As COVID-19 spreads across low- and middle-income countries, billions of people are vulnerable to variants that could resist vaccines and put the world back at square one in tackling this pandemic.
So why isn’t the vaccine already available to everyone, everywhere? It comes down to supply and distribution. Rich countries have bought up the majority of the supply and are hoarding even what they don’t need. Meanwhile, low- and middle-income countries are struggling to roll out the doses they do...
Health
African countries are facing a third wave of COVID-19 infections which threatens to be even more brutal than the two that came before. Across Africa, between June and July, cases rose by nearly 200%. The continent just exceeded its worst-ever week in the pandemic, and the WHO has warned that cases are now doubling every three weeks. Over a dozen countries have already reported their highest rate of infections since the start of the pandemic, with over 700,000 confirmed...
Since the first reported case 40 years ago, HIV/AIDS continues to be a global health crisis, particularly in Africa. The continent is home to about 15.2% of the world’s population, but home to more than two-thirds of total HIV infections in the world — roughly 35 million people. Additionally, 91% of HIV-positive children are in Africa. This high number of infections on the continent is largely attributed to poor access to healthcare, unsafe sexual practices, and high mother-to-child transmission
Unfortunately,...
Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project.
African governments have been urging rich countries to make COVID-19 vaccines more accessible to their citizens. But some countries on the continent are either returning the vaccines or destroying them, a scenario that indicates significant weaknesses in both the supply and demand side of mass vaccination programmes. Vaccines are going to waste in some African countries because there isn’t sufficient uptake; in...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter, and read on for the latest on the looming third wave in Africa, Nigeria’s faltering economy, and the new vaccine that could give a much-needed shot in the arm to COVAX.
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Tidal wave: COVID-19 cases are surging across Africa. The WHO said that confirmed cases rose by more than 20% since last week, calling...
COVID-19 and its aftershocks are threatening to wipe out decades of hard-earned progress in the fight against extreme poverty. For the first time in more than 20 years, global poverty is on the rise. The World Bank estimated that the number of people living in extreme poverty globally increased by 120 million (including 40 million in Africa) in 2020 due to the pandemic. The outlook is grimmer still with a further increase of up to 40 million is projected...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter, and read on for what we’re calling for at the G7 summit, the UK’s aid cuts, and how ONE plans to elevate African female journalists covering the pandemic.
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Turning point: This week’s G7 summit needs to be a “turning point” in the race to vaccinate the world against COVID-19. Joe Biden played the first...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter, and read on for the latest on global vaccine sharing, why COVID-19 is the 21st century’s “Chernobyl moment,” and how public banks can combat the pandemic.
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Astoundingly unequal: Vaccine equity will dominate debates at this week’s Global Health Summit in Rome. Convened by G20 Chair Mario Draghi and European Commission President Ursula von der...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter, and read on for the latest on the vaccine cold war, how women are leading the recovery, and the “news deserts” created by the pandemic.
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We didn’t have to do this: The pandemic could have been prevented. So said the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, chaired by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson...
Over 1.4 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide. This is an impressive feat less than 15 months since the start of the pandemic — but we’re still a long way from reaching everyone, everywhere. Countries in North America and Europe have raced ahead, with national coverage as high as 40-50% of the population in some countries. But other parts of the world are struggling to protect even their most vulnerable citizens and frontline health workers.
At the start...