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I WOULD like to hail the government for decentralising the COVID-19 vaccine rollout to speed up the process. The first month of the programme saw a low uptake of the vaccine, with many Zimbabweans sceptical about the Chinese-made Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines. Initially, the first vaccines in the country were meant for frontline workers, who were being vaccinated at either Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital or Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals in the capital. Now Harare has opened more immunisation centres in a bid to ramp up vaccination against the pandemic. Twenty-four centres including hospitals, polyclinics and satellite clinics, have been designated as vaccination centres in the city of about 1,5 million people, according to the Harare City Council. A total of 123 454 people in Zimbabwe have so far been vaccinated with the Chinese vaccines since the national inoculation programme began on February 18, with more than 16 000 people receiving their first dose on Easter Friday alone. Vaccination was being rolled out during the Easter holiday with the hope of attracting more people. Government aims to vaccinate 10 million people out of the country’s 16 million people to achieve herd immunity. Zimbabweans are being vaccinated with the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines from China, and the country is also expecting delivery of vaccines from Russia, India and through the Covax global distribution scheme. Gwizhikiti
The post Kudos to authorities for decentralising vaccine rollout appeared first on NewsDay Zimbabwe.
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.
As vice president-elect
Five Artists Share $70,000 in Eighteenth Cycle Five recipients of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists have been selected from a field of 151 applicants in the eighteenth annual competition. Ck Ledesma and Nirmal Raja were chosen in the Established Artist category and will each receive a $20,000 fellowship. […]
The post 2020 Mary L. Nohl Fellowships for Individual Artists Awarded appeared first on Milwaukee Community Journal.
FORMER Warriors and Chicken Inn midfielder Clement Matawu is disappointed that his career ended in anti-climax fashion. BY FORTUNE MBELE The 38-year-old announced his retirement from football early this week, to end a glittering two-decade career for one of the best midfielders to ever emerge from the country. Starting at the now-defunct Motor Action, Matawu also played in Poland before returning to Zimbabwe to join Chicken Inn in 2016 where he has been playing ever since. He had hoped to make this season his swan-song year, but the plans were disrupted after the league failed to take off in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “This was going to be my last year of playing football,” Matawu told NewsDay Sport in an interview yesterday. “At the beginning of the season, I sat down with my father, mentor, coach and brother Joey Antipas and discussed my future in the team and we agreed that I would run my last lap this year,” he said. Antipas, who is the Chicken Inn coach, worked with the attacking player at Motor Action. Matawu, who won the league title with Chicken Inn in 2016, had hoped to sign out in style. He had prepared for the season and was hoping to help his team win silverware. “I really wanted to give it a good push this year, starting with the off-season which I really pushed myself.” Chicken Inn travelled to Malawi early this year as part of their pre-season preparations, but their efforts were in vain as the season failed to take off. “My performances in the four-team tournament in Malawi gave me the zeal and optimism that this was going to be a great season for me as an individual and as a team. But because there has been no football, everyone is disappointed.” Sources said Matawu was currently doing administrative work at Chicken Inn and the club was contemplating including him in Antipas’ technical team. He seems to have prepared for life after playing as he is a holder of a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Sport Science and Coaching which he got last year from the University of Science and Technology. “My degree has opened my eyes to endless opportunities in football. For now, I won’t divulge much, but you will be seeing me around in football circles,” he said. Matawu is arguably one of the rare talents to ever grace the local football scene. He was so good that he was voted the Soccer Star of the Year in 2006 and was a best player finalist a record six times. l Follow Fortune on Twitter @fmbele
How could scientists race out COVID-19 vaccines so fast without cutting corners? A head start helped - over a decade of behind-the-scenes research that had new vaccine technology poised for a challenge just as the coronavirus erupted. “The speed is a reflection of years of work that went before,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, told The […]
[Monitor] Arrangements have been finalised through which survivors of gender based violence (GBV) can access timely legal information and assistance to access justice.
