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A coup for COVID: The coup in Burkina Faso threatens to hamper the country’s COVID response and exacerbate the existing humanitarian crisis. Coup leader Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba rationalized his move by arguing that President Kaboré failed to defend against jihadist attacks. With the army distracted by efforts to consolidate power, jihadists may be the winners. Only 3.6% of the country’s population is fully vaccinated and over half the population has insufficient food. Increased political instability could worsen the...
Aftershocks
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Money, money, money: The world’s 10 richest men made trillions during the pandemic. They doubled their fortunes, at a rate of $15,000 every second. Some have chosen to do good – the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust pledged $300 million to CEPI (CEPI is seeking a total of $3.5 billion to tackle the minor issues of pandemic response and preparedness). But even if each of the 10 richest men gave away 99.9% of their current wealth, they would still be richer than 99% of...
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Lost generation: Uganda’s schools reopened after nearly two years of COVID-19 closures – the longest in the world. More than 50% of students stopped learning as a result. One-third of students are expected to stay out of school, instead working to support their families. And many teachers have been lost to other professions. The situation is similarly dire in South Africa, where at least 775,000 students have dropped out and teen pregnancies have increased by 60%. The changing nature of the virus means it...
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Model behavior: A new COVID vaccine is on the block – and the US scientists behind it decided to make it available to the world (read: no patents, no-frills tech transfer, and a round of applause from us to the makers, Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine). Production is underway in India under the drug name CORBEVAX, and its inventors speculate that it will soon reach more people in middle- and low-income countries than those donated by G7 nations. It’s...
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Africa rising: COVID-19 cases are surging across Africa, with many countries experiencing a fourth wave amidst the Omicron variant. In Nigeria, the number of daily confirmed infections over the past week jumped from 76 to 451, following the discovery of the new variant in the country. Both South Africa and Kenya surpassed the WHO high-risk threshold of 5% for COVID-19 cases, with South Africa exceeding a 30% positivity rate and Kenya at 6.5%. However, despite the surge of COVID-19 infections in Africa, the number...
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Vaccine bandits: A black market for vaccines is undermining Kenya’s vaccination campaign, just weeks before a mandate goes into effect. Corrupt officials are diverting vaccines, falsifying records, and smuggling vials (to mostly remote areas) for $30 to $50 each. These vaccine bandits create significant health concerns: the doses are often transported without adequate refrigeration, they risk contamination, and they aren’t being administered by healthcare professionals with proper sanitation or precautions. The Kenyan government offers doses for free to its citizens, but...
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Omicron rising: Health officials in South Africa announced Wednesday that the Omicron variant has become the most prevalent version of COVID-19 in the country. The number of cases doubled from Tuesday, and test positivity climbed from 10.2% to 16.5%. In Gauteng province, early analyses suggest that COVID-19 cases and test positivity are increasing faster than in previous waves. While hospitalizations in the country are also rising, it’s too soon to draw conclusions about Omicron’s transmissibility and lethality, and officials are urging caution. On Wednesday,...
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Face, meet palm: At least 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been thrown away since last December in Canada, roughly 2.6% of the total number of doses delivered across the country. Some pharmacists are still being encouraged to throw away unused doses, rather than give them to non-eligible people. Meanwhile, only 6.9% of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated and COVID-19 deaths have increased the fastest in low-income countries, which have the lowest vaccination rates globally. Strive Masiyiwa, head of the African Vaccine Acquisition Task...
Cases of sexual violence against women are increasing in Ethiopia, as the conflict between the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed continues. Seventy women in Nifas Mewcha in the Amhara region reported being raped by TPLF fighters during a nine-day period in August when the armed group took control of the town, according to an Amnesty International report. Many of the women said they experienced physical and mental health problems after the...
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Surge campaign: Nigeria plans to administer more than 1 million vaccines a day, starting this Friday. The surge is intended to vaccinate half of its target population, or 55 million people, by the end of January. Just 1.5% of Nigerians are fully vaccinated. The government says it has enough vaccines in the pipeline to hit this mark, as well as plans to scale up vaccination sites. But success is far from assured. Nigeria’s political and economic troubles risk...