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This World Health Day, World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling on everyone to participate in building a fairer, healthier world. Matshidiso Moeti The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on inequalities between countries. Amid shortages of essential supplies, African countries have been pushed to the back of the queue in accessing COVID-19 test kits, personal protective equipment and now vaccines. Of the 548 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered worldwide, Africa only had 11 million or 2%, whereas the continent accounts for around 17% of the global population. There are also inequities within countries. Discrimination based on gender, place of residence, income, educational level, age, ethnicity and disability disadvantage vulnerable populations. Recent data from 17 African countries show, for example, that a person with secondary school education is three times as likely to have access to contraception as someone who has not attended school. Those in the highest economic quintile are five times more likely to deliver their babies in health facilities and have their babies vaccinated with BCG compared to those in the lowest quintile. To improve this situation, we need to act on the social and economic determinants of health, by working across sectors to improve living and working conditions, and access to education, particularly for the most marginalised groups. Communities need to be engaged as partners, through their networks and associations, to shape and drive health and development interventions. A key challenge in overcoming inequities is that there is limited data showing who is being missed and why. To address this, national health information systems need to capture age, sex and equity stratified data. This information can then be used to inform decision and policy-making. At WHO, we are working with countries to strengthen capacities to collect, manage and use data, and to enhance monitoring and action to address avoidable inequities. In the past year we have disseminated technical guidance on gender, equity and COVID-19 and trained 30 country teams in gender and health equity integrated programming. The teams are using skills gained to support equitable health response, including to deal with gender-based violence in the context of COVID-19. Investment is also needed to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage, to protect individuals from financial hardship in accessing needed care and to improve service coverage. Most African countries have initiated reforms in these areas believing that these reforms will in turn contribute to building more resilient health systems and societies. Moving forward, leaders need to work together to address inequities in their own countries and abroad in the spirit of international solidarity. Specifically, on COVID-19 vaccines, we strongly encourage pharmaceutical companies to expand their manufacturing capacities to overcome current supply shortages. We also encourage wealthy countries to share their doses with poor ones, so that the most-at-risk popula
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.
[This Day] Nigeria's former Finance Minister and leading candidate in the race for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director General, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been announced as the recipient of the 2020 African of the Year award.
...dons warn FG against mass vaccination plan
• Reps set to revisit bill mandating vaccines for Nigerians
• FG places six-month ban on 100 travel...
KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala has reprimanded residents in six COVID-19 hotspot areas for not complying with self-quarantine and self- isolation rules, amid a rise in cases
\"We are in a race between the virus that is going to continue to mutate in order to spread more easily and the humanity that has to try and stop its spreading,\" said WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, Maria Van Kerkhove.
The Parkland Mustangs have found their new leader for the men’s basketball program. Chris Geter will now lead Parkland into battle on the hardwood.
The post Geter to lead Mustang basketball team appeared first on WS Chronicle.
[New Times] Sunday
Large crowds took to the streets at midnight on Friday in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, celebrating the arrival of 2021 after a year marred by a deadly pandemic that killed thousands there and required the city to be locked down between the end of January and early April. As per tradition, hundreds gathered in front of the old Hankow Customs House building, one of the city’s more popular New Year’s Eve spots. When the building’s old clock reached midnight many people released balloons into the air, cheered and called out “happy new year”. “I’m so so so incredibly happy,” said 20-year-old student and tourist Yang Wenxuan. “This is my first time in Wuhan. But it (the countdown) was so spectacular.” “I hope that I can successfully obtain my bachelor’s degree and I hope I can find a boyfriend,” Yang added. There was a heavy police presence and strict crowd control. Some security personnel were seen telling several of the few people without masks that they must put one on if they wished to stay. Still, the countdown appeared to proceed peacefully, in a relaxed atmosphere. The festivities came 12 months after the World Health Organisation (WHO) said it first received word of cases of a pneumonia of an unknown cause in Wuhan, which later became known as the world’s first outbreak of COVID-19. A team of WHO experts is scheduled to arrive in China in January 2021 to investigate the origins of the pandemic. Wuhan has been largely virus free for months, and in recent days it has been vaccinating some specific groups of the local population. But a recent small rise in cases in various Chinese cities, including Beijing, has reminded people in Wuhan that the pandemic is not over yet. “I hope that in 2021 everything goes well in the country and Wuhan can return to normal and I hope that the world can soon defeat the pandemic,” said Wuhan resident Anson Yang. The 25-year-old ,who works in the international trade sector, said his earnings were hit hard in 2020 and he knows of many businesses in Wuhan who are yet to return to normal trading levels. Several students yearned for an end to the pandemic so they could get on with in-person studies. One university student, however, drew some positive lessons from the fight against the pandemic. “If we look at the measures people took, the things people did as part of the epidemic control and the like, a human or friendly touch, something that we would not normally see, was felt by everyone,” said 21-year-old Chen Mengfan. - Reuters
