Browsing: Coronavirus

Rising in Africa

This year’s progress has been threatened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has caused a global economic shock that has hit Africa at a time when the government’s policy space to respond to it is small to nonexistent.…

AfCFTA

Nations launched the AfCFTA as one of the actions made to support more extensive intra-African trade. The AfCFTA aspires to establish a unified continental market for goods and services. The agreement seeks to harmonise the continent’s various trade liberalization procedures and promote regional integration. Each African nation is a member of at least one of the continent’s approximately 30 bilateral or regional trade agreements.

Africa suffers from marginalization in the global trade system. Nevertheless, the African Regional Trade Agreements heralded a new age of economic integration with significant trade creation impacts. The path to free trade poses several significant obstacles and concerns that African governments must solve.…

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Stavros Nicolaou, a Senior Executive at Aspen Pharmacare Group said in the absence of orders or commitments, Aspen is considering the repurposing of two COVID-19 production lines for the manufacture of other products.

“The continent would lose its only existing COVID vaccine manufacturing capacity, It would be a massive setback for Africa’s plans to localize and reduce its dependency on imported vaccines,” he said.

John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said global health security would be undermined if companies like Aspen were not backed.…

Receiving Pfizer vaccines from the United States

For the first time, Pfizer vaccines from the United States have landed in the country.

The country received 795,600 doses of the expected 1.4 million doses of Pfizer vaccine provided by the US Government.

Due to the nature of the Pfizer vaccines, they can only survive in extremely low temperatures which is minus 70
degrees. The government thus had to make prior arrangements with its partners to acquire ultra-cold storage and install it to maintain the quality of the vaccines.

To enable the use of Pfizer vaccines in Kenya, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has recently procured 12 ultra-low temperature freezers and accessories with funding from the Government of Japan.

The Pfizer vaccine is the 4th type of Covid-19 vaccine to be deployed in the country making an approximate number of doses received so far over into the country 6.3 million in their various assortments.

These vaccines will go a …

COVID-19 impact on tourism

The tourism industry is unlikely to return to pre-COVID arrival levels until 2023 or later, following the ravaging effect of the coronavirus pandemic.

This is according to the United Nation’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) which reveals that nearly half of the experts interviewed see a return to 2019 levels in 2024 or later.

Quoting its World Investment Report 20201, UNWTO says the main barriers of full recovery are travel restrictions, slow containment of the virus, low traveler confidence and a poor economic environment.

Dubbed ‘COVID-19 and Tourism’, the report reveals that travel has adapted to the impact of COVID particularly in terms of travel restrictions.

“Domestic travel has increased, but this does little to help developing countries that are dependent on international travel. Retirees, who tend to spend more per trip, are more likely to stay at home,” the report says.

In Kenya for instance, domestic tourists cut their holiday …

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COVID-19 | NIT Silchar

A recent report showcasing how Covid-19 has affected travel with restrictions has shown that Kenya is the recent most banned nation across East Africa.

Kenyan’s are banned from travelling to at least 54 countries due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The East African nation is cited to be among countries due to be hit by the fourth wave of the highly contagious Covid-19 Delta variant virus. The country’s Health Ministry made the announcement recently urging its citizen to act with caution.

This fourth wave is said to be much more transmissible than the earlier two varieties. It was first identified in India but has now been reported present in western Kenya as well. From there, it is feared that infections may affect all of Kenya over the course of the next two months hence there is no surprise that increasingly more countries are barring Kenyans from entering their borders.

The estimate …

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That year, in 2015, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania settled for a three-year plan to phase out the importation of used clothes, a major exporter been the United States. To realise the intended ban, taxes were increased on second-hand clothes were increased effectively deterring their importation. The plan was to completely ban the import of second-hand clothes as of 2019.

This ambitious vision was never realized as the Trump administration issued an ultimatum for EAC to rescind the ban on second-hand clothes by 23 February 2018 or, as the DW writer Isaac Mugabi puts it ‘face the consequences.’…

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If death could be bribed, the rich men would never die, this old African saying has come to life as new light is shown on Ugandan doctors over charging Covid-19 patients for treatment. After all, once diagnosed, one is ready to pay any amount to rid themselves of the dreaded virus, so the doctors put two and two together and charge more.

Here is the shocking and even upsetting if not downright despicable testimonial of a patient who was been swindled after he was diagnosed positive of Covid-19. He speaks of what happens as he is admitted in to a private hospital in Uganda mid last month.

realistic coronavirus background

“After two days of admission, the hospital told me they needed me to advance some money, $750…I did not have it anyway…when discharging me, that’s when they gave me the full medical bill of $2,482.”

This is just one patient, but he represents …

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Covid 19 wreaked havoc to the economy and no sector was worse hit than the tourism and hospitality sector. Air travel restrictions, mandatory quarantine of arrivals and the shutting of businesses in the tourism and hospitality sectors along with crumple of demand have led to an unprecedented shock.

So bad was the situation that last year, tourism operators in Tanzania forecast revenue contractions of 80% or more while the World Bank’s 14th Tanzania Economic Update (TEU) showed that Tanzania’s economic growth slowed down to 2.5% from the 6.9% growth reported the previous year.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, with eased travel restrictions, Tanzania is witnessing a revamp in both the tourism and hospitality sectors. Global top brands like Onomo Hotels have opened shop in the commercial capitol Dar es Salaam.

MarkMeet ONOMO General Manager Mark Soderlund as he gives us an inside perspective of the …

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“The change of tone ushered in by President Samia Suluhu Hassan over the last month could indicate a welcome to a whole new economic direction in Tanzania’,” remarked Peter Leon, Partner and Africa Co-Chair, Herbert Smith Freehills

Investors have been wary of dipping their feet in Tanzania’s investment pool, more so investors in the extractive industries. In March 2017, a total ban on the export of unprocessed mineral concentrates and ores was instated.

Just four months later, in July 2017, after six days of deliberation, three new laws assented. The new laws gave significant power to the government, empowering it to control the extractives sector autonomously.

The three laws that were altered are:

  • The Natural Wealth and Resources Contracts (Review and Renegotiation of Unconscionable Terms) Act, 2017 (Unconscionable Terms Act);
  • The Natural Wealth and Resources (Permanent Sovereignty) Act, 2017 (Permanent Sovereignty Act); and
  • The Written Laws(Miscellaneous Amendments) Act, 2017 which