Category: Medical

GENEVA – African health officials are urgently appealing for vaccines to combat a third wave of COVID-19 surging across the continent.

The World Health Organization reports the number of African COVID-19 cases has exceeded 5 million and the disease has killed 136,000 people.

WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti says cases have been increasing over the past four weeks. She says new cases in the past week have risen by nearly 30% across the continent and deaths have increased by 15%.

She says five countries—South Africa, Tunisia, Zambia, Uganda, and Namibia—account for 76% of new coronavirus infections in Africa.

“Africa is in the midst of a full-blown third wave. The sobering trajectory of surging cases should rouse everyone to urgent action,” said Moeti. “We’ve seen in India and elsewhere how quickly COVID-19 can rebound and overwhelm health systems. Public health measures must be scaled up fast to find, test, isolate and care for patients and to quickly trace and isolate their contacts.”

Moeti says it is urgent that Africa quickly receive more vaccines as the circulation of more contagious variants across the continent is accelerating. She says the Delta variant, the most virulent strain, has been reported in 14 African countries, and the Beta and Alpha variants have been found in more than 25 countries.

She says 12 million people in Africa now are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. She welcomes the receipt of vaccine doses from the WHO COVAX sharing facility and from government donations that has made this possible.

However, she says those 12 million people represent less than 1% of Africa’s 1.3 billion population.

“At the continental level, we are seeing a rise in cases similar to the first wave peak in July 2020 and about 50% of the second wave peak in January 2021. … Africa needs millions more doses here and now to curb the third wave, and best practice approaches will be key to make the most of the available vaccines,” said Moeti.

WHO says Africa needs 200 million vaccine doses by the end of September to inoculate 10% of the population against the coronavirus. The European Union has pledged to donate 100 million doses to low-income countries and the United States has said it would provide 80 million doses to poorer countries.

Source: Voice of America

The World Health Organization officially announced Saturday the end of Guinea’s second Ebola outbreak, which was declared in February and claimed 12 lives.

At 16 confirmed cases and seven probable infections, according to WHO figures, the limited size of the flare-up has been credited to experience from the 2013-16 epidemic, which killed more than 11,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“I have the honor of declaring the end of Ebola” in Guinea, WHO official Alfred Ki-Zerbo said at a ceremony in the southeastern Nzerekore region, where the disease surfaced at the end of January.

International rules meant that Guinea had to wait 42 days — twice the virus’s incubation period — without a new case before declaring the epidemic over.

That wait was over Friday, weeks after the last person was declared cured on May 8, a senior health ministry official told AFP.

Health Minister Remy Lamah also declared the outbreak finished “in the name of the head of state,” President Alpha Conde.

Saturday’s event in a health ministry building was attended by around 200 people, including local religious and community leaders.

“We must also thank the communities who pitched in to overcome the disease,” the WHO’s Ki-Zerbo said.

Previous resistance

During last decade’s outbreak, reluctance and outright hostility toward anti-Ebola infection control measures led some people in Guinea’s forested southeast to attack and even kill government employees.

“Community engagement, effective public health measures and the equitable use of vaccines” had this time been key to overcoming Ebola, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

The U.N. body said it had delivered about 24,000 vaccine doses to Guinea and that 11,000 people at high risk had received shots, including more than 2,800 frontline workers.

“We’ve beaten Ebola but let’s remain vigilant” read a banner unfurled at Saturday’s ceremony.

“We must stay alert for a possible resurgence and ensure the expertise in Ebola expands to other health threats such as COVID-19,” WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement that genetic sequencing showed links between the previous outbreak and the latest epidemic.

This year’s outbreak could have been caused by “persistent infection in a survivor from the West Africa outbreak” back then, the CDC said, emphasizing “the necessity for strong and ongoing survivor programs,” as well as more research.

Ebola causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding. It is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – Ahead of World Refugee Day, the World Food Program is appealing for international support for millions of destitute refugees, many of whom are facing hunger because money to feed them has dried up.

The World Food Program assists more than 115 million people in 80 countries. Currently, it has received just 55 percent of the $15.3 billion it needs to implement its life-saving operations this year.

To make ends meet, it has been forced to make draconian cuts in food rations for millions of refugees across eastern and southern Africa, as well as the Middle East. WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri says in eastern Africa alone, nearly three-quarters of refugees have had their food rations cut by half.

