The coronavirus remains on course to inflict uncountable health and economic damage the world over. It’s a resistible force of nature that is keeping most of the world up at night. Numerous elements have come together to help the virus spread unchallenged and it has claimed over 47,521 lives around the globe.

Immediately science and technology accumulated enough data about the virus, broad recommendations were set out to slow its spread while research laboratories went to work for a cure or vaccine. The determination of COVID-19 is being matched by that of world leaders and scientists.

Social distancing is the foremost measure imposed and encouraged by political leaders and experts all over the planet. So far, statistics suggest that the curve is flattening in many parts of the world. To curb the spread of the pandemic, the population has a role to play which is simply following government and medical directives. It is here that the current absurdity of religious fanaticism in Africa comes into play.

Cameroon Concord News Group believes that many pastors and religious clergies in Africa are putting the lives of their followers at risk in seeking to start the age-old God versus science squabble game in the middle of a global crisis. Insisting on holding church services at this time in defiance of scientific and government guidance is reckless and very dangerous.

Science and religion are two sides of the same deep human impulse to comprehend our universe. Embracing both helps mankind in understanding our place in it and to marvel at the wonder of life and the infinite universe we are surrounded by. Let’s keep them that way, and not let one usurp the role of the other.

The actions of some of our religious leaders during this coronavirus pandemic in leading vulnerable and gullible people into early graves are completely unacceptable. The denial of science amongst Christian and Muslims fundamentalists now haunts countries in the Sub-Saharan region.

In professing to be wise, by their actions and denials of the ferociousness of the coronavirus, our Imams and men of God, are becoming fools because this global killer knows no race, age, social status, religious beliefs nor borders. The number of avoidable fatalities in Africa is rising at catastrophic rapidity as people continue to ignore social distancing guidance and mindful of Africa’s poor record keeping history, the full extent of the damage will never be known.

Today, it is difficult in Cameroon, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, Chad and Equatorial Guinea to differentiate people with COVID-19 and a common flu as many have mild symptoms like tiredness, fever and dry cough.  Consequently, a person may be carrying and transmitting the virus without any knowledge. The virus is particularly aggressive among the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions resulting in a higher death rate amongst this group. Armed with these facts, Cameroon Concord News Group believes that any responsible religious leader would instruct his followers to adhere to social distancing for their own good.

Churches and Mosques in nations that started Islam and Christianity have all shut down in line with government policy. But those in Sub-Saharan Africa are still operating claiming that their leaders have the backing of the Holy Spirit and Prophet Mohammed. This is going on in areas with little or no healthcare system and ventilators.

The evidence is prodigious that Christians and Muslims fundamentalist leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa have considerable power in society with millions of followers that can never be challenged especially during a pandemic.

Cameroon Concord News Group including thousands of our readers is caught in a state of disbelief! What kind of religious beliefs could propel church leaders in the 21st century to challenge scientific evidence when thousands are dying? 

This hostility to science will deplete thousands in Africa over the next few weeks. Correspondingly, we of this publication salute the Ugandan government decision to arrest three Roman Catholic priests last Sunday for celebrating Mass publicly, in alleged defiance of government orders banning religious gatherings during the pandemic.

Isong Asu

London Bureau Chief

Cameroon’s coronavirus problem is much greater than the Biya regime is acknowledging. The true number of cases is far greater than the tally from the Minister of Public Health. Senior CPDM officials are sick not only with the coronavirus but are HIV positive.  More signs of uncontrolled infection in the cities of Douala, Yaoundé and Bafoussam have emerged and there are fears things are getting out of control.

Medics in the rural areas particularly in war ravaged Southern Cameroons have been incessantly flashing out signals to the World Health Organization that Southern Cameroons may run out of cemetery space if something is not done and done in a hurry.  Last week, the Ministry of Public Health announced that some of the COVID-19 patients were recovering but Cameroon Intelligence Report sources in Douala and Yaoundé have all hinted that the deaths have started coming so fast.

A senior opposition figure in Yaoundé who hails from the Far North Region contacted by this reporter recently asks, reluctantly, whether both French and British Southern Cameroonians should in fact be relieved, because apparently even when a nation faces unrelenting misery—accelerated by the politics and policies of its government—it doesn’t necessarily break down as fast as Paul Biya’s Cameroon.

Biya and his ruling CPDM crime syndicate have turned Cameroon into a criminal wasteland, with French Cameroun political gangs in tricked-out. A nurse at the Yaoundé General hospital who spoke to our undercover reporter revealed that some senior army officials have secretly collected ventilators from the hospital citing orders from the presidency of the republic. And like the policy against the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram and Ambazonia Restoration Forces, the Biya Francophone regime is erecting roadblocks to prevent people fleeing the rural areas from bringing the coronavirus with them to Yaoundé. These efforts at containment will of course fail and coronavirus will definitely find its way to Mvomeka’a where the 87 year old President Biya is self-isolating!

