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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.
[New Zimbabwe] INCARCERATED journalist Hopewell Chin'ono has said he is worried that fellow inmates and prison officers are being exposed to the deadly Covid-19 pandemic at the Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison.
Brazil saw its highest number of coronavirus deaths yet Tuesday as, more than four months after Covid-19 first emerged in China, the force of the pandemic was beginning to hit hard in Latin America.
In the US the outlook remained bleak, with a new modelling average released Tuesday suggesting virus deaths could surpass 113,000 by mid-June, underscoring America's status as the nation worst affected by the pandemic and piling more pressure on President Donald Trump.
Trump has fiercely defended his administration's response to the crisis, repeatedly deflecting blame for the virus's spread on to Beijing and the World Health Organisation.
Beijing hit back Tuesday, with the foreign ministry accusing the US of trying to \"use China as an issue to shirk responsibility and bargain over its international obligations to the WHO\".
With the row threatening the global response to the pandemic, WHO countries adopted a resolution calling for an \"impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation\" of the international response, and the measures taken by the agency.
Many health facilities across sub-Saharan Africa use diesel backup generators or do without power during blackouts.
Distributed Renewable Energy Systems Are More Resilient
Solar PV and battery storage-based distributed energy resources (DER) are more resilient during crises and are cleaner and more cost-effective either as an alternative to, or supplemented by, diesel generator use where 24/7 power is required.
DER Solutions to Meet Increased Energy Needs within the Next 1-5 Months
The development of a 70–200 kW solar PV capacity and 200–500 kWh lithium-ion battery traditional CI-scale roof-mounted DER system to back up the electrical load or critical electrical needs of a moderate-sized health clinic or small hospital in developed countries takes 10–16 months from initiation to completion.
Hospitals and large urban health clinics connected to the grid with unreliable power can take advantage of solar PV and battery systems supplying backup power when needed and help save on electricity bills.
Rural health clinics receiving limited or no electricity from the grid can use solar PV and battery microgrids, with a small diesel genset where required, to meet all their power needs more cost effectively and cleanly than solely using diesel generators.
[Nation] Freetown -- Guinean authorities on Saturday said four people had died from suspected Ebola virus complications, sparking fears of the return of the deadly viral disease in West Africa, four years after the world's largest outbreak of the disease in the sub-region.
Vaccines to prevent the deadly coronavirus disease in Tennessee are expected to arrive Thursday (Dec. 17), according to Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (MLH). Healthcare workers in hospitals across the state will be first to receive the initial batch of 56,000 doses produced by Pfizer. A second batch developed by Moderna is expected to follow. Subsequent […]
Dear Mr Bassie, P lease let me know whether there are any visas that permit someone to be employed without being sponsored. – F.F. Dear F.F., There are certain categories of visa that will not have conditions that restrict persons from being...
News24 understands that questions have arisen over the apparent stranglehold by the Department of Health on access to spatial data (geo-located confirmed coronavirus cases), data around testing, screening, contact tracing and hospitalisation data - which includes availability levels of medical supplies and high care beds.
This follows a turbulent 48 hours in which:
- Dr Glenda Gray, head of the South African Medical Research Council, one of the country's foremost HIV/Aids researchers and a member of the MAC, slammed the government's lockdown, calling much of it \"unscientific\" and \"nonsensical\";
- She was supported by other scientists and clinicians, as well as various members of the MAC, who said the MAC was not consulted on some aspects and details of the lockdown;
- An after-hours meeting of the MAC on Saturday night, during which Gray was reprimanded by Anban Pillay, acting director general of health; and
- Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, in late night phone calls to reporters, defending the government and his department's actions, denying that, among other things, information is being withheld.
He was responding to a News24 query sent last week, in which access to numerous data sets around Covid-19 was requested, and the Department of Health was asked to address the apparent cloak of secrecy around some types of data.
Van den Heever, the chair in the field of Social Security Systems Administration and Management Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand's School of Governance, told News24 in a wide-ranging interview the reasons given for withholding data, specifically around the location of confirmed cases as well as testing and contact tracing data, were illogical and unscientific.
