number of known Covid-19 cases in the country to 453.
Speaking in Maputo at the Health Ministry's daily press conference on the Covid-19 situation, Marlene said that, since the start of the crisis, 15,190 people have been tested in Mozambique for the coronavirus that causes the disease, 610 of them in the previous 24 hours.
The distribution of the 453 positive cases by province is as follows: Cabo Delgado, 164; Nampula, 136; Maputo City, 71; Maputo Province, 47; Sofala, 13; Niassa, 5; Tete, 5; Inhambane, 4; Manica, 3; Gaza, 3; Zambezia, 2.
As for the claim made by one World Health Organisation (WHO) official, Maria van Kerkhove, that transmission of Covid-19 by asymptomatic people is \"very rare\", the Director of Surveys of the National Health Institute, Sergio Chicumbe, politely dismissed it.
He pointed out that the reference to symptoms is often subjective - while the temperature of a patient can be readily measured, this was not the case with other Covid-19 symptoms, for which doctors depended on descriptions given by the patients themselves.
Lwemiyaga County MP Theodore Ssekikubo and Kumi Municipality MP Monica Amoding last week during a press conference said they had been informed by their friends that money was being dished out but that they had failed to access the venues where the distribution was taking place.
The two were joined by Ntungamo Municipality MP Gerald Karuhanga and Kalungu West MP Joseph Ssewungu who attacked NRM MPs for wasting taxpayers' money.
Addressing a press conference yesterday at Parliament, the ruling party MPs accused the above mentioned MPs of hiding under immunity of Parliament to blackmail their colleagues.
\"Any person who said that I was giving out money to NRM MPs was under the influence of drugs.
\"I have never received or distributed any money to any MP.
Mass testing for Covid-19 kicked off in China with all residents required to produce proof of residence, and valid visas for foreigners which entitled them to testing catered for by their monthly contribution towards the government medical scheme.
Public health and law enforcement agents did not entirely ace the manner in which foreigners of African descent were treated in the wake of the mass testing exercise in Guangzhou that kicked off late March, as it is believed some did not possess valid visas or work permits.
In comparison to China, Germany and South Korea have impeccably managed to contain the spread and infection cases after making a series of damning mistakes while combating similar epidemics that preceded the novel coronavirus
.
From these epidemics, both Germany and South Korea saw the need for early testing and the isolation of the infected patients to avoid secondary infections.
Similarly, China, South Korea and Germany have a written infectious-disease-prevention legislation that allows medical practitioners to use available diagnostic kits during a public health emergency and warrantless access to geolocation data from suspected infected cases to expand contact tracing.
Now, they have turned their attention to junk news about the COVID-19 crisis, helping social-media platforms move more quickly to dispel and discourage rumors, misinformation, and conspiracy theories.
By criticising democracies as corrupt and incompetent, praising authoritarian leaders' global leadership, and promoting conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus and the motives of international health agencies, they are trying to shape - or at least muddy - the global narrative as much as possible.
By analysing a large sample of health-related COVID-19 lies, we found that one in five can be sourced to politicians, celebrities, and prominent public figures, and that a huge proportion of the misinformation is being propelled by media agencies controlled by authoritarian governments.
A global community of fact checkers that came together after the United Kingdom's Brexit debate and the U.S. presidential election in 2016 has rapidly pivoted to checking health information.
The dissemination of politicised health messages is especially dangerous, as are attacks on credible public agencies and trustworthy, professional news organisations.
African leaders have lauded the launch of the continent's first medical supplies platform as the \"jewel in the crown of Pan-African cooperation\".
On Thursday, African Union (AU) chairperson President Cyril Ramaphosa, AU Commission chairperson Moussa Faki and the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Dr John Nkengasong held a media briefing, giving an update on the platform.
Zimbabwean businessman Strive Masiyiwa, who was appointed as the AU special envoy leading global mobilisation of medical test kits and protective equipment for the continent this month, gave a brief presentation of how the Africa medical supplies platform would operate.
Vera Songwe, the executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, said the platform was initially developed to assist with maternal and childcare in a bid to connect mothers to women pharmaceutical producers on the continent as big pharmaceutical companies refuse to deliver to small islands with ports that are seen as too small.
The Africa CDC director said the organisation regularly engaged with African countries seeking data on the spread of the pandemic, and the approach was to emphasise cooperation and the sharing of information in a timely fashion.
Stay informed and up to date with the latest news in South Africa by reviewing all major headlines on Tuesday 15 September.