Apart from Biya’s failed leadership, the CPDM government is another palaver. Many Cameroonians would celebrate its passing, and even its die-hard supporters are now seeing signs that the coronavirus is catalysing changes that Biya and his Francophone Beti-Ewondo acolytes resisted long ago.

Given how many people are dying now in Yaoundé and Douala and with Biya helpless and quarantined at his Mvomeka’a palace, it would be grotesque to think of coronavirus as a lucky break for Cameroonians in support of regime change. With COVID-19, the deep bench of the so-called CPDM Political Bureau and the House of Senate will be depleted.

National Assembly Speaker, Cavaye Djibril has blatantly refused to announce that he had contracted the coronavirus. He is 80 years old and a chief Biya acolyte to whom he speaks regularly and in person.

However, the center of all speculation is President Paul Biya himself. The dictator doesn’t appear in public often, even in the best of times, and you’d have to be fairly lucky to spot him in Yaoundé—except on a few occasions where his appearance is so customary that an absence would make Cameroonian allies and enemies, wonder if an illness must have felled him.

The world is already in the middle of the coronavirus season and Biya is yet to make a televise statement to the Cameroonian people. State radio and television recently reported that the Head of State has created a special fund to combat the virus. But rumours about Biya do not die so easily in Cameroon. Why can’t President Biya just give his speech from his sitting room at the Mvomeka’a palace? Is this not the ideal opportunity to discuss how the funds provided will be disbursed to fight the spread of COVID-19? Is this not also a good opportunity for Mr. Biya to speak of the process of renewal that Cameroon will have to undertake to Emergence 2035?

After his last meeting with the US ambassador to Cameroon, speculation has been rampant. Surely, say the rumours, Biya is dead—or he is self-isolating!  These rumours aside, the perception of distance has made Mr. Biya, already a distant figure without charisma or warmth, seem superannuated and out of touch. We understand Biya is in a febrile delirium in Mvomeka’a but if he does not show up seven days after this editorial, Cameroon Concord News Group shall put up an obituary announcement on him.

What is keeping the ruling CPDM gang in power now is the simple fact that the whole Cameroonian nation French and British Southern Cameroons are suffering together and it is evidently clear that Biya deliberately weakened all state institutions and tribal zed the army making them unhealthy enough to rival his leadership, even in this diminished state. Today, police commissioners, army captains are dying of COVID-19, just as poor civilians too!

Coronavirus has exposed and confirmed the incompetence and malignance of the Biya regime, at the same time it has crippled the forces for change headed by Prof. Maurice Kamto.  Popular protests in the streets of Douala and Yaounde simply cannot happen as long as the manpower for those protests remains sequestered at home, and as long as morale is utterly depleted by the task of burying one’s loved ones. Regime change in Yaoundé might have to wait. At least the coronavirus pandemic will eventually end, and with its end, change is one more thing to look forward to.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The world is facing a colossal crisis. Its biggest crisis in living memory and the future is bleak. The health and economic consequences are seismic. More than 41,494 people have died so far and these numbers are growing daily and alarmingly according to figures released by Johns Hopkins University. The experts say the peak of this pandemic is two weeks away.

Frightening!! Fear and apprehension have taken the place of calmness and confidence. Ghost towns, self-isolation and quarantine are now a norm in the world. Vibrant communities have been reduced to graveyards with little or no movement or people as all non-essential activities have ceased. The tension and anxiety in the air can be touched. Life isn’t the same and it will never be the same. Yesterday, Cameroon Concord News Group reported that over the last week, three members of the Southern Cameroons community in the UK have died due to the coronavirus. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families. Now, the penny has dropped that this is not a foreign illness; this is within our communities and families.

So far, the major economies have announced over $4.5 trillion in stimulus packages. These are astonishing and unprecedented figures. The approach from these governments is one of doing all they can to overcome this crisis. Millions of people have lost their jobs and millions more face uncertain futures. In the midst of this bleakness and uncertainty, Cameroon Concord News Group believes that there is hope for the future. If it’s bleak and uncertain now, so was it during many generations of the past. The great Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us with these words “people wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” These unsettling times should give us hope for the future. No great advancements have come from settled generations.

History reminds us that the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide, about one-third of the world’s population at the time, and killed an estimated 50 million. Looking at such figures, we must count ourselves fortunate to be living in the 21st century with unbelievable advances in medicine and technology. Cameroon Concord News Group trusts that as deadly as the coronavirus is, we shall emerge victorious from this pandemic just as our ancestors did with primeval medical standards over a century ago. The journey is uncomfortable and dreary but we shall conquer.

