Coronavirus

Rwanda’s capital city will remain locked down for seven more days, the government said on Tuesday. Businesses will now reopen on February 8 under strict guidelines as the government moves to ease the current measures. A ban on public transport will also be lifted. Kigali was shut down two weeks …

Governments and developers around the world are exploring the potential use of “vaccine passports” as a way of reopening the economy by identifying those protected against the coronavirus. The travel and entertainment industries, which have struggled to operate at a profit while imposing social distancing regulations, are particularly interested in …

Sixteen African countries have shown interest in securing Covid-19 vaccines under an African Union (AU) initiative and the aim is to deliver allocations in the next three weeks, Reuters news agency quotes the the head of a continental disease control body as saying. However, John Nkengasong, director of the AU’s …

The Rwandan airline company ‘RwandAir’ has launched its new route to the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, amidst rebels closing in on the city. The airline says as part of efforts to “recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic”, it will be flying to Bangui twice a week. Rwanda …

Singapore become the first Asian country to approve Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine as it begins rolling out its immunisation programme to the wider population. The city-state expects to receive the first shipment of the Moderna shots around March, adding to its stock of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine approved in December. According to authorities, …

In order to make it easier for patients to reach doctors online, a group of young professionals in Botswana have come up with an innovative way. This is after coronavirus made one-on-one consultations difficult. Doctors E-Consult is an online doctor-patient consultation room on a mobile or electronic device. Loatile Nkala …

The United Kingdom has sent an emergency medical team to Eswatini to help the southern African country deal with a surge in coronavirus cases. The kingdom, formerly known as Swaziland, has a population of a million and seen around 500 people die from the virus. “Earlier last year the local …

Dorothy Gwajima, the Tanzanian Health Minister has said that the country has no plans to import Covid-19 vaccines at a time when there are fears that infections are rising. Her comment comes a week after President John Magufuli warned health officials against acquiring coronavirus vaccin saying that they could harm …

Nigeria is set to receive 57 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines over the next few months, the authorities say. They have asked for a four-fold increase on their previous request for 10 million doses from the African Union. “We have applied for 41 million doses of a combination of Pfizer, …

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine was 91.6% effective in preventing people from developing COVID-19, according to peer-reviewed results from its late-stage clinical trial published in The Lancent international medical journal on Tuesday. “The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticised for unseemly haste, corner cutting, and an absence of …