Login to BlackFacts.com using your favorite Social Media Login. Click the appropriate button below and you will be redirected to your Social Media Website for confirmation and then back to Blackfacts.com once successful.
Enter the email address and password you used to join BlackFacts.com. If you cannot remember your login information, click the “Forgot Password” link to reset your password.
[VOA] Kampala -- Uganda has suspended all flights coming into the country from India after recording new variants of the coronavirus, including the COVID-19 variant from India.
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.
July 2: street tests, drive-thru testing
Rwanda has began implementing a random testing scheme on the streets of the capital Kigali. There is also a drive through testing scheme at the national stadium.
The Rwanda Biomedical Center, RBC; tweeted that the tests at the Kigali Amahoro National Stadium is expected to serve 5000 people in all districts of the city and at all its entry points.
Personnel suited in Personal Protective Equipment, PPEs; are seen administering tests to people at the drive through section and others seated in a social distanced queue. Authorities say timely results will be issued to participants.
Candidates are randomly selected and asked to consent to the testing. It is a 5-minute drive through, where car occupants are not required to vacate their vehicles.
“This operation will provide factual information about the COVID19 status in Kigali & will lead to tactical response activities. A request is made to all Kigali residents to cooperate with RBC teams for the sake of successful completion of this important activity,” RBC said in a tweet on Wednesday.
Confirmed cases = 1,042
Active cases = 559
Recoveries = 480
Number of deaths = 3
Total number of tests = 147,904
Rwanda MOH stats valid as of July 1, 2020
The #Covid19 drive through testing has just kicked off at the Kigali Amahoro National Stadium. 5000 people in the CityofKigali are expected to get tested in all districts of the City and at all its entry points. pic.twitter.com/TzRpCXwdJf— Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBCRwanda) July 2, 2020
June 30: Cases pass 1,000 mark
On the 25th of June, authorities in Rwanda introduced total lockdowns in parts of the capital Kigali citing surge in COVID-19 cases. The local government ministry said Kigali had recorded 21 cases in June as at the time.
The decision to reintroduce the lockdown to the areas was taken after consulting the health ministry, it said. Rwanda had reported a total of 850 cases and two deaths since the first person tested positive in March.
In a space of four days, the country has recorded over 150 cases taking the tally of confirmed cases as of yesterday (June 29) past the 1,000 mark according to the Ministry of Health tallies.
Incidentally as much as 101 new cases were recorded yesterday only out of some 2,498 tests carried out. The cumulative number of tests stands at 140,249.
The state-affiliated New Times portal reported that the ministry disclosed that of the new cases, 22 are from Kigali, three from Rusizi district, two from Rubavu district, one from Kayonza district and another one reported from Kirehe district.
“The remaining 72 new cases, as per the Ministry, were detected from a detention center in Ngoma district and they are linked to Rusumo cases.”
Rwanda is the sixth country in the East / Horn of Africa region to pass the 1000 mark. Others in the zone include Sudan (9,257), Kenya(6,190), Ethiopia(5,846), Djibouti (4,656), Somalia (2,904) and South Sudan (1,989).
Confirmed cases = 1,001
Active cases = 556
Recoveries = 443
Nu
Key statistics as at June 22
\t
\t\tThe total number of confirmed cases = 101,590
\t\tThe total number of tests so far = 1,353,176
\t\tTotal death toll = 1,991
\t\tTotal recoveries = 53,444
\t\tMost impacted provinces = Guateng, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Kwa Zulu-Natal
June 23: Africa’s 1st COVID-19 vaccine trial starting
\tResearchers in South Africa say the first COVID-19 vaccine trial on the African continent is set to get underway on Wednesday.
AP
May 12: US donates ventilators
\tThe U.S. government is donating “up to 1,000” ventilators to South Africa to help the country respond to COVID-19 as the Trump administration addresses criticism that it hasn’t done enough for countries in need.
“South Africa is the first country in the world to receive this state-of-the-art equipment” from the National Security Council and USAID, the U.S. Embassy said in a tweet.
The donation brings the total U.S. government financial support to South Africa’s COVID-19 response to more than $41 million, according to the statement.
Meanwhile, president Ramaphosa has had a busy last 24 hours with a phone call with President Donald Trump during which the American leader pledged support for South Africa in the fight against the virus.
The Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) has said they are doing a deeper study on the type of Covid-19 affecting people in the country.
The death rate of the patients in other countries, specifically in Europe, is also high (two deaths per 100 cases).
Dr Lutwama said the UVRI is sequencing the genome of the virus to study this detail.
Dr Bruce Kirenga, the director of Makerere University Lung Institute, said the behavior of Covid-19 in Ugandan patients is very different.
He explained that the type of Covid-19 being treated in Uganda is different from that in other countries with mortality rates of as high as 19 deaths per 1,000 cases.
Ugandan opposition candidate Bobi Wine has rejected the results declared so far and calls himself the president-elect, despite the electoral body saying not all votes have yet been counted. Bobi Wine alleges Thursday's polls saw the worst vote-rigging in Uganda's history, but did not provide any evidence to back up his claims. He declared the struggle is just beginning. Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, says he'll address the press again in a few hours on the way forward. Early results from the electoral commission give the incumbent, President Yoweri Museveni, a commanding lead of almost two-thirds of the votes so far counted. The military have surrounded Bobi Wine’s house. - BBC
Netball South Africa have confirmed that the SPAR Proteas will take on Uganda in a three-match Test series in Cape Town in early 2021.
More than half of Uganda’s commercial banks would have collapsed if the Central Bank had enforced a three-month customer loans repayments holiday at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the sector regulator has revealed.
Results of the stress test informed the decision to spread customer loan restructuring over a 12-month period instead of offering an outright repayment holiday, Bank of Uganda (BoU) said in a Zoom webinar.
Uganda’s National Social Security Fund (NSSF) says about 100,000 contributors have dropped off its register since the beginning of the lockdown; pointing to rising unemployment levels, reduced payroll tax collections and potential loss of many salary deposit accounts held by commercial banks.
The minimum paid up capital requirement for Ugandan banks currently stands at Ush25 billion ($6.7 million), while the minimum liquid assets to total deposits ratio stands at 20 per cent.
A senior Citibank Uganda executive said the pandemic has created a situation where there is a disproportionately high number of commercial banks chasing after a few, high-value clients.
Interview - On the occasion of Zimbabwe's 41st Independence Day, Zimbabwe's envoy to Ankara Alfred Mutiwazuka said his country is "a friend to all and an enemy to none". Speaking to Anadolu Agency exclusively, Ambassador Mutiwazuka highlighted the Sothern African country's post-independence journey, and the current foreign policy. He said Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has seen the country make significant progress, improving governance, opening up domestic political space, upholding the rule of law and prope
April 12: Cases hit 5,127; gold-rich Obuasi new hotspot
\tGhana’s case statistics passed the 5,000 mark after 427 new cases were recorded according to head of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Aboagye.
Ghana has undertaken 160,501 tests since the outbreak, a figure the president touted as highest per million people than any other country in Africa.
May 10: 4,263 cases, Accra prison ‘infected’
\tGhana’s case statistics as of close of day May 9 stood at 3,263 according tallies released by the health service.
May 9: 900+ new cases, tally hits 4,012
\tGhana returned to most impacted West African country after authorities disclosed a record one-day increase of over 900 cases late Friday.
May 7: 3,091 cases, police rolls out mass tests
\tGhana’s case statistics stood at 3,091 in the latest tallies released early Thursday by the Ghana Health Service.
Healthcare workers walk from village to village in Western Kenya's Siaya country in a mobile vaccination drive to reach people who live far from health facilities.
The city of Entebbe, Uganda, is located on the shores of Lake Victoria about 22 miles south of Kampala, the nation’s capital. In addition to being the official residence of the president of Uganda, Entebbe is the site of the nations only international airport. On June 28, 1976 Air France flight 139, en route from Tel Aviv to Paris, was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and two German accomplices shortly after a scheduled stop in Athens, Greece.
After the hijacking the Airbus A300 jet was flown to Benghazi, Libya for refueling, and then on to Entebbe, Uganda where they expected a supportive reception from the pro-Palestinian Ugandan government headed by dictator Idi Amin. After landing at Entebbe, the 103 passengers on board who carried Israeli passports or were Jewish, were detained while the remainder of the passengers were eventually released. Additionally, more terrorists joined the hijackers on the ground in Uganda, reinforced by members of the Ugandan military.