Cameroon Concord News Group recommends that its readers who are going through challenging and uncertain futures utilise these next few months for meditation and reflection. We believe that it’s only through calmness of body; mind and spirit could one tap into his inner powers. This too shall pass. To come out on the other side as winners, we need to cultivate courage within ourselves. Discipline courage is the resolution to be thoughtful and focused in the face of adversity.  Discipline courage gives us great clarity on our dreams and requires fortitude. It’s not easy but we must develop this discipline if we are to emerge from this pandemic strong. We need discipline courage to analyse our lives and make the changes necessary for self-growth after the storm.

The history of the human race is a record of human challenges and victories. Our generation is no different. Europe and the United States have somehow emerged as the hub of this pandemic. For some of us living within these borders, the aftermath will undoubtedly challenge our foundations. Cameroon Concord News Group opines that we cultivate compassion and solidarity as companions of discipline courage. We of this media outlet believe fervently that with these qualities, victory will be ours and success will be yours in the years after this pandemic.

Isong Asu

London Bureau Chief

Donald Trump indicated that keeping the US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic to 100,000 would be a very good job. Prof. Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England stated that if the UK kept its death toll below 20,000, the country would have done very well. From these frightening figures, Cameroon Concord News Group presupposes that these men of authority possess confidential data and facts not available to us all. There are over 784,314 confirmed cases worldwide with 37,638 deaths. Spain and Italy now account for more than 51% of the global fatalities according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

Lockdowns in many European and US towns and cities is startling but understandable as experts insist that social distancing is imperative to curbing this global killer. Cameroon Concord News Group is struggling to make sense of this new world order. Like many pandemics of previous generations and centuries, the poor, elderly and the vulnerable always bear the brunt. Covid-19 pandemic is no different. The UK government announced a £330 billion stimulus package to protect its economy, Germany followed with a stimulus package worth over 1.1 trillion euros whilst the US announced a 2 trillion dollar package for its economy. These figures and economic policies designed to protect the economies and citizens of these countries are astounding and imposing but one has to consider how the worlds vulnerable in sub-Saharan Africa would cope during this unprecedented world economic and health emergency.

In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, testing for the coronavirus is non-existent and the public health information is pitiable. Ravaged by government corruption, unemployment, poor public services and deprived healthcare structures, these vulnerable people are the forgotten potential victims of this pandemic. In many Sub-Saharan African countries, the people live from hand to mouth and the thought of a lockdown without government hand-outs is terrifying. Poverty and a lack of government action will be as lethal as the coronavirus to some of these people. Complacency from the governments and public health officials is the word and a risky strategy.

As the peak of this global health crisis approaches, Cameroon Concord News Group’s concern for the forgotten people of sub-Saharan Africa is candid and established. The World Bank and the IMF have announced financial packages worth $24 billion. This is a step in the right direction but these figures pale in contrast to the rest of the world. If the history of financial packages to Africa is anything to go by, it is pretty obvious that a microscopic fraction of this aid would get to the people who need it most. The vulnerable people of this region are about to face a global killer with anaemic fiscal backing. This media outlet is concerned that the true scale of this disaster in these communities might never be known. When figures of 100,000 deaths in the US and 20,000 in the UK are brandished as successful, we of this publication fear for the poor and vulnerable in Africa.

From the gargantuan stimulus packages designed to ring-fence western economies from the financial consequences of this pandemic, the evidence is overwhelming that there are enough economic resources on this planet for all its occupants to enjoy healthy, progressive and peaceful lives. Cameroon Concord News Group believes that what is lacking is the political will to accomplish that purpose. One thing remains certain, the time has come for sub-Saharan African leaders to realise that the health, education, infrastructure and corruption challenges in their countries will be resolved by them only. Western governments have made political and economic decisions for their people, Sub-Saharan African leaders must learn and emulate. Cameroon Concord News Group believes that this must be one of the lessons to take from this pandemic.

Isong Asu

London Bureau Chief

The Believer and Lazarus of Bethany

“Master, the one you love is ill” (John 11:3)

Dear Holy People of God of Ste Anne’s Parish Family,

Good is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good!

The Gospel of this Sunday presents us with the resuscitation of Lazarus, which is very different from the resurrection of Jesus. The former, Lazarus, dies again, as is evident from the text itself: “Meanwhile a large number of Jews heard that he (Jesus) was there and came not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. Then the chief priests decided to kill Lazarus as well, since it was on his account that many of the Jews were leaving them and believing in Jesus” (John 12: 9-11).