Kenya may select the Oxford-AstraZeneca Plc Covid-19 vaccine because it doesn’t require complex cold storage, unlike those of Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., according to a health ministry official. Firm orders from the U.S. and EU for the latter two inoculations are in place until 2022, which could lead to delays, said Rashid Aman, chief administrative secretary in the health department. Kenya wants to secure quick access to a vaccine as its health system is stretched by the virus, with doctors threatening to join other medical workers in a nationwide strike over working conditions. The AstraZeneca vaccine “seems to be more appropriate for our situation in Africa because it can be stored at temperatures” of other primary vaccines, Aman told reporters. Kenya is open to “take on any vaccine that we are satisfied would be able to protect our people,” he said. Clinical testing of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is continuing, with participants from Kenya and South Africa taking part in the global trials. Nurses and clinical officers in Kenya started a strike on Monday in protest at poor working conditions such as lack of protective clothing, and non-payment of risk-allowances. The labor ministry convened a meeting to address the health workers’ demands, Peterson Wachira, chairman of the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers, said by phone. Doctors postponed postponed their planned industrial action by a fortnight to allow for more talks. Kenya has 89,100 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 1,545 fatalities as at Dec. 8, according to the Ministry of Health. -Bloomberg
FireEye, one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the US, said on Tuesday that foreign government hackers with “world-class capabilities” broke into its network and stole tools it uses to test the defenses of its thousands of customers, who include federal, state and local governments and major global corporations. The hackers “primarily sought information related to certain government customers”, said FireEye’s CEO, Kevin Mandia, in a statement, without naming them. He said there was no indication the hackers got customer information from the company’s consulting or incident-response businesses or threat intelligence data it collects. “I’ve concluded we are witnessing an attack by a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities,” Mandia said, deeming it “different from the tens of thousands of incidents we have responded to throughout the years”. The hack of FireEye, a company with an array of business contracts across the national security space in the US and among its allies, is among the most significant breaches in recent memory. “I do think what we know of the operation is consistent with a Russian state actor,” said the former NSA hacker Jake Williams, president of Rendition Infosec. “Whether or not customer data was accessed, it’s still a big win for Russia.” The FireEye breach was disclosed in a blogpost authored by Mandia. The post said “red team tools” were stolen as part of a highly sophisticated operation. It is not clear exactly when the hack initially took place. Beyond the tool theft, the hackers also appeared to be interested in a subset of FireEye customers: government agencies. “We hope that by sharing the details of our investigation, the entire community will be better equipped to fight and defeat cyber-attacks,” Mandia wrote. The company itself has partnered in recent weeks with different software makers to share defensive measures. There is no evidence yet that FireEye’s hacking tools have been used or that client data was exfiltrated. But the investigation, which includes help from the FBI and Microsoft, is in its early phases. “This incident demonstrates why the security industry must work together to defend against and respond to threats posed by well-funded adversaries using novel and sophisticated attack techniques,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The stolen computer espionage kit targets a myriad of different vulnerabilities in popular software products. It is not yet clear exactly which systems may be affected. But Mandia wrote that none of the red team tools exploited so-called “zero day vulnerabilities”, meaning the relevant flaws should already be public. Experts say it can be difficult to measure the impact of a hacking tool leak which focuses on known software vulnerabilities. When a private company becomes aware of a vulnerability in their software product, they often try to offer a “patch” or upgrade that nullifies the issue. Yet users do not always download these patches quickly, leaving themselves exposed for month
The man who could become the first Black person to lead the Department of Defense is at the center of a brewing inter-Party controversy as a growing number of Senate Democrats have signaled their opposition to his nomination.
Guest Column - A day after Ethiopian Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed Ali announced that federal government forces had taken full control of Mekelle, the capital of Tigray Regional State, following three weeks of fierce fighting against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), he made an extraordinary speech to Parliament on the build-up to the war.
[The Herald] The provincial data for gross domestic product (GDP) show glaring inequalities in the distribution of the country's wealth with Harare alone accounting for 39,55 percent of the total while the other nine provinces share the remaining 60,44 percent.
According to the Public School Forum of North Carolina, 72 percent of Black and Brown students in the state’s public schools have parents who lack secure employment, compared with 21 percent of white students
The post The Challenges Black America Face with Distant and Virtual Learning During COVID-19 appeared first on Voice and Viewpoint.
