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Health
- Kenya has already enlisted over 107,831 community health workers through the Ministry of Health.
- The target cohort of 25,000 will be trained in the first phase, according to the Resilient and Empowered African Community Health (REACH) initiative.
- REACH will be implemented in phases, aiming to boost skills of the 107,831 community health workers employed by the Government.
Kenya has launched a community health initiative supported by the African Union geared to boosting primary health care at the grassroots, targeting under-served populations.
The programme, under the auspices of the African Union (AU) Member States, is known as Resilient and Empowered African Community Health (REACH) and is geared towards increasing Community Health Workers (CHWs) to over two million in the continent by 2029.
Under the first phase of the initiative, over 25,000 CHWs newly recruited in Kenya will be trained on community health and on the use of Community Health Promotion (CHP) …
The project uses a comprehensive approach to combat cancer, involving communities and building capacity to over 400 community health care workers, and raising awareness by printing and distributing over 3,000 books and 5,000 Information, Communications and Education (ICE) materials.
“This project aims to complement the government efforts towards reducing cancer morbidity and mortality,” said Minister of Health Ummy Mwalimu.
“The government cannot single-handedly combat the growing burden of cancer, hence we commend TCCP for their innovation towards demonstrating the success of public-private collaboration to control cancer in the country,” she added.…
- Aga Khan Hospital will use the funding to support covid-19 pandemic response
- The funding will benefit hospital and outreach centres in Tanzania and Kenya
- Qualifying groups to receive care at no cost
Aga Khan Hospital will start offering quality care treatment to qualifying needy patients at no cost. The development comes thanks to EUR 2.3 million of grant funds issued to the Aga Khan Hospitals in East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya) by France, through the French Development Agency.
The funding has been issued through Proparco, the private sector financing arm of AFD Group, the French Development Agency to help increase access to health care services by boosting oxygen supply and supporting needy patients with quality care.
“France has made supporting health systems one of the priorities of its covid-19 pandemic response and has been at the forefront of the European and international efforts to support developing and emerging countries through …
Dr. Amanda Nang’andu Malungo, a Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeon has shattered the glass ceiling to become the first female plastic surgeon in Zambia following her successful double qualification; Masters in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the Smile Train- COSECSA Fellowship program.
Dr. Nang’andu has chosen to dedicate her career to treating cleft lip and cleft palate, a congenital malformation in which patients experience difficulty breathing, eating, speaking and hearing, some of whom die before their first birthday.
Many patients living with untreated cleft lip and/or palate are stigmatized and isolated. Dr. Nang’andu attained her Fellowship from the University of Nairobi in Kenya after receiving full scholarship from Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft charity.
“I was Introduced to clefts during undergraduate training and got involved in active cleft surgery during my specialist training. I was particularly touched by a young woman who was abandoned by her husband and family …
The medical insurance industry in Kenya is exploding taking advantage of a growing digital sphere to introduce affordable covers. Carepay, the innovative medical insurance company with a presence in Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania is leading this effort with several partnerships aimed at bringing costs down.
The industry is still on the lookout of a replacement for affordable medical cover that will meet the needs of the majority while supplementing the government-provided cover. In 2015, Linda Jamii, a famed medical cover outfit by Safaricom and Britam Kenya collapsed after it was discovered it was not making much business sense to the companies. What followed was a huge uproar with users unable to find an alternative cover.
In this, the industry has been on the lookout for a cover that meets the interests of the underwriter as well as those of the users.
Recently
There are jitters among less developed countries as news of a potential vaccine candidate for Covid-19 was announced by Pfizer and BioNTech showing desirable traits.
Most of the East African countries have signed up to be part of an arrangement by global countries to ensure fair distribution of any Covid-19 vaccine that might come out of the labs. However, reports are emerging that rich countries are already negotiating directly with the pharmaceutical companies to get the first service leaving over a hundred countries in despair.
The arrangement is called COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) initiative. It is co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. As of 1 October, 167 countries have signed up, covering nearly two-thirds of the global population. More have expressed interest, according to Gavi.
A new study by US-based Duke Global Health Innovation Center shows
My July op-ed focused on the increased M&A activities in Africa under Covid-19. Network International announced the acquisition of Africa’s leading online commerce platform, DPO for $288M on 28th July 2020, confirming my analysis that we are going to see more M&A activities going forward.”
According to Keet van Zyl, Managing Partner of Knife Capital (which turned ten last week), who managed Mark Shuttleworth’s ‘Here Be Dragons’ Fund – this is likely the largest tech acquisition in Africa since Shuttleworth sold Thawte to Verisign for $575m in 1999″. SoftBank, which had a $16.5B loss in Q1, returned to a $12B net profit in Q2, courtesy of the merger and partial sale of its stake in Sprint to T-Mobile, as well as a recovery in its $100B vision fund portfolio. This means global M&A is also picking steam in the “valley of coronavirus” as Masayoshi Son put it.
Under COVID-19, …
The Aga Khan Health Services, the arm of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) that supports activities in health across Africa and Asia has announced a new partnership with the French Development Agency (Agence Française de Développement – AFD) to establish infectious disease units in two of Tanzania’s cities.
The two entities have signed a €300,000 grant agreement to establish Infectious Diseases Units (IDU) in Dar es Salaam and Mwanza. The Infectious Disease Units will offer full-fledged services, capacity building, infrastructure, and technology to enhance the quality of service delivery.
The grant will enable the strengthening of the current system to address challenges pertaining to infectious disease control management. It will enable the Aga Khan Hospital, Dar es Salaam to respond adequately to pandemics, such as COVID, including addressing issues pertaining to inadequate health infrastructure and capacity.
The grant of €300,000 is provided as part of the worldwide “COVID-19–Health in …
The dream of a world without hunger seemed achievable three years ago. However, with increasing challenges such as those recorded recently like the locust invasion and the novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) that is still wrecking lives across the globe, the future looks bleak.
Africa accounts for the highest number of people suffering acute food insecurity due to conflicts and tensions between communities.
According to the 2020 Global Report on Food Crisis (GRFC 2020): “In East Africa, armed conflicts, intercommunal violence and other localized tensions continued to affect peace and security.”
Moreover, “the upheaval that has been set in motion by the COVID-19 pandemic may push even more families and communities into deeper distress, António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, added in the Forward of the report.
Also Read: Crop insurance to ensure food security and poverty reduction
The global food policy report published April