With resuscitation, Lazarus returns to biological life, subjected once more to the laws of Aristotelian Categories or Newtonian physics, that is, the operations of space and time. He could once again feel tired, hungry and thirsty. Lazarus, brought back to life by Jesus, was still subjected to all that characterizes the human condition. But with the resurrection, there is the entry into the power of God, into the being of God, a power and being that is beyond space and life, beyond the laws of physics. The resurrection is the definitive otherness. There is a new form of existence, what Paul struggles to explain, “we teach what scripture calls: the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

From the perspective of the inner logic of the Hebrew Bible otherwise known as the Old Testament, the “scandal” of the resurrection of Jesus resides in the fact that history continued, after Easter Sunday. Judaism, at least in the form that developed and as witnessed to by prophets such as Ezekiel, the book of the Maccabees and the book of Daniel, gradually arrived at the understanding of a resurrection from the dead. But this was understood to mark the end of history, that is, the end of time and space, wherein history will enter into the definitive reality of God, so that God will become all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). In other words, history was not supposed to continue after Easter Sunday. There was therefore, a sense of a definitive end-of-timeness, an eschaton, that marked the understanding of resurrection faith in Judaism. Martha gives voice to this eschatological (end-of-time) understanding of the Jewish understanding of resurrection in this Sunday’s gospel, when she says to Jesus: “I know he (Lazarus) will rise again at the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24). And herein lies the scandal of the resuscitation of Lazarus, because, correctly understood as St John the Evangelist does, it marks the definitive pointer to the resurrection of Jesus. And yet, as it was with Lazarus and as will be seen with the resurrection, history, understood as the measurement of time, does not come to an end.

In the theology of the Gospel of John, the raising of Lazarus by Jesus is the definitive sign pointing to the Lord’s passion, death and eventual resurrection. St John even gives us certain “passion details” around the Lazarus narrative: “(…) From that day they were determined to kill him (Jesus) (John 11:53); “Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom he had raised from the dead” (Jon 12:1). The cloud of the darkness of death was clearly in the horizon, with the sign of the raising of Lazarus.

Dear Holy People of God, like the Blind Man of Last Sunday’s Gospel, Lazarus represents all of humanity that is dead, and that Jesus seeks to bring back to life, not just biological life, that is, life in this world, but eternal life, that is, life with God. During these days in which our beloved city of Salem and the wider world is suffocating under the pandemic of the COVID 19, the cry of Martha and Mary to Jesus is ours, in a very real, pragmatic and existential sense: “Master, the one you love is ill” (John 11:3). The concrete situation of the world of COVID 19 brings these words to a shocking realism: Our world is literally “ill.” But Bethany teaches us that there will be a raising to new life. Lazarus of Bethany reminds us that the power of God will break into the world of COVID 19, and that the power of God is stronger than death. Bethany teaches us that even if we feel that the Lord is delaying in coming with his power, that the Lord is slow in responding to our cry, as Martha and Mary felt – “Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died (…) (John 11:21); “Mary went to Jesus, and as soon as she saw him she threw herself at his feet, saying, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32); “Martha said to him, “Lord, by now he will smell; this is the fourth day” (John 11:39); – the Lord’s belatedness, the Lord’s “four days” of lateness in coming, eventually turns out to be just on time, for as Augustine points out in book XI of the Confessions, time, that is,  past (memory), present (sight) and future (expectation), are all present, with the Lord: the past is the present of the things past; the present is the present of things present, and the future is the present of things future. “All time belongs to Christ,” as we profess on Easter Night in the ceremony of the lighting of the Easter Candle. Hence, let us remember that even the present time is in the hands of the Lord, and that the Lord will raise new life from the present time of COVID 19, ushering a new reality in human history which we as yet cannot fathom but which we can already see with the eyes of faith, that faith of Martha and Mary that we encounter in today’s gospel.

In Martha and Mary, the believer and the Church finds what we can and must do, besides the reasonable precautionary measures of body hygiene and social distancing, namely, to cry to the Lord in prayer: “Master, the world you so love (John 3:16), is ill” (John 11:3). We too cry out, “Master, our world needs to be raised from death. Jesus, do not let us be without you in the Sacraments for too long. Jesus, do not delay in coming into the world of the here and now, and of putting an end to this pandemic. Help all our medical personnel who are on the frontline of this battle. Help the efforts of all researching for cures and vaccines. Grant the joy of your presence to the dead and your consolation to the living. Grant serenity to our anxious hearts. And May we feel the maternal closeness of your Mother, Mary, Help and Comforter of the Afflicted,” now and always, Amen. My Holy Mass this Sunday will be offered for all the families of our Ste Anne’s parish family. May the Lord bless you and be close to you. May the Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord fill you with is peace

By Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

Sainte Anne Parish, Boston

Cash Trapped. Worsening tribal tensions, frightening divisions among Cameroon government army soldiers and domestic discontent. An unending Boko Haram and Southern Cameroons crisis. Huge security challenges in the East Region coming from the breakdown of law and order in the Central African Republic.