World Health Organisation (WHO) member states have signed a resolution that calls for COVID-19 vaccines to be classified as a global public good for health in order to bring the pandemic to an end.
This follows China's commitment made by President Xi Jinping during the two-day World Health Assembly to make the vaccine a global public good, once one is available.
It calls for countries to ensure the fair distribution of all quality essential health technologies required to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
This includes open innovation across all relevant domains and the sharing of all relevant information with WHO.
As the world continues to battle COVID-19, Ghebreyesus called on governments to ensure that health systems continue to function to avoid the risk brought on by the suspension of essential services, like child immunisation.
So far, Africa has recorded more than 1,8 million cases of the coronavirus. The death toll is inching closer to 45 000 while 1,535,747 people have managed to recover
In some of these countries we're seeing an increase in cases and in others, new cases remain stable from week to week, indicating we need to remain vigilant to stop the spread of COVID-19,\" Moeti said.
So with COVID-19 threatening to overwhelm health systems, the extensive polio response network is once again lending crucial support as countries build up systems to contain COVID-19,\" said Moeti.
Mali's response to COVID-19
Safia Boly, Minister of Investment Promotion, Small and Medium Enterprises and National Entrepreneurship in Mali, shared how COVID-19 has impacted the economic prospects of the informal sector in her country.
The slowing rate of cases in many countries, which we have seen, has given the opportunity to scale up public health capacities so that even as lockdowns are being eased, which is what is happening in countries now, the capacity is there and even if there is an initial uptick of cases, as we are seeing in countries like South Africa, be more capable of stopping a very out of control spread of the virus.
The impact on economies, as Minister Boly explained, will be severe but we know an out of control spread of the pandemic could also overwhelm countries in other ways.\"
There have been 1 674 new infections, taking the total positive cases to 34 357
Paris – The novel coronavirus has killed at least 372 047 people since the outbreak first emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 11:00 (GMT) on Monday.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Britain with 38 489 deaths from 274 762 cases, Italy with 33 415 deaths from 233 019 cases, Brazil with 29 314 deaths and 514 849 cases and France with 28 802 deaths and 188 882 cases.
Europe pushes ahead with easing lockdowns, as Latin America cases pass one million
Moscow – Countries across Europe took bolder steps in easing coronavirus lockdowns, with schools, pubs, parks and pools reopening in places, while in Latin America the outbreak grew more dire with infections passing the one million mark.
Britain has the second highest death toll in the world after the US, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come under fire for bungling the response to the outbreak early on.
West Bank poverty may double over pandemic as annexation looms
Ramallah, Palestinian Territories – Poverty in the occupied West Bank may double as Palestinians are hit by the coronavirus, the World Bank warned on Monday, just weeks before Israel aims to kick-start plans to annex parts of the territory.
Architectural Association of Kenya(AAK) president Mugure Njendu said post-Covid, major changes must be made within private and public buildings to create spaces that enable people to observe social distancing to deter new Covid-19 infections.
Speaking at the same event, AAK’s Town Planners Chapter chair Juliet Rita called for a fresh examination of all public spaces from markets, bus stages and termini as well as public offices, health centres, educational and sports facilities to inform mitigation measures that enhance healthy living within urban areas.
AAK’s honorary secretary Marylyn Musyimi called for increased investments in social public infrastructure to ease queues at watering points and reduce jostling for space along footpaths used by bodaboda operators as well as pedestrians.
Restaurants and retail chains are already taking steps towards making their spaces safe, having installed plexiglass in key service areas to minimise human contact while allowing operations to go on
Fast-food restaurant operator Simbisa Brands has opened a takeaway section at its latest outlet at a petrol station on Eastern bypass, Ruiru that incorporates Pizza Inn, Chicken Inn and Creamy Inn awaiting inspection and advises on the sitting arrangement on its first floor dining area.
Ms Njendu said future construction designs of buildings will have to incorporate larger spaces and more doors as well as new restroom designs to accommodate the social distancing rule, while buttonless elevators might become the norm with more people preferring to walk up and down the stairs.