So far, the Department of Health has not released modelling data or projections, reports over progress made to identify hotspots through testing and screening, contact tracing, testing data per region, and testing data that shows the growth rate of the epidemic (rate of positive and negative cases found per tests done), as well as data that shows time delays and backlogs in testing.
Kenya and Tanzania are among 16 African countries set to benefit from 2Africa, a subsea 4G and 5G Internet project that will link them Europe and the Middle East.
The other African countries in the project are Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Egypt, Djibouti, Sudan and Somalia.
The system is expected to go live in 2023, delivering more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables serving Africa today, with a design capacity of up to 180 terabytes per second on key parts of the system.
The project aims at delivering Internet capacity and reliability across large parts of Africa and push growth of 4G, 5G and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people.
The 2Africa cable has been designed to improve resilience and maximise performance, including the option of a seamless optical crossing between East Africa and Europe.
The Hawks have arrested three more people in connection with the R255 million asbestos audit corruption case.
SIU head, advocate Andy Mothibi, delivered a report of the finalised investigations into allegations of corruption in the procurement of PPE by state institutions.
Limited resources and economic diversification in Eastern Caribbean countries, compounded by their small size and remoteness, constrain development.
While spending on health varies across the region (between three and seven per cent of GDP), Eastern Caribbean health systems perform substantially below the global average, forcing this region on the back foot as it tackles this health crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary for Caribbean countries to reassess their preparedness against a wider range of increasing risks – including health pandemics.
Accustomed to the impact from natural disasters, the Caribbean will not only need resilience against global warming but also against a new wave of health risks that threaten the lives and livelihoods of its citizens.
This is why the United Nations COVID-19 Multi-sectoral Response Plan and Funding Appeal for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean states was launched on the May 6 to support the region to tackle this crisis with resources it urgently needs.
South Africa expects to receive its first batch of Covid-19 vaccines from the global vaccine distribution scheme, Covax, in the second quarter of 2021.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), today delivered J$13 million worth of critically needed hospital supplies as part of a third tranche of emergency equipment to the Ministry of Health and Wellness in support of...
In 2020, Bianca S. Robinson helped her clients earn a collective $2.1 million in revenues on digital channels alone using tools such vcita.
African health practitioners should own the narrative of the coronavirus pandemic and take advantage of Africa's experience of other outbreaks of disease in order to mount a tailored response, says the writer in a guest column for AllAfrica.
To survive this marathon, doctors, researchers and others responding to the pandemic across Africa must take ownership of the narrative of the fight against COVID-19 and provide hard evidence to remove emotions and promote a rational response to the pandemic.
Reanchoring the debate in local communities
On March 18, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, called on Africa to \"wake up\" and face the pandemic.
But in a continent consisting of 54 states, each at a very different level of preparedness, the COVID-19 response in Africa cannot be judged as if it is a single territory.
MSF is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, pandemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare.
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.
[New Zimbabwe] More than 60% of Zimbabwe's working population now survives on vending or other informal sector operations and there is need for the government to recognise the trade and provide necessary safety nets.
South Africa currently has a cumulative COVID-19 caseload of 1 484 900 along with 47 382 deaths and 1 377 980 recoveries.
[SAnews.gov.za] South Africa has recorded over 20 000 new COVID-19 cases two days in a row, the latest statistics reveal.
[East African] A waiver on patents and other intellectual property-related rights to Covid-19 drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other technologies -- lasting the duration of the pandemic -- has been delayed by at least nine developed countries.
Twenty-six people have tested positive for Covid-19 at Mediclinic Cape Town in Oranjezicht, the medical facility confirmed on Monday.
\"Mediclinic can confirm that following the identification of a number of Mediclinic Cape Town healthcare workers and other service providers that tested positive for Covid-19, nearly 300 potential contacts have been tested, with the majority of these returning negative results,\" said Dr Stefan Smuts, the chief clinical officer of Mediclinic Southern Africa.
