Infections
Africa on cusp of the third wave of coronavirus facing a vaccine shortage
Africa is heading into a third wave of coronavirus infections as the least-inoculated continent faces a shortage of vaccines. African nations reported 94,000 new cases in the week through June 6, a 26% increase. South Africa announced the most new cases, followed by Tunisia, Africa Centres for Disease Control & Prevention Director John Nkengasong said in an online briefing Thursday. “Fourteen or so of our member states are now heading toward the third wave, and aggressively so,” he said. “It really highlights the need for us to roll out vaccines at speed and at scale.” Only 2.8% of Africa’s population is inoculated, compared with a global average of 14.5%, according to Africa CDC and Bloomberg Economics data. The program has slowed because of interruptions to supply from India, where m...
Nigeria records 63 new coronavirus cases
Nigeria on Friday recorded 63 new coronavirus infections in seven states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The new figure raised the total number of infections in the country to 166,254, an update published by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Friday night indicates. According to the update, no new death was recorded from the virus, which has already claimed 2,071 lives in the country. The data shows that the new COVID-19 cases were reported in seven states and Abuja. Lagos recorded 25 cases, closely followed by Ondo with 22. Rivers State reported six while Akwa Ibom and Kaduna reported three each. Also, Kwara State reported two while Ebonyi and FCT reported one each. A breakdown of the data shows that 11 people were discharged on Friday after testing negative for the vi...
WTO chief: Patent waiver not enough to close vaccine gap
World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said that intellectual property waiver alone will not be enough to narrow the huge COVID-19 vaccine supply gap between rich and poor countries. She told the European Parliament that it was clear that discussions around vaccine patents alone would not suffice, saying that global leaders should do more to ensure that there is equitable production and distribution of the jabs. Okonjo-Iweala said developing countries had complained that the licensing process was cumbersome and should be improved upon. She added that while it makes sense to protect research and innovation, it is also important to expand access to the vaccines. According to her, manufacturers should work to expand production, pointing to idle capacity ...
Nigeria records 49 new coronavirus infections
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has registered 49 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), bringing the total number of infections in the country to 165,901. The NCDC disclosed this on its official Twitter handle on Wednesday. According to the centre, no new death linked to COVID-19 was recorded in the past 24 hours. The public health agency noted that the newly recorded infections raised the country’s tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 165,901 and the death toll from the disease to 2,067. It disclosed that additional four people have been successfully treated and have been discharged from its isolation centre, bringing the active caseload across the country to more than 7,300. The NCDC noted that additional recoveries reported on Wednesday increased the country’s numbe...
Nigerian governors to meet Wednesday over financial autonomy for state legislature, judiciary
Governors of the 36 states are scheduled to hold a teleconference on Wednesday to deliberate on the executive order 10 which grants financial autonomy to the state legislature and judiciary. In a statement issued on Monday and signed by Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, head of media and public affairs of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), there will also be discussions on measures to prevent a third wave of COVID-19 infections in the country. Bello-Barkindo said the forum will take updates on the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability And Sustainability (SFTAS), among other issues. “The meeting, which is the 30th of its kind by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, commences at 2pm prompt but Governors are expected to start logging-in from 1pm,” he said. “The meeting will cover lessons for States ...
Bodies of coronavirus victims among those dumped in India’s Ganges – document
Bodies of COVID-19 victims have been found dumped in some Indian rivers, a state government said in a letter seen by Reuters, the first official acknowledgement of an alarming practice it said may stem from poverty and fear of the disease in villages. Images of corpses drifting down the Ganges river, which Hindus consider holy, have shocked a nation reeling under the world’s worst surge in infections. Although media have linked the recent increase in the numbers of such bodies to the pandemic, the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, home to 240 million people, has until now not publicly revealed the cause of the deaths. “The administration has information that bodies of those who have succumbed to COVID-19 or any other disease are being thrown into rivers instead of being disposed of as per p...