At just after 11 p.m. local time on July 3rd Israeli commandos landed at Entebbe Airport to begin a carefully planned rescue attempt. Planning, preparation, and execution of the raid was made easier because the new buildings at the airport had been designed and built by Israelis, and thus the commandos were able to familiarize themselves with the layout. Using four C-130 Hercules aircraft, the Israeli military secured the airport perimeter and entered the terminal building where the hostages were being held.
The commandos were successful in extracting all but three of the prisoners being held in the terminal. All of the hijackers were killed along with 45 Ugandan soldiers. Most of the Ugandan Air Force was destroyed on the tarmac at the Entebbe airport during the raid. The only casualty suffered by the commandos was the death of Lieutenant Colonel Yoni Netanyahu, older brother of future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One hostage, 75-year old Mrs. Dora Bloch, had been taken to a
Despite seeming to have softened his stance on the Ush10 billion ($2.6 million) that Ugandan legislators allocated themselves as part of the Covid-19 supplementary budget, President Yoweri Museveni is said to have ordered an audit of the expenditure.
In a letter dated April 28 to the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, President Museveni said he instructed the Auditor-General to go over how the funds were used.
In a recent televised address on coronavirus, President Museveni described the Covid-19 cash as a trap that the MPs had laid for themselves and “morally reprehensible.”
Despite Speaker Kadaga’s efforts to explain that MPs were to use this money to sensitise their constituents about the pandemic and for maintenance of ambulances in their constituencies, President Museveni and the Cabinet insisted the allocation was illegal and inappropriate.
As at April 12, the number of MPs that had returned the money stood at 101 out of a total of 458 legislators.
Details of how tycoon worked behind the scenes to broker deal that ended 2007/08 post-election crisis emerge.
There are now more than over 350,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across the continent, with a number of African countries imposing a range of prevention and containment measures against the spread of the pandemic.
According to the latest data by the John Hopkins University and Africa Center for Disease Control on COVID-19 in Africa, the breakdown remains fluid as countries confirm cases as and when.
As of May 13, every African country had recorded an infection, the last being Lesotho.
We shall keep updating this list largely sourced from the John Hopkins University tallies, Africa CDC and from official government data.
SUGGESTED READING: Africa’s COVID-19 deaths pass 100,000 mark
Major African stats: June 28 at 09:30 GMT:
\t\tConfirmed cases = 371,611
\t\tNumber of deaths = 9,485
\t\tRecoveries = 178,524
\t\tActive cases = 183,602
Countries in alphabetical order
\t\tAlgeria – 12,968
\t\tAngola – 259
\t\tBenin – 1,124
\t\tBotswana – 92
\t\tBurkina Faso – 941
\t\tBurundi – 170
\t\tCameroon – 12,592
\t\tCape Verde – 1,091
\t\tCentral African Republic – 3,429
\t\tChad – 865
\t\tComoros – 272
\t\tCongo-Brazzaville – 1,087
\t\tDR Congo – 6,690
\t\tDjibouti – 4,643
\t\tEgypt – 63,923
\t\tEquatorial Guinea – 2,001
\t\tEritrea – 191
\t\tEswatini – 745
\t\tEthiopia – 5,570
\t\tGabon – 5,209
\t\t(The) Gambia – 44
\t\tGhana – 16,431
\t\tGuinea – 5,291
\t\tGuinea-Bissau – 1,614
\t\tIvory Coast – 8,944
\t\tKenya – 5,811
\t\tLesotho – 24
\t\tLiberia – 729
\t\tLibya – 727
\t\tMadagascar – 2,005
\t\tMalawi – 1,038
\t\tMali – 2,118
\t\tMauritania – 4,025
\t\tMauritius – 341
\t\tMorocco – 11,877
\t\tMozambique – 839
\t\tNamibia – 136
\t\tNiger – 1,062
\t\tNigeria – 24,077
\t\tRwanda – 878
\t\tSao Tome and Principe – 713
\t\tSenegal – 6,459
\t\tSeychelles – 20
\t\tSierra Leone – 1,410
\t\tSomalia – 2,878
\t\tSouth Africa – 131,800
\t\tSouth Sudan – 1,942
\t\tSudan – 9,257
\t\tTanzania – 509
\t\tTogo – 615
\t\tTunisia – 1,168
\t\tUganda – 859
\t\tZambia – 1,531
\t\tZimbabwe – 567
SUGGESTED READING: rolling coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in Africa II
The number of COVID-19 cases in Uganda now stands at 260 after 12 new cases were registered on Monday.