[CAJ News] Luanda -- ANGOLAN police and the military have allegedly killed ten people as authorities implement coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions and quash anti-government protests.
Of the two choices, I'd bet on Joe Biden giving in to the Hydroxy Effect.
MULTI-AWARD-WINNING Afro-pop artiste Isheanesu “Ishan” Chigagura says while the success of his yesteryear hit Kure may has spurred him to the top on the music scene he is not pressured to try and reproduce similar magic on future projects. BY KENNEDY NYAVAYA Kure, which won him 10 awards locally, would be a hard act to follow, and Ishan sought to deflect the pressure to replicate its success. The 23-year-old vocalist broke into the limelight last year with Kure, a collaboration with rapper Ti Gonzi. In an interview with NewsDay Life & Style yesterday, Ishan, who recently released an extended play (EP) titled Bhundu Pop, said creating a sound that connects with an audience was his main goal. “I have never felt pressured to match or surpass a song, the pressure I only have is to become a better version of myself each and every day,” he said. “The goal is always to make good music that I connect with and in turn connects with everyone, and I am happy that music we have made as well connects with people the way I did while I was making this project.” The nine-track EP that he produced alongside Gangster Madeit, Texas, Rayo, Lloyd Soul, Boi Tricky and Young DLC features artistes such as Gze, Gemma, Tamy Moyo and Nutty O. Ishan said the EP, that was inspired by his upbringing in rural Mvurwi was a culmination of work that had been shelved over the years. “I was raised in Mvurwi and we would wake up everyday going to herd cattle. Those moments inspired me to become the musician I am today. So by Bhundu I mean those bush moments,” he said. Although he concedes that like many local musicians plans to grow his brand have been dealt a huge blow by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ishan envisions a better 2021. “There is more growth to be expected as an artiste and brand-wise, so that means more songs, more collaborations and a bit of business ventures. We are, however, going to begin with the release of more visuals to complement the Bhundu Pop EP,” he said. Follow Kennedy on Twitter @ken_nyavaya
[Dalsan Radio] On December 6th, 2020, Ambassador Qin Jian to Somalia interviewed by the Somali National Television, answered the questions on fruitful results achieved by the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Somalia, brilliant achievements of 20th anniversary of the Forum on China and Africa Cooperation, and the Belt and Road Initiative, introduced the Fifth Plenary Session of 19th CPC Central Committee and the China's major strategic achievements in fighting COVID-19. The interview is as follows:
A man suspected of being mentally unstable, who allegedly murdered a 12-year-old Gweru girl by stoning her on Tuesday was yesterday remanded in custody at Hwahwa Prison where he will be examined before his re-appearance in court. STEPHEN CHADENGA The man, who was only identified as Derick in court, struck Natasha Manunure, a Grade Seven pupil near her home in Mtapa suburb in Gweru. Gweru magistrate, Beuality Dube, had a tough time trying to make Derick understand why he was appearing in court as the accused started speaking inaudibly. The man even insisted before the court that he was not Derick, but Danisa, adding that Derick was the name of “a donkey at the market.” When he was told that he was going to be mentally examined before coming back to court he exclaimed in surprise, asking if it was going to be in Harare. The State counsel then made an application to have the accused mentally examined by two doctors before the magistrate granted the request and remanded the accused to December 23. Allegations are that Natasha was coming from school when accused struck her with a stone on the left ear leading to her falling down and dying on the spot. Natasha, of section 3, Mtapa, who was preparing for her exams, was walking home reading a question paper when she met her fate. The accused then fled from the scene but was caught by members of the public who handed him to the police. Derick, who usually roams the streets of Gweru is notorious for assaulting girls and women usually with stones and other objects that he picks on the streets.
OSLO, Norway -More than 1,000 Norwegians have filed a lawsuit against their government over COVID-19 quarantine restrictions that prevent them from using their weekend homes in nearby Sweden. This is the first Scandinavian lawsuit aimed at easing pandemic measures. Norwegians have to self-quarantine for 10 days if they stay overnight in Sweden, making it practically impossible to use their Swedish […]
The post Norwegians With Cabins in Sweden Sue to End Quarantine Obligation first appeared on The Florida Star | The Georgia Star.
