By AFP Egypt said Saturday the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca would arrive on Sunday. The Egyptian authority in charge of the acquisition of pharmaceuticals announced “the arrival of the first batch of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine tomorrow, Sunday January 31, 2021”, without specifying the number of doses. Last week,…
By CGTN Africa South Africa has secured an additional 20 million coronavirus vaccines manufactured by Pfizer, national newspaper The Sunday Times reported on Sunday, citing an interview with the health minister. “These vaccines are secured and awaiting manufacturers to submit final agreements with details of delivery dates and exact amounts”, Zweli Mkhize said in the interview….
By Reuters Some 750 pelicans found dead in a UNESCO World Heritage site in northern Senegal last week have tested positive for H5N1 bird flu, the head of the parks authority told Reuters on Friday. Rangers found the pelicans on January 23 in the Djoudj bird sanctuary, a remote pocket of wetland near the border with Mauritania and…
By Reuters The COVAX vaccine sharing platform expects to have 25 million coronavirus vaccine doses for the Eastern Mediterranean region in March, rising to 355 million doses by December, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Wednesday. The first doses provided for the region through COVAX will arrive in February, WHO official Yvan Hutin told…
By XINHUA The number of people in South Sudan in need of aid has jumped from 7.5 million last year to 8.3 million, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday. The landlocked country has a total population of just over 11 million. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) blames years of conflict, climate change,…
By AFP Air pollution is likely to increase the risk of irreversible sight loss, according to the results of a long-term study published Tuesday. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness among over-50s in richer nations, with roughly 300 million people predicted to be affected by 2040. Known risk factors include age, smoking…
By Halligan Agade Last year, more than 180 countries temporarily closed their schools, leaving close to 1.7billion children and youth out of school when closures were at their peak. The pandemic deprived children in the poorest countries of almost four months of schooling, compared with six weeks for children in high-income countries. For an estimated 32.8…
By XINHUA Authorities in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic hub and the epicenter of COVID-19 cases, have announced plans on COVID-19 vaccine rollout and the effort to bolster mass vaccination of residents in the state. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos state, made this known in a statement available to Xinhua Monday, saying the state is aiming to…
By XINHUA Schools and institutions of higher learning in Uganda will remain closed as the country grapples with a surge in COVID-19 cases, a senior government official said on Monday. Alex Kakooza, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education and Sports, tweeted that only candidate classes and finalists in institutions of higher learning are open. The…
By XINHUA A long-established medical association in Ghana on Monday here urged the government to place restrictions on a list of social activities amid the COVID-19 case spike. “The government should as a matter of urgency restrict social activities such as parties, church services, funerals, clubs, and other social gatherings of such nature,” said the Ghana…