MUST READ | Horror forecasts say SA Covid-19 death toll will hit 45 000 by November
Mediclinic had already temporarily suspended visiting hours, and had been testing new admissions, even before the positive tests.
Mediclinic Cape Town is not the first medical facility to be hit by the virus, others include some Netcare hospitals and the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal.
MUST READ | Covid-19: Western Cape govt speaks out on hospital bed situation
The African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team – established by AU chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa – has secured a provisional 270 million vaccine doses for African countries.
UNITED NATIONS — Global human development – which can be measured as a combination of the world's education, health and living standards — could decline this year for the first time since the concept was introduced in 1990, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned.
With school closures, UNDP estimates of the “effective out-of-school rate”— the percentage of primary school-aged children, adjusted to reflect those without Internet access — indicate that 60 per cent of children are not getting an education, leading to global levels not seen since the 1980s.
According to a UNDP report released Wednesday, the drop in human development is expected to be much higher in developing countries that are less able to cope with the pandemic's social and economic fallout than richer nations.
In education, with schools closed and stark divides in access to online learning, UNDP estimates show that 86 per cent of children in primary education are now effectively out of school in countries with low human development, compared with just 20 per cent in countries with very high human development.
This is particularly important for the 'new necessities' of the 21st century, such as access to the Internet, which is helping us to benefit from tele-education, telemedicine, and to work from home,” says Pedro Conceição, director of the Human Development Report Office at UNDP.
In Zimbabwe, the health sector has been the worst affected of all sectors by economic woes.
Most of the elite have been seen travelling overseas to seek medical treatment because the public health sector is in shambles.
However, with the emerging of the coronavirus, we are seeing the government of Zimbabwe sprucing all corners of the health sector to ensure the sector is breathing again.
WHO, the Jack Ma Foundation, Econet Wireless, Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe and Sakunda Holdings, to mention but a few, have come to the rescue of the health sector.
Several if not all health facilities in Zimbabwe have been in horrible state, thus seeing the elite seeking medical treatment abroad.
On Africa Day, it is well worth noting that any given set of data visualisations reveal that African countries have thus far been spared the worst of Covid-19's direct effects, though the knock-on effects of global and local policy decisions are still to be fully accounted for.
In a unique contribution to understanding the variation in governance responses from different countries, Africa in Fact will be running a special 12-week digital edition of the journal with authors from six African countries - Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Nonetheless, six weeks after The Economist's first pessimistic article (linked above), the newspaper published another article titled \"Why Covid-19 seems to spread more slowly in Africa\", commending the Ghanaian government for its swift response.
The graphs below, produced by our in-house data specialist, Monique Bennett, annotate relevant policy interventions over time in each of the six African countries featured in our special edition.
Each country has very different screening, testing and contact-tracing capacities and strategies; the data presented on the graphs above is ultimately a reflection of those policy decisions, and a function of the number of tests completed.
A strawberry-flavoured tablet for children living with HIV will be rolled out in African countries in 2021.
[Premium Times] According to her, the Pfizer vaccine and the AstraZeneca one were presently being negotiated so that poor countries don't have to stand in a queue behind rich countries.
KAA says passenger flights won’t resume soon at JKIA
Friday, May 15, 2020 16:17
By WACHIRA MWANGI |
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
FILE PHOTO | NMG
The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) has denied that it plans to resume passenger flight operations at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
This comes a day after an internal memo by JKIA Airport Manager Abel Godo to officials from the Aeronautical Operational Control (AOC), all government agencies, concessionaires, contractors, suppliers and service providers about the imminent resumption of passenger flights for a meeting leaked.
“In preparation of the imminent resumption of passenger operations at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, you are hereby invited to a virtual meeting to be held on Wednesday 13th May 2020 at 11.00hrs,” read the memo.
Moi International Airport Manager Paul Wafula confirmed that they do routine meetings internally to brainstorm on the measures to put in place just in case the travel ban is lifted.