Governor Obaseki: No record of Indian coronavirus variant in Edo
Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State on Friday said there was no record of Indian COVID-19 variant in the state, as was speculated on social media. The governor stated this in Benin at a news conference to provide an update on COVID-19 response in the state. Mr Obaseki was represented by the Permanent Secretary from the state Ministry of Health, Osamwonyi Irowa. He said the federal government had on April 26, taken precautionary steps by restricting international travel from India, Brazil and Turkey to curtail COVID-19. “We as government have reached out to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) with regards to any Indian variant in Edo and the verified information reveals that the said sample was collected in January. “There is currently no update or report suggestive of any such o...
NMA: Worsening insecurity affecting healthcare delivery
File Photo The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), has raised the alarm over the poor delivery of healthcare services, as a result of the worsening state of insecurity in the country. This was contained in a communique signed by President of the NMA, Prof. Innocent Ujah and the Secretary General, Dr. Philips Ekpe, issued at the end of the NMA’s Annual General Conference and Delegates Meeting held in Jos, and made available to newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja. The NMA urged the Federal Government to renew efforts to quickly bring what was described as a “humanitarian disaster” under control, and appealed to all citizens to jettison dangerous unpatriotic and tendencies. The communique reads in part: “The Conference is saddened by the worsening spate of killings, maiming, kidnapping, banditry, a...
World Bank: Nigeria responsible for over 40 percent diaspora remittances in Sub Saharan Africa
The World Bank says Nigeria is responsible for over 40 percent of diaspora remittances in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). In a statement on Wednesday, the Washington-based financial institution said remittances to SSA declined by an estimated 12.5 percent in 2020 to $42 billion. The decline was almost entirely due to a 27.7 percent decline in remittance flows to Nigeria, “Remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa declined by an estimated 12.5 percent in 2020 to $42 billion,” the statement read. “The decline was almost entirely due to a 27.7 percent decline in remittance flows to Nigeria, which alone accounted for over 40 percent of remittance flows to the region. “Excluding Nigeria, remittance flows to Sub-Saharan African increased by 2.3 percent. “Remittance growth was reported in Zambia (37 percent), ...
U.S. pledges sustained help for India in tackling coronavirus crisis
Senior U.S. officials on Tuesday pledged sustained support for India in helping it deal with the world’s worst current surge of COVID-19 infections, warning the country is still at the “front end” of the crisis and overcoming it will take some time. The White House’s National Security Council coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, Kurt Campbell, told a virtual event on the U.S. assistance that President Joe Biden had told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a phone call on Monday: “You let me know what you need and we will do it.” Campbell said at the event, organized by the U.S.-India Business Council and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, that Washington was committed to helping the world’s second most populous country get to grips with the crisis. “We all have to realize that this is no...
Guinea receives purchase of 300,000 Sinovac coronavirus vaccines
Guinea received on Sunday a shipment of 300,000 Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines purchased from China and is also set to receive a donation of 200,000 Sinopharm shots, Guinean Foreign Minister Ibrahima Khalil Kaba said. Kaba gave no further details on the Sinopharm donation. Guinea is reporting 93 new coronavirus infections on average each day, 59% of the peak in March. There have been 21,460 infections and 138 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country since the pandemic began. The West African country has administered at least 109,296 doses of COVID vaccines so far, according to government data compiled by Reuters. Assuming every person needs two doses, that’s enough to have vaccinated about 0.4% of the country’s population. The World Health Organization will decide late this month or i...
Taiwan says request to drop word ‘country’ preceded BioNTech vaccine deal collapse
Germany’s BioNTech asked Taiwan to remove the word “country” from an announcement they planned to make on a COVID-19 vaccine sale to the island, its health minister said on Thursday, giving details of the deal whose axing was blamed on China by Taipei. Taiwan and China are engaged in an escalating war of words after Beijing offered the shots to the Chinese-claimed island via Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co Ltd, which has a contract to sell them in Greater China. Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told a daily news briefing the government had signed and sent back a “final contract” agreed with BioNTech after months of negotiations, and the two sides were on the verge of issuing a press release on Jan. 8. But four hours later “BioNTech suddenly sent a letter, saying they strongly ...