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THE fear and confusion surrounding the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine donated by China and brought into the country this week reflects the failure by government to relay information to the citizens. Health practitioners, teachers and trade unionists have expressed fears over being used as guinea pigs to prove the efficacy of the vaccine amid reports that it had resulted in complications in some countries it has been rolled out. Among some of the concerns, the drug has not been approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO), but is still undergoing tests and the highest efficacy rate it has had is 75% compared to other drugs that are now in wide use, AstraZeneca, Modena, Pfizer, the Russian Sputnik 5 which have had higher efficacy rates. Suddenly, the Sinopharm drug received amid much pomp and fanfare, is now presenting more headaches for government than solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic that has wreaked havoc in the country, claiming more than 1 400 lives since March last year. Government can only blame itself for the dearth of information around the Chinese vaccine. Comments by the head of monitoring and evaluation in the Health and Child Care ministry, Robert Mudyiradima, which circulated widely on social media, to the effect that they still didn’t have full knowledge of the vaccine have worsened the uncertainty over its safety. A well-organised and detailed information campaign about the drug will go a long way in allaying fears over the safety of the vaccine. This should include the public vaccination of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his two deputies Constantino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi. Government’s messaging deficit has long been its Achilles heel and could severely hamper its efforts to curb the pandemic. Its pathetic messaging and double standards have not only been limited to the Sinopharm vaccine. Doesn't it raise eyebrows that while government is preaching the need to limit movement of people and public gatherings, the ruling Zanu PF party continues to hold face-to-face meetings? The glaring double standards were also laid bare when First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa ignored her husband’s order to avoid public gatherings by organising a cooking contest in Chinhoyi in blatant defiance of the national lockdown regulations. That this was held a day after government warned citizens to brace for more restrictions in light of the highly fatal and fast-spreading South African variant, not only exhibits absence of leadership, but is also an insult to the country’s citizens. With such deplorable messaging, the government can forget about successfully curbing the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.
DISASTERS have a tendency of showing the best and worst of humankind. Wars or natural disasters usually create new heroes/heroines and villains and the COVID-19 pandemic has done exactly that. Disasters expose the inner selves of people — whether they are empathetic or indifferent. In some cases, disasters reaffirm and strengthen perceptions already held by the people. In March this year, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 — a flu-like health crisis a pandemic — forcing many governments across the globe to declare states of disaster or emergency depending on their statutes. Many countries, including Zimbabwe, declared national lockdowns — laws that closed everything else except essential services. Citizens were ordered to stay indoors or within their properties, workers were ordered to work from home if they could or just sit out the pandemic and people could not travel across cities or towns. The initial lockdown in Zimbabwe was declared on March 27 and was for two weeks effective from March 30, 2020. The government, in announcing the lockdown, claimed the move was meant to flatten the curve of infections. Zimbabwe wanted to flatten the curve when at that moment it had nine cases and one death. Zimbabwe’s economy is fragile from lack of investment and reduced production in the past five years or so and lack of policy consistency even on crucial issues like the currency. Nearly 90% of the working population, according to the International Labour Organisation, are engaged in the informal economy — meaning they survive generally from hand to mouth. The few that formally work are mostly underpaid and as high as 85% of them earn below the datum poverty line that currently stands at slightly over $8 000 a month for a family of six. The International Monetary Fund estimates that nearly 70% of the population in Zimbabwe are in abject poverty as they live on less than US$2/day — the scientific threshold of poverty across the globe. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s regime made the perfunctory promises to help the indigent population by introducing social safety nets. It proposed to give $200 cash transfers to the most affected one million families over a period of three months. Finance minister Mthuli Ncube, in announcing the monetary support, said: “Vulnerable groups in our society are the most exposed under this COVID-19 crisis. Accordingly, the Treasury has set aside resources to cover one million vulnerable households under a cash transfer programme and payment will commence immediately. The Social Welfare Department will use its usual mechanisms to identify the beneficiaries.” The value of the grant at the time it was announced was equivalent to US$8, an amount so meagre that it could not buy breakfast for a week, especially in the hyperinflationary economy that the country is going through. As of Tuesday this week, the grant value was more than halved to US$3,20 after the US dollar traded at 1:57 to the local currency at the inaugural forex auction trading system. Ironically, it is the same Tuesday that Ca
[Nation] Amid the surge in Covid-19 infections and deaths in the country, health workers have been at risk of burnout as they are in the frontlines.
South Africa currently has a cumulative COVID-19 caseload of 1 494 119 along with 48 313 deaths and 1 494 119 recoveries.
News24 answers some of the most frequently asked questions on coronavirus and level 4 of the lockdown in South Africa.
Senator Kihika says State must protect rights of women, girls with disabilities
Nakuru County Senator Susan Kihika is pushing for consensual sterilisation of women.
The bill, which proposes punishment for health practitioners involuntarily sterilising the women also seeks to protect HIV positive women and girls, as well as those living with disabilities, from abuse.
\"Further Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women raised issues with the failure to protect the health, sexual and reproductive health and rights of women with disabilities including the practice of forced sterilisation,\" said Ms Kihika.
During 9th Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights held in Nairobi in February this year, Ms Prisca Akumu, a physically challenged woman living in Kibra slums shared her experience on coerced sterilisation.
Ms Kihika emphasised that the State has a duty to protect the rights of women and girls with disabilities, ensuring that they have equal access to health care services.
The Gauteng Health Department has been posting myth busters regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. Here’s to separating the truth from the tale.
[The Conversation Africa] Gambian maritime law expert Fatou Bensouda has just entered the final year of a nine-year term as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Her tenure of office will end on 15 June 2021.
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (CMC) - Director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) Dr Carissa Etienne Wednesday warned that countries should continue public health measures such as social distancing, hand-washing and wearing masks in public, as it may take time before people recive a vaccine to treat the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