Health is important for the development of any nation. In essence, health and development are symbiotic hybrids. guest column:Johannes Marisa So many people have lost confidence in the public health system in Zimbabwe with the private medical sector also being blamed for exorbitant charges which are beyond the reach of many. Many people blame the government for lack of hospital equipment, medicines and sundries that are required for a robust health service delivery. In 2007, World Health Organisation (WHO) came up with a framework describing health systems in terms of six core components or building blocks and these are leadership, medicines, health workforce, information systems, financing and service delivery. The Health and Child Care deputy minister, John Mangwiro, on Sunday at a Kadoma conference for private medical practitioners pointed out that the popularity of Karanda Mission Hospital was because of the attitude of its staff. I visited Karanda at one time, the reception even from the gate keeper was warming, the receptionists were always smiling, nurses and doctors were always mingling with patients in a jovial way. In contrast, government hospitals were labelled death traps. We need to know the other side of the coin if we are to unearth the real cause of public hospital service disintegration in our beautiful country. A lot of people have often rushed to blame the government or the Health ministers for the poor service being offered at some government hospitals. What I witnessed on Sunday at Chegutu Hospital exposes preventable staff failure. Some of these hospitals are dying today because of maladministration, poor attitude and being inconsiderate on the part of medical staff. If a hospital like Chegutu District Hospital, which is along a major highway, is allowed to run without emergency preparedness yet we are approaching the festive season, then our country is doomed. The events I am narrating will tell you who to blame for some of the medical mishaps in a lot of public hospitals. Bad attitude, maladministration, arrogance, lack of consideration and empathy have slaughtered our health sector. An accident occurred on Sunday just 7 kilometres after Chegutu Hospital. Two people lost their lives and the injured were rushed to Chegutu Hospital. When we got to the scene of the accident on our way from a conference in Kadoma, it was already 2 hours after the incident. My sixth sense told me to drive back to Chegutu Hospital to check on the state of the survivors. Upon arrival in the casualty department, we introduced ourselves and then asked for gloves, suture material and other things to use because the three patients were groaning in pain and two of them were bleeding from lacerations. To my surprise, the following is what we discovered: • The injured were yet to be attended to, three hours after the accident • There was no single pair of gloves available • There were no available suture packs, what was only available was vicryl, an absorbable suture • No surgical blade • No painkillers for emergency cases
Click here for the full story
Africa needs to 'triple its testing', 'US picks companies to develop vaccine' - International Covid-19 news
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday warned that the coronavirus could further weaken sub-Saharan Africa's ability to adapt to climate change, as measures to contain the pandemic stretch limited resources.
Africa needs to triple its coronavirus testing in the coming months \"to move ahead of the curve\" as more countries ease lockdown measures, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
Story by Jeanette Chabalala
Cabinet to appeal judgment declaring lockdown regulations for levels 3 and 4 invalid, confident of another outcome
Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu said the decision was taken after advice from legal experts.
By Lizeka Tandwa
RECAP | State of Disaster extended, Cabinet to appeal High Court's lockdown regulations judgment
The ruling by Judge Norman Davis that regulations for Level 3 and 4 of the lockdown were unconstitutional and invalid will be taken on appeal, government has decided.
Why lockdown judgment opens up the possibility for more lawsuits against government
In his judgment, handed down on Tuesday, Judge Norman Davis found that many of the promulgated regulations for Level 3 and 4 of the lockdown were not rationally connected to the objectives of slowing the rate of infection or limiting the spread of the virus.
A new report has shown that one out of two children aged 2-17 years experience some form of violence globally each year.
According to the report titled - GLOBAL STATUS REPORT ON PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN 2020, \"Globally, it is estimated that one out of two children aged 2-17 years experience some form of violence each year.\"
The global status report on preventing violence against children 2020 is an effort to assess what governments are doing to reach these targets.
Over 1000 government officials from 155 countries have collaborated to build this picture of global efforts to end violence against children.
For global recommendations, the report suggested ensuring full use of international support mechanisms by countries; increased funding for evidence-based prevention and strengthening research.
NPR's Rachel Martin talks to Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender about plans to defund and dismantle the city's police department following George Floyd's death and nationwide protests.
I mean, I think it's important to step back and realize that Minneapolis is a relatively small city - 430,000 people - and this is not the first time that police have killed a community member in recent years.
But, you know, to see George Floyd killed in the way he was, I think, just shows to our community that these incremental steps we've been taking are not working to solve this toxic culture and our police department, to break through the lack of accountability.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
LORI LIGHTFOOT: You can have all the policies that you want, and I think the Chicago Police Department has policies that would be the equivalent of two New York City police departments.
So I think we've seen that even if we have inspiring and inspired leadership in our chief, even if - you know, for the last five years or so, our two police chiefs of color have interviewed every single recruit coming into the department themselves in order to help efforts to diversify the force, both racially through many practices but also to look for those qualities that we want in police officers.
OVER FIFTY women have accused charity workers of sex abuse in Congo during the ebola...
The post Charities accused of sexual abuse in DR Congo during Ebola crisis appeared first on Voice Online.
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 482 802 people since emerging in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.
