“Both private and public medical facilities in the capital, Kampala and in towns across the country – including regional hubs in Entebbe, Jinja, Soroti, Gulu and Masaka – have reported running out or having acute shortages of AstraZeneca vaccines and oxygen. Hospitals report they are no longer able to admit patients to intensive care.”
“Paid tours are what is left for the Batwa to continue their traditional ways as they did in the forest. The COVID-19 blow to tourism has greatly affected the incomes of many performers in the settlements.”
“To end this pandemic, high-income countries with a vaccine pipeline for adequate coverage of their populations should, alongside their own scale-ups, immediately commit to providing the 92 low- and middle-income countries of Gavi’s COVAX Advance Market Commitment with at least 1 billion vaccine doses by no later than September 2021, reaching more than 2 billion doses by mid-2022.”
“With medical resources diverted to the pandemic, years of progress in children’s healthcare are under threat.”
“Africa is not sitting back and waiting for charity. We have learned our lessons from the past. All we ask for is transparency and fairness in vaccine access, not the protectionism currently in play.”
“Nine out of 10 people in 70 low-income countries are unlikely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 next year because the majority of the most promising vaccines coming on-stream have been bought up by the west, campaigners have said.”
“Nigeria’s president has announced an immediate two-week lockdown in Kano, the largest city in the north, after local reports of a big rise in deaths in recent days. The federal government would deploy ‘all the necessary human, material and technical resources’ to support Kano state, Muhammadu Buhari said on Monday night. Doctors in Kano say they have seen a surge in fatal cases of pneumonia.”
“Though some of the worst effects of infection may be mitigated by the relative youth of many people on the continent, others may be made more vulnerable by malnutrition or existing conditions, such as HIV. Under-resourced health systems are unlikely to cope with a significant surge of those infected by the disease… Many countries with populations numbering tens of millions have only a handful of ventilators.”
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