According to the Ministry of Health, the new cases were confirmed from 1,743 samples of truck drivers.
Thirty two foreign truck drivers who tested positive for COVID-19 were turned back to their respective countries, according to tweet that was posted on the ministry's Twitter handle.
On Sunday, 21 people had tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Uganda to 248.
Since many people raised the issue that they cannot afford these masks, the gov't has decided to provide these masks to all Ugandans 6 years and above,\" Mr Museveni said in a televised address.
Faced with mounting cases of the coronavrirus, Tunisia on Monday sought to reinforce restrictions to control the spread of the disease, while avoiding a fresh lockdown.
Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi said that security agencies had been given orders to enforce the wearing of masks and other measures.
\"The measures we are taking have the objective of avoiding a situation of lockdown and also to preserve the health of the citizens\", Mechichi said.
Travelers are also required to present negative Covid-19 tests on arrival in the country. Tunisia is careful not to disrupt its tourism sector again, which is already reeling from heavy losses.
The strict measures adopted through Spring deepened the economic crisis, with unemployment soaring above 18 percent.
After easing restrictions in June, the north African country has seen an increase in virus cases, recording up to 20 fatalities per day, according to the ministry of health.
When the Palestinian Olympic delegation of five athletes - adorned in traditional Palestinian attire and carrying the Palestinian flag - crossed into the Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium during the inauguration ceremony on July 23, I was overcome with ...
There are now more than over 550,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across the continent, with a number of African countries imposing a range of prevention and containment measures against the spread of the pandemic.
According to the latest data by the John Hopkins University and Africa Center for Disease Control on COVID-19 in Africa, the breakdown remains fluid as countries confirm cases as and when. As of May 13, every African country had recorded an infection, the last being Lesotho.
Major African stats: July 11 at 7:00 GMT:
Confirmed cases = 559,446
Active cases = 274,851
Recoveries = 271,826
Number of deaths = 12,769
Algeria – 18,242
Angola – 458
Benin – 1,285
Botswana – 314
Burkina Faso – 1,020
Burundi – 191
Cameroon – 14,916
Cape Verde – 1,591
Central African Republic – 4,259
Chad – 874
Comoros – 314
Congo-Brazzaville – 2,028
DR Congo – 7,905
Djibouti – 4,968
Egypt – 80,235
Equatorial Guinea – 3,071
Eritrea – 232
Eswatini – 1,257
Ethiopia – 7,120
Gabon – 5,942
(The) Gambia – 64
Ghana – 23,834
Guinea – 5,969
Guinea-Bissau – 1,842
Ivory Coast – 12,052
Kenya – 9,448
Lesotho – 184
Liberia – 963
Libya – 1,342
Madagascar – 4,143
Malawi – 2,069
Mali – 2,404
Mauritania – 5,203
Mauritius – 342
Morocco – 15,328
Mozambique – 1,111
Namibia – 668
Niger – 1,099
Nigeria- 31,323
Rwanda – 1,252
Sao Tome and Principe – 727
Senegal – 7,882
Seychelles – 100
Sierra Leone – 1,613
Somalia – 3,038
South Africa – 250,687
South Sudan – 2,021
Sudan – 10,204
Tanzania – 509
Togo – 710
Tunisia – 1,240
Uganda – 1,006
Zambia – 1,895
Zimbabwe – 942
COVID-19 response before index case
\tBut the journey to the May 15 status lasted roughly two months (exactly 55 days) from the day an index case was recorded and reported by the ministry.
May: Case peak, lull and recovery boost
\tBy May 8th, case tally had reached 39 but the good news from the Health Ministry was the recovery of 37 out of the number.
Two days on, the 38th recovery was recorded before the final on May 15 meant that there was no active case in the country.
Mauritius was the second to declare virus-free status with 332 cases, 322 recoveries and 10 deaths as of May 11, a case stat that remains valid as of May 17 according to tallies from the John Hopkins University portal.
The Health Ministry delivered virus updates – cases, recoveries and directives; whiles the Task Force came in with the guidelines relative to containment measures and other fine details.