To be sure, even before Cameroon announced its first coronavirus case, the CPDM government was struggling under the weight of political and economic problems that are increasingly undermining the integrity of the Francophone dominated regime in Yaoundé.

With the coming of the coronavirus, Cameroon Concord News Group can now reveal that matters have become much, much worse for President Biya and his gang — so much so that the 87 year old shamefully accepted to be quarantined at his palace in Mvomeka’a. That is because, for the French Cameroun ailing leaders: Biya, Niat, Cavaye, coronavirus represents a true game changer in the French Cameroun political story and its very unholy marriage with Southern Cameroons.

The butcher of Yaoundé and his acolytes are presently facing an improbable occurrence that no one in their corrupt circle predicted, but which now has profound and potentially catastrophic consequences. This is what coronavirus is for Biya and his Francophone dominated French Cameroun regime.

The CPDM problems start with the failing health of French Cameroun’s ruling elites. Frankly speaking, the so-called members of the CPDM political bureau or better still the upper echelons of the French Cameroun leadership are overwhelmingly aging and infirm, and there are fears that coronavirus may exact a deadly toll on this cohort.

Cameroon Concord News Group understands the 80 year old National Assembly Speaker, Cavaye Djibril was part of an Air France flight declared to be high risk by the medical authorities of the Yaoundé Nsimalen international airport. Cavaye Yeguie Djibril deliberately confused parliamentary immunity with sanitary immunity by rushing to the national assembly and attended 2 plenary sessions.

Yaoundé has been maintaining a kind of silence of the lamb on the Cavaye Djibril coronavirus issue but information has filtered out that the regime is moving towards the quarantine of the 167 MPs currently in the lower house of parliament as it was revealed Cavaye Djibril had caused significant contamination in the nation’s capital after he came in contact with hundreds of people immediately after he was reelected as speaker.

Last week, Cameroon Intelligence Report Yaoundé city correspondent revealed that coronavirus had afflicted more than two dozen members of the National Assembly and at least nine top figures of the Biya regime. This figure reportedly expanded significantly and prompted President Biya to abandoned government business in Yaoundé and moved to his Mvomeka’a palace immediately after a meeting with the American ambassador.

To date, the coronavirus is yet to claim the lives of any senior official of the Biya Francophone regime but it can certainly be expected in coming days as measures put in place by Chief Dion Ngute, the so-called Prime Minister and Head of Government has greatly helped in exposing French Cameroun’s ruling  elite as incompetent and out of touch. Biya and his men are now in the throes of a profound political, security and health crises with no ability to contain the spread of the virus and only fostering complicity in increasing its true scope to get money from the World Health Organization.

The number of currently reported Cameroonian cases of the disease is likely a gross overestimate. Given the Biya regime’s long history of collecting and misappropriating funds from the World Health Organization, people in the know in Yaoundé and Douala say that the real number of coronavirus cases in Cameroon might actually be orders of a lower than a higher magnitude.

The regime in Yaoundé has done its utmost to increase the extent of the crisis now ravaging the international community. But videos and social-media posts of thousands of Cameroonians enjoying themselves and trading in the streets throughout the country, have painted a very different picture to the European Union and the World Health Organization.

But coronavirus isn’t just a political challenge for President Biya. It’s also a major blow to the notion that he is a demigod. Biya now is even afraid to meet his own Secretary General at the presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh and his Minister of Defense, Joseph Beti Assomo. State secrets are now being discussed via a telephone communication network they never trusted.

The movement of people in the Douala and Yaoundé metropolis even after a lockdown was announced and business going on as usual throughout the national territory has very much highlighted the disconnect between the Biya CPDM establishment and the rest of the population. It is evidently clear that Biya is no longer in control of the nation.

Will President Biya and his Francophone Beti Ewondo regime survive the current crisis intact? Like previous ones, it might. But with oil and gas no longer what the West and China needs now, the coronavirus might end up accomplishing what years of pro-democracy actions could not: the collapse of the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime in Yaoundé.

To this I put my name

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Even at their most effective – and draconian – containment strategies have only slowed the spread of the respiratory disease Covid-19. With the World Health Organization finally declaring a pandemic, all eyes have turned to the prospect of a vaccine, because only a vaccine can prevent people from getting sick.

About 35 companies and academic institutions are racing to create such a vaccine, at least four of which already have candidates they have been testing on animals. The first of these – produced by Boston-based biotech firm Moderna – will enter human trials imminently.

This unprecedented speed is thanks in large part to early Chinese efforts to sequence the genetic material of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. China shared that sequence in early January, allowing research groups around the world to grow the live virus and study how it invades human cells and makes people sick.

But there is another reason for the head start. Though nobody could have predicted that the next infectious disease to threaten the globe would be caused by a coronavirus – flu is generally considered to pose the greatest pandemic risk – vaccinologists had hedged their bets by working on “prototype” pathogens. “The speed with which we have [produced these candidates] builds very much on the investment in understanding how to develop vaccines for other coronaviruses,” says Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Oslo-based nonprofit the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), which is leading efforts to finance and coordinate Covid-19 vaccine development.

