KHARTOUM – A telemedicine programme is helping Sudanese medical students to both treat community members with mild COVID-19 in their homes and educate their communities about the pandemic. Many medical students, who have been sitting at home since medical schools were closed last year due to the pandemic, joined the community medical response teams (CMRT) […] Continue reading ->
NAIROBI – At the foot of Kenya’s Mount Elgon on the border of Kenya and Uganda, the little-known indigenous community of Ogiek is living scattered in recently-built thatched huts and timber houses that belie not only their poverty but also the impermanence that followed their eviction by the government a year ago from their native […] Continue reading ->
Kenya has secured $130 million in funding from the World Bank to buy COVID-19 vaccines and help boost the country’s vaccination drive, the Bank announced on Tuesday. The funding comes as the Kenyan government starts to administer the second dose of AstraZeneca vaccines to citizens, amid an upsurge of infections across 13 counties in the […] Continue reading ->
Children’s rights activists and anti-tobacco campaigners called on governments this week to implement stricter laws, impose hefty fines and carry out public campaigns to eradicate child labor in tobacco value chains. With an estimated 1.3 million children working in tobacco fields around the world, Adriana Blanco Marquizo, head of the Secretariat of WHO’s Framework Convention […] Continue reading ->
NAIROBI – New research has found that intestinal worm infections may put women at increased risk of sexually transmitted viral infections (STIs) – a discovery that researchers hope will help health workers to explain why STIs can be more virulent in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, where worm infections are common. The study, published in […] Continue reading ->
NAIROBI – A new drug combination therapy to fight COVID-19, unveiled on Tuesday, will be tested in a multi-country clinical trial that is already ongoing in Africa. The drugs nitazoxanide and ciclesonide will be used in the ANTICOV clinical trials testing treatments for mild to moderate COVID cases across groups in 13 African countries. A […] Continue reading ->
The African Union Commission (AUC) is developing a COVID-19 Disaster Recovery Framework to guide its member states on how to respond effectively and in a timely manner to future pandemics – as well as other health emergency risks. The framework, still in the initial stages of development, will soon be shared with the AUC’s 55 […] Continue reading ->
NAIROBI – Kenya has developed an ambitious COVID-19 vaccination rollout plan – but it has only received enough doses for a million of its 50 million citizens, and dispensed slightly more than half of these – 565,000 – to health workers. Kenya is currently in the third wave of the pandemic and estimates that 4 […] Continue reading ->
Kenya’s family planning services experienced a 5% increase in the uptake of modern contraceptives at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, possibly contributing to a decline in unwanted pregnancies in the country, a new survey has shown. The survey, conducted by Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA), shows that the use of family planning […] Continue reading ->
NAIROBI – The Kenyan government issued a directive in mid-February this year requiring the tobacco industry to register all nicotine products as tobacco products – but the industry has yet to comply. This follows the decision by the Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Mutahi Kagwe, to declare “nicotine pouches” illegal, thus overturning a […] Continue reading ->