“In Southern Africa, refugees in Tanzania who depend entirely on WFP assistance have had their rations cut by almost one-third,” said Phiri. “Significant funding shortages for the Syria Regional Refugee Response mean 242,000 refugees in Jordan may be cut off from assistance at the end of August unless more funding is received.”

Phiri says the WFP urgently requires $4.5 billion over the coming six months to restore those benefits.

“If we do not get money, we may be forced to prioritize further or even to suspend activities. This will affect vulnerable groups depending on WFP support, particularly malnourished children,” said Phiri. “You have other vulnerable groups or other populations of concern. Pregnant and expecting mothers, nursing mothers. They are all parts lumped together in that category that we refer to as refugees.”

The U.N. refugee agency says a record number of more than 80 million refugees and internally displaced people have been forced to flee their homes because of war, violence, and persecution. It says most of those forcibly displaced live precariously on the margins of society, with little hope of returning home any time soon.

As nations prepare to commemorate World Refugee Day, the World Food Program is urging donors not to turn their back on the most vulnerable people when they need their support more than ever.

Source: Voice of America

Uganda, Africa’s largest refugee host, is imposing restrictions on movement after another spike in COVID-19 cases, and that’s creating an even greater economic struggle for the vulnerable in urban areas. One refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo is finding a way to overcome that struggle and help other refugees.

Cutting polythene bags, using leftover material and then sewing, Noella Kabale and her team are hard at work as they make, among other items, masks and sanitary towels.

Kabale arrived in Uganda in 2011 from the DRC, fleeing civil strife. She settled in Kampala, but little did she know life was going to be even more difficult.

Living hand to mouth, Kabale got vocational hands-on training for arts and crafts and eventually formed the Refugee Entrepreneurship Association with her small savings.

Kabale said the group is working to overcome perceptions that refugees are beggars by producing items to help deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I know putting on a mask is not a guarantee,” Kabale said. “But at least it’s going to enable this one person to curb the spread of COVID. So, our community cannot really afford, to get … like, every person could not afford to buy a pad. So, we sat down, we have the material with us — why can’t we support our own community?”

The Refugee Entrepreneurship association group consists mainly of divorcees, single mothers and youths, many of whom are victims of gender-based violence. Most of the products made by these women are sold online and during functions, and that money is used to run the association.

Leoni Mudumbi said life has changed since she joined the group in 2018.

“Thinking about Congo and living here, mixing those thoughts would kill us,” Mudumbi said. “She [Kabale] started by counseling us, and we then started teaching ourselves how to make all the things you see here. It really helps us.”

Uganda is home to about 1.5 million refugees, 92,000 of whom live in urban areas.

Julius Mucunguzi, communications chief in the prime minister’s office, says over the years, refugees have become vital members of the community.

“Refugees are just not in countries as a burden,” Mucunguzi said. “Yes, they are burdened, but they have a contribution they make. And that is precisely one of the much [key] issues that define the refugee policy of Uganda.”

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has recorded 628 coronavirus cases among refugees, with almost 200 of these cases in Kampala. Eleven refugee deaths have been recorded since March 2020.

While the UNHCR has stepped up support for refugees in settlements during this current second wave of the pandemic, help for urban refugees is limited, said agency official Wendy Kasujja.

“Now with the second wave, we are only focusing on the most vulnerable,” Kasujja said. “Not everybody — it’s not blanket support anymore. So, we are only looking at the most vulnerable. However, in terms of health, in terms of livelihood, that’s for whoever needs it.”

Uganda is on a partial lockdown that ends July 19, and the restricted interdistrict travel affects many refugees and locals.

But by using what little savings they have and by selling their products, Kabale and her team continue to lend a hand to fellow refugees and locals.

Source: Voice of America

International Albinism Awareness Day on June 13 has been observed in Cameroon, with albinos asking for more government and community care and protection. Those living with this hereditary genetic condition that reduces melanin pigment in skin, hair and eyes, say stigma, violence, superstition and killing have greatly lessened, but abuses have not been eliminated.

One hundred and sixty albinos and their family members assembled at the World Association for Advocacy and Solidarity of Albinos office in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, to mark International Albinism Awareness Day.

Among them is 16-year-old albino Ronald Essi, who said he was abandoned because of his condition.

Essi said he wants to become a police officer to defend his country Cameroon and punish civilians who abuse albinos’ rights. He said his mother abandoned him when he was two years old. He said his grandmother resisted family pressure to kill him. He said he has been living in the streets since 2015, when his grandmother died.

