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By Johannes Marisa QUALITY health delivery service requires collaboration. In 2007, the World Health Organisation proposed a framework describing health systems in terms of six core components or building blocks. These components are the availability of good service delivery, health workforce, health information systems, access to essential medicines, financing and leadership. Much has been said in our country pertaining the desire to deliver a robust healthcare to the masses. With COVID-19 always threatening to strike further, it is thus prudent that we keep ourselves ready for action so that we are not caught unawares as a nation. While Europe continues to be hit by COVID-19 left, right and centre, the situation in Africa is a little better despite the little resources available. The public health measures that were introduced by authorities paid off with a halt on both morbidity and mortality. Health stakeholders in Zimbabwe include all those who are involved in health service delivery. These include policymakers, health practitioners, city councils, medical aid societies, the donor community, community leaders who, therefore, should come together for the benefit of the nation at large. It is a fact that there has been a lot of dissension among the stakeholders due to differences which have often threatened the viability of the health sector. Surprisingly, some of the contentious issues are easy to resolve. They only need minimal co-operation in order to move ahead. Being difficult does not help matters when dealing with issues, particularly important ones. The following matters have been of concern among stakeholders and it is my prayer that solutions will be found if the country is to make great strides in healthcare delivery: Service providers/medical aid societies feud The friction between service providers and medical aid societies should be resolved if many people are to access healthcare. There are patients that have been denied medical care simply because their health insurers do not want to honour claims from service providers. Some medical aid societies have gone for more than six months without paying a single dollar in this COVID-19 era. Service providers have been left without any option except to demand cash or shortfall upfront, thus putting more misery on patients. Members of medical aid societies should enquire with service providers on when medical aid societies last paid them. Harare City Council/private practitioners food handlers feud There has been acrimony from private practitioners about the way the city health department has handled the issue of food handlers’ certification. Council has claimed that many private practitioners have a tendency of making claims without examining patients, which has been denied by doctors. Council has refused to release medical certificate forms and its officials have gone around restaurants and supermarkets threatening that anyone who has a certificate not signed by council medical practitioners will be arrested. This is very unfair and it ridicules the prof
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.
[Lesotho Times] Health workers will be prioritised when Lesotho receives its consignment of the Covid-19 vaccine in April this year Ministry of Health expanded programme on immunisation (EPI) nurse, 'Mamonaheng Posholi has said.
India’s donation of 80,000 COVISHIELD vaccines arrived yesterday morning at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri and Prime Minister Mark Phillips expressed gratitude on behalf of Guyana.
The article India’s 80,000 COVID vaccines donation arrives appeared first on Stabroek News.
BY RICHARD MUPONDE/MIRIAM MANGWAYA ZIMBABWEANS have urged the government to ease COVID-19 restrictions today and allow churches, businesses and informal traders to operate, arguing that the latest two-month lockdown had subjected many people to abject poverty. President Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to announce new lockdown measures today, while the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education last Thursday said government was pondering over the safe reopening of schools. By last night, Zimbabwe had recorded 36 089 cases and 1 463 deaths. The Education Parliamentary Committee wants the ministry to seek tents from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to create temporary classrooms to ensure there is social distancing at learning institutions when schools reopen. “Teachers must be prioritised for the COVID-19 vaccination since they are frontline workers in the education sector,” read a report on COVID-19 preparedness at schools by the committee.. “The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education must engage with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) before schools open for a transitional school mechanism whereby tents are used to create temporary classrooms and ensure that learners have more learning time in school as compared to the status quo, whereby some learners had been coming to school once a week.” The Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta) said schools should be opened backed by scientific data to avoid having to be closed again. “We must meet certain variables to ensure that once we have opened schools, we have to sustain their re-opening. Let us do things based on scientific data. Once we open schools and the economy, we must not find ourselves in a position where we will be worse off than when we started.” Zimta secretary-general Goodwill Taderera told NewsDay. He said government should deal with the welfare of teachers, as well as comply with the World Health Organisation standard operating procedures and guidelines. Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers Association president Denford Mutashu urged government to reopen the economy. “We have been thrown into abject poverty in an economy that is more than 65% informal, and where people have been living from hand-to-mouth since January. Now there is no need to continue with the COVID-19 lockdown extension,” he said. “What we need to do is to continue the fight against COVID-19 through accelerated nationwide vaccination and preventative measures while adopting a measured reopening of the economy as the majority of people are struggling.” MDC Alliance secretary for health, Henry Madzorera said the country could not be in perpetual lockdown. “We cannot be in perpetual lockdown, especially in a country where there are no social safety nets, but the decision to lift the lockdown must be based on data and science, not on political considerations,” he said. “Weaponisation of the lockdown is a tragedy, and many in Zimbabwe feel the lockdown is being used as a political weapon.” Medical and Dental Private Practitioners Association of Zimbabwe execut
