Browsing: Covax

China strengthening its diplomacy in Africa’s health sector

Countries

China actively honours its commitment to making vaccines a global public good. At the time when Chinese vaccines had just reached the market and domestic supply was tight, China began to supply vaccines to Africa in support of its battle against the pandemic.
By November 2021, China had provided over 1.7 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine to more than 110 countries and organizations, including 50 African countries and the AU Commission, and is striving to provide an aggregate total of two billion doses by the end of 2021.
In addition, it donated US$100 million to COVAX, which aims at ensuring all countries have access to a safe, effective vaccine.…

How will announcing Covid-19 Data Affect Tanzania’s Economy?

Business

With $571 million in loan money at stake, Tanzania that has until now withheld all Covid-19 data has announced that it will now make the statistics public. Question is, if withholding the data stayed public panic and allowed production to continue?  How will announcing the data affect the country’s economy? Will the public continue to operate business as usual or will fear impede productivity?

There is no doubt that Tanzania is one of the few countries in the world that had positive economic growth all through the worst of Covid-19 outbreaks. Granted the rate of growth fell, but it remained on an upward trajectory nonetheless. Many pundits have attributed this positive economic growth to the country’s ‘lax’ border control and zero lockdowns during the entire time.

Further still, Tanzania stopped reporting cases of Covid-19 on April 29, 2020 when the country had 509 infections, 183 recoveries and 21 deaths. Further, …

COVAX in Africa: Resetting the economy? 

Africa

The super spreading virus that triggered a pandemic of global proportions has entered a second wave. Most African countries are struggling to cope. Their already fractured health systems are at pains and facing challenges in handling the ballooning cases. Lockdowns and travel restrictions are still in place for some countries, greatly impacting economic activity. 

For example, Zimbabwe is currently in the middle of a month-long lockdown with only essential services operating. The restrictions have shut down all informal sector activity, which forms the bulk of economic activity. In South Africa, level 4 restrictions induced the closure of the busiest land borders. …

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As pandemic ranges, East Africa to wait longer for first vaccine dose

Health

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

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