Coronaviruses have caused two other recent epidemics – severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in China in 2002-04, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), which started in Saudi Arabia in 2012. In both cases, work began on vaccines that were later shelved when the outbreaks were contained. One company, Maryland-based Novavax, has now repurposed those vaccines for Sars-CoV-2, and says it has several candidates ready to enter human trials this spring. Moderna, meanwhile, built on earlier work on the Mers virus conducted at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland.

Sars-CoV-2 shares between 80% and 90% of its genetic material with the virus that caused Sars, hence, its name. Both consist of a strip of ribonucleic acid (RNA) inside a spherical protein capsule that is covered in spikes. The spikes lock on to receptors on the surface of cells lining the human lung – the same type of receptor in both cases – allowing the virus to break into the cell. Once inside, it hijacks the cell’s reproductive machinery to produce more copies of itself, before breaking out of the cell again and killing it in the process.

All vaccines work according to the same basic principle. They present part or all of the pathogen to the human immune system, usually in the form of an injection and at a low dose, to prompt the system to produce antibodies to the pathogen. Antibodies are a kind of immune memory which, having been elicited once, can be quickly mobilized again if the person is exposed to the virus in its natural form.

Traditionally, immunization has been achieved using live, weakened forms of the virus, or part or whole of the virus once it has been inactivated by heat or chemicals. These methods have drawbacks. The live form can continue to evolve in the host, for example, potentially recapturing some of its virulence and making the recipient sick, while higher or repeat doses of the inactivated virus are required to achieve the necessary degree of protection. Some of the Covid-19 vaccine projects are using these tried-and-tested approaches, but others are using newer technology. One more recent strategy – the one that Novavax is using, for example – constructs a “recombinant” vaccine. This involves extracting the genetic code for the protein spike on the surface of Sars-CoV-2, which is the part of the virus most likely to provoke an immune reaction in humans, and pasting it into the genome of a bacterium or yeast – forcing these microorganisms to churn out large quantities of the protein. Other approaches, even newer, bypass the protein and build vaccines from the genetic instruction itself. This is the case for Moderna and another Boston company, CureVac, both of which are building Covid-19 vaccines out of messenger RNA.

Cepi’s original portfolio of four funded Covid-19 vaccine projects was heavily skewed towards these more innovative technologies, and last week it announced $4.4m (£3.4m) of partnership funding with Novavax and with a University of Oxford vectored vaccine project. “Our experience with vaccine development is that you can’t anticipate where you’re going to stumble,” says Hatchett, meaning that diversity is key. And the stage where any approach is most likely to stumble is clinical or human trials, which, for some of the candidates, are about to get under way.

Clinical trials, an essential precursor to regulatory approval, usually take place in three phases. The first, involving a few dozen healthy volunteers, tests the vaccine for safety, monitoring for adverse effects. The second, involving several hundred people, usually in a part of the world affected by the disease, looks at how effective the vaccine is, and the third does the same in several thousand people. But there’s a high level of attrition as experimental vaccines pass through these phases. “Not all horses that leave the starting gate will finish the race,” says Bruce Gellin, who runs the global immunization program for the Washington DC-based nonprofit, the Sabin Vaccine Institute.

There are good reasons for that. Either the candidates are unsafe, or they’re ineffective, or both. Screening out duds is essential, which is why clinical trials can’t be skipped or hurried. Approval can be accelerated if regulators have approved similar products before. The annual flu vaccine, for example, is the product of a well-honed assembly line in which only one or a few modules have to be updated each year. In contrast, Sars-CoV-2 is a novel pathogen in humans, and many of the technologies being used to build vaccines are relatively untested too. No vaccine made from genetic material – RNA or DNA – has been approved to date, for example. So the Covid-19 vaccine candidates have to be treated as brand new vaccines, and as Gellin says: “While there is a push to do things as fast as possible, it’s really important not to take shortcuts.”

An illustration of that is a vaccine that was produced in the 1960s against respiratory syncytial virus, a common virus that causes cold-like symptoms in children. In clinical trials, this vaccine was found to aggravate those symptoms in infants who went on to catch the virus. A similar effect was observed in animals given an early experimental Sars vaccine. It was later modified to eliminate that problem but, now that it has been repurposed for Sars-CoV-2, it will need to be put through especially stringent safety testing to rule out the risk of enhanced disease.