Essi said a Catholic priest rescued him from the street and sent him to a school in Yaoundé.

Essi is one of the about 2,200 albinos the government says live in Cameroon.

This year Cameroon reported that prejudice and discrimination against albinos in employment and social life had lowered drastically. The government said hunting down albinos for their body parts has been eliminated from many communities.

Witch doctors who claim that albinos bring wealth and good luck to people who have access to their body parts are disappearing. In many communities, albino babies are no longer considered signs of misfortune and buried alive or starved until they die.

Jean-Jacques Ndoudoumou, the founding president of the World Association for Advocacy and Solidarity of Albinos, says albinos are gradually being accepted by communities.

He said the association he leads is happy, as people are increasingly accepting albinos as normal human beings. He said many albinos have graduated from universities and are using the knowledge they acquire to contribute to developing Cameroon. He said complaints of stigma and violence on albinos have greatly declined and there are now marriages between albinos and people without the condition.

Ndoudoumou said his association has instructed all its members to continue teaching people albinos are normal human beings who need special assistance.

Gregoire Amindeh is member of The Association for the Promotion of the Rights of Albinos.

Amindeh said that although Cameroon’s government has done a lot, albinos still urgently need special reading glasses and handheld magnifiers to stop their high school dropout rate from low vision. He said they need subsidies to be treated in hospitals since their skin is extremely sensitive to the sun and can develop cancer. He said skin cancers remain a major cause of death in African albinos.

Pauline Irene Nguene, Cameroon’s minister of social affairs, says albinos are placed in the group of people with special protection needs. She said Cameroon ensures the socio-economic integration and protection of albinos, and immediately intervenes to protect albinos whenever cases of abuse are reported.

She said in 2020, staff of her ministry visited more than a hundred villages where abuses of the rights of albinos were reported. She said civilians in the villages were taught in their local languages to respect the health, education and social rights of albinos. She said the government has continued to lobby for private enterprises, schools and outside organizations not to reject albinos looking for positions in their institutions.

Nguene said 60 government offices created in Cameroon’s administrative units receive complaints and immediately help albinos in need.

International Albinism Awareness Day is observed by the United Nations on June 13 every year. This year’s theme, “Strength Beyond All Odds,” according to the U.N. highlights the achievements of people with albinism all over the world.

Source: Voice of America

United Nations agencies are warning that tens of thousands of children in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray province are at risk of death from starvation and malnutrition-related illnesses because aid agencies cannot reach the region with humanitarian relief.

Conflict-ridden Tigray remains off-limits to United Nations and private aid agencies despite Ethiopian government promises they would have unfettered access to the region.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder told reporters Friday in Geneva the region is on the brink of famine, adding that, without immediate assistance, Tigray will face a crisis not seen in a decade.

“We are seeing more and more young children and babies slide dangerously close to sickness and potential death from malnutrition, so we have rung alarm bells and alarm bells and here we are now,” he said. “We now have the largest number of people classified as food-insecure in a decade since Somalia. And, as I say that, [there is the] very real risk of deaths of tens of thousands of children.”

An estimated quarter-million people died in the devastating 2010-2011 Somali famine, more than half of them children under the age of five. The United Nations says more than 350,000 people in Tigray are on the verge of famine. It warns an estimated 33,000 severely malnourished children in inaccessible areas are at high risk of death.

The World Health Organization says its teams and mobile health clinics are ready to go into Tigray and administer care but have been turned away by the warring parties.

WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said access to the region is key to tackling what she called a public health emergency.

“Malnourished children are more likely to contract … any of the infectious diseases, and die of it, such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and measles. Malaria and malnutrition is a lethal combination,” she said. “So, we are over 350 severe acute malnutrition cases among children under five years of age last week only. That was just last week, 18 of them with complications.”

Harris said the WHO is kicking off a cholera vaccination campaign Saturday, as the disease thrives during the rainy season, which begins this month. She said 4,000 people will be inoculated as a preventive measure as Tigray has had outbreaks in the past.

But the campaign’s success requires safe access by health workers, she added.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered troops into the region in November to neutralize leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which ruled the continent’s second most populous country for nearly three decades.

Ahmed, recipient of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, said he sent troops to the area in response to TPLF attacks on federal army camps.

The prime minister promised the violence would be short-lived, but the fighting continues and atrocities such as rape are increasing.

Source: Voice of America