Coronavirus

Chad’s interim president, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, has quarantined himself as a precautionary measure after members of his staff tested positive for coronavirus. He made the announcement on Sunday after returning from France where he attended the Paris Peace Forum and a conference on Libya. “When we arrived this evening …

The Gates Foundation will offer $4 million to address the looming shortage of syringes for Covid-19 vaccination in Africa. This comes amid warning from the World Health Organization (WHO) that the shortage of crucial commodities such as syringes was slowing the rollout of Covid-19 vaccination campaign in the continent. Kenyan …

Police in Mozambique say they have detained two health workers for their alleged involvement in the forgery, issuing and sale of Covid-19 vaccine cards. The two, a government general medical practitioner and an intern, had been assigned to the Bagamoyo health centre in the capital, Maputo. Police seized the forged …

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused the death of more than 5 million people worldwide since the WHO office in China reported the onset of the disease at the end of 2019. This assessment, which takes into account the deaths recorded by the national health authorities, only represents a part of …

Unvaccinated Ugandan Members of Parliament will be denied access to the country’s parliament building from Monday. According for deputy Speaker Anita Among, the move was to “demonstrate a good example in support of the government’s public health policy”. Uganda’s parliament becomes the third state institution to ban non-vaccinated people after …

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, one of the most prominent figures during the Covid-19 pandemic, is the sole candidate to lead the World Health Organization once his current term expires, the WHO announced Friday. In his application letter, the Ethiopian former health and foreign minister said Covid-19 had “ravaged the world” and in a …

Authorities in Morocco have extended the state of emergency by one month, in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the country. This emerges from a statement made by government spokesperson Mustapha Baitas at a press conference held on the sidelines of a meeting of the Government …

Health authorities in Cameroon have postponed the rollout of the third Covid-19 vaccination campaign which had been scheduled to run from Wednesday until 31 October. Dr Manaouda Malachie, the minister of public health has announced that the campaign will begin on 17 November and 400,000 doses of vaccines are expected …

The German firm, BioNTech, has signed deals with Rwanda and Senegal to build Africa’s first vaccine manufacturing facility based on mRNA technology. BioNTech, which with Pfizer created one of the world’s most widely used Covid-19 vaccines, says the plant will have an initial capacity to produce 50 million doses annually. …

Chinese authorities on Tuesday imposed confinement in Lanzhou in the northwest of the country, a city of four million inhabitants in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The decision was motivated because of a rebound in Covid-19 cases a hundred days before the Beijing Winter Olympics. The country …