It’s for these reasons that taking a vaccine candidate all the way to regulatory approval typically takes a decade or more, and why President Trump sowed confusion when, at a meeting at the White House on 2 March, he pressed for a vaccine to be ready by the US elections in November – an impossible deadline. “Like most vaccinologists, I don’t think this vaccine will be ready before 18 months,” says Annelies Wilder-Smith, professor of emerging infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. That’s already extremely fast, and it assumes there will be no hitches.

In the meantime, there is another potential problem. As soon as a vaccine is approved, it’s going to be needed in vast quantities – and many of the organizations in the Covid-19 vaccine race simply don’t have the necessary production capacity. Vaccine development is already a risky affair, in business terms, because so few candidates get anywhere near the clinic. Production facilities tend to be tailored to specific vaccines, and scaling these up when you don’t yet know if your product will succeed is not commercially feasible. Cepi and similar organizations exist to shoulder some of the risk, keeping companies incentivized to develop much-needed vaccines. Cepi plans to invest in developing a Covid-19 vaccine and boosting manufacturing capacity in parallel, and earlier this month it put out a call for $2bn to allow it to do so.

Once a Covid-19 vaccine has been approved, a further set of challenges will present itself. “Getting a vaccine that’s proven to be safe and effective in humans takes one at best about a third of the way to what’s needed for a global immunization program,” says global health expert Johnathan Quick of Duke University in North Carolina, author of The End of Epidemics (2018). “Virus biology and vaccines technology could be the limiting factors, but politics and economics are far more likely to be the barrier to immunization.”

The problem is making sure the vaccine gets to all those who need it. This is a challenge even within countries where they have worked out guidelines. In the scenario of a flu pandemic, for example, the UK would prioritize vaccinating healthcare and social care workers, along with those considered at highest medical risk – including children and pregnant women – with the overall goal of keeping sickness and death rates as low as possible. But in a pandemic, countries also have to compete with each other for medicines.

Because pandemics tend to hit hardest those countries that have the most fragile and underfunded healthcare systems, there is an inherent imbalance between need and purchasing power when it comes to vaccines. During the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, for example, vaccine supplies were snapped up by nations that could afford them, leaving poorer ones short. But you could also imagine a scenario where, say, India – a major supplier of vaccines to the developing world – not unreasonably decides to use its vaccine production to protect its own 1.3 billion-strong population first, before exporting any.

Outside of pandemics, the WHO brings governments, charitable foundations and vaccine-makers together to agree an equitable global distribution strategy, and organizations like Gavi, the vaccine alliance, have come up with innovative funding mechanisms to raise money on the markets for ensuring supply to poorer countries. But each pandemic is different, and no country is bound by any arrangement the WHO proposes – leaving many unknowns. As Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, points out: “The question is, what will happen in a situation where you’ve got national emergencies going on?”

This is being debated, but it will be a while before we see how it plays out. The pandemic, says Wilder-Smith, “will probably have peaked and declined before a vaccine is available”. A vaccine could still save many lives, especially if the virus becomes endemic or perennially circulating – like flu – and there are further, possibly seasonal, outbreaks. But until then, our best hope is to contain the disease as far as possible. To repeat the sage advice: wash your hands.

Source: Guardian

Cameroon Concord News Group is of the opinion that news of Paul Biya’s death is being greatly exaggerated again. By our records, this is the 8th time the world’s oldest dictator has died.

In one of our extensive investigations on his crimes in 2017, we spoke to someone in his inner core who opined that these announcements of his death captivated the ailing dictator. Our informant said ‘these stories of his passing away always lift his spirit’. Weird but factual!!

So, before Ambazonians and Cameroonians start their celebrations, Cameroon Concord News Group urges them to exercise restraint.

CCN and CIR Editorial Desk

Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report have consistently stated that the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is the greatest achievement in this revolution. We are again reiterating our position and informing our readers that the former Communication Secretary’s recent outing questioning if the creation of the Interim Government was a wrong idea is shameful, disgusting and disgraceful.

For Chris Anu’s information, the journey that led to the formation of the Interim Government may have been rocky. Rocky as it was, what matters is not the rocky journey but the Interim Government that was established to oversee and crystallize the realization of Ambazonia’s 58-year-old dream of an independent sovereign Federal Republic.

It is evidently clear that the formation of the Interim Government rallied, reassured and refocused the struggle of the oppressed people of Ambazonia for independence. With this appropriate leadership under His Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe in place, the people of Ambazonia arose on September 22, 2017 in its overwhelming majority to express an irrevocable determination to proclaim its independence on October 1, 2017.

Southern Cameroons history has recorded that His Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe oversaw the realization of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia 58 year’s old dream. For this reason, President Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe remains a strong symbol of the liberation and independence of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia. Because Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is the symbol of the Ambazonia liberation, independence and freedom, the people of Southern Cameroons are determined more than ever before to fight to the last man to free him from the captivity of French Cameroun.

It is indeed very sad and regrettable that the man who started the mission to fight and liberate the Ambazonian President, members of the Interim Government and thousands of Ambazonian’s in captivity with his historic trip to Nigeria is now the individual questioning if the birth of the Interim Government was a wrong idea.  People of Ambazonia, the mission must continue until the liberation of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, his top aides and all Southern Cameroonians is attained.

Again, it is a matter of profound regret that Mr. Chris Anu who has personally benefitted from the creation of the IG as he now owns a radio and television station in the US which he never had in his entire 25 years is the one stating that the Interim Government was a bad idea.

There are reasons why the disgraced former Ambazonia Communications Secretary is now an anti Southern Cameroons revolution force. He had always contested privately the leadership of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the Interim Government and because of free money, he and his Pastor acolyte, Samuel Ikome Sako have evinced every possible determination to derail and sabotage the IG and the liberation struggle.

Chris Anu, Samuel Ikome Sako and the Maryland consortium of Southern Cameroons crime syndicates are up in arms organizing all forms of dubious platforms to sabotage the IG and the peoples’ liberation agenda. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group, call on the sovereign people of Ambazonia to stand on their way.

Southern Cameroonians have resolutely sacrificed, toiled for these 58 years to liberate and re-establish their capital in Buea, with its mythical glory in freedom and democratic governance.  History has recorded that it was during the mass movement to Buea to raise the flag of sovereignty and freedom on October 1, 2017, that French Cameroun unleashed bombs on armless Ambazonian civilians with helicopter gunships killing hundreds and maiming thousands.

Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report considers it a matter of grave concern for Mr Chris Anu to trivialize the sacrifices, the blood, the aspirations and will of the sovereign people of the Southern Cameroons by daring to question the essence of the Ambazonia Interim Government. Southern Cameroonians are very much aware that there was only one known Judas Iscariot! Consequently, Ambazonians will not tolerate the floating of this provocative thought by Judas Iscariot’s surrogates lest it corrupts the gullible. It is regrettable that this insane auditioning of the creation of the IG is being fostered now by a man no one knew in Southern Cameroons journalism.

This genocidal war of choice declared by the arch terrorist President Paul Biya of French Cameroun has displaced, killed, and maimed millions of Southern Cameroonians within and out of its national territory. A key test of loyalty to the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is the individual and collective contributions to Ambazonia’s ground zero war efforts; buying of defense bonds, the county by county contributions support, medical and sustenance support to the Ambazonian refugees, the Ambazonia Interim Government and symbols of the Ambazonia sovereignty represented by the jailed leaders in Kondengui and in the West by Vice President Dabney Yerima.

The ABC television network is no longer an attribute of sovereign governance in Southern Cameroons and must not be supported through the generous contributions of the Ambazonia diaspora.

Cameroon Concord News Group is now questioning the patriotism and motivations of men like Chris Anu, Sako Ikome and Elvis Kumeta who are persistently campaigning to sabotage the IG and the people’s quest for freedom. The Maryland cartel have boasted how they more than anyone in this struggle hold the key to the international community. True achievers have no reason to rely on self-seeking boasting or seek to tantalize the gullible with claims to influence in high places and wealth to justify their claims to power through deceit rather than seeking power on the basis of their proven record of support to our refugees, the legal fund for the defense of the President and the self-defense war of liberation and Ground Zero operations to attain the objectives.

Chris Anu and Sako Ikome have all been using demagogy and rhetoric to dazzle and confound gullible Southern Cameroonians. With fake images from the Lebialem County on Field Marshall, Chris Anu falsely raised the hopes that he alone possessed the military prowess to confront the enemy, liberate Ambazonians and protect the people.  A majority of Ambazonians fell for that costly deceit despite the persistent warnings by Cameroon Concord News Group.

It is surprising that power ambitions of this Maryland crime syndicate is supported by some so-called activists and front line leaders despite the calamitous slaughtering of our people currently going on in Ground Zero.

Cameroon Concord News Group strongly advises citizens of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to support Vice President Dabney Yerima’s self-defense war efforts.  Support for the Interim Government, contributions to the treasury as well as contributing for the wellbeing of Ambazonia refugees and internally displaced, the legal defence fund for the President His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, members of the Interim Government in captivity and hundreds of thousands of Ambazonia citizens illegally held captive in French Cameroun’s concentration camps are a litmus test for patriotism and recognition.

Southern Cameroonians are now aware that Chris Anu, Sako Ikome, Elvis Kumeta are cunning individuals who are in this struggle to enrich themselves.  Lest we forget, French Cameroun has the mineral and natural resources of the Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia which it steals to use to corrupt everywhere, including some Ambazonians but the overwhelming majority of Ambazonians have but the love for the Ambazonia fatherland and the personal sacrifices and contributions they are making to recover their territory and their dignity.   With more determination and support, Ambazonia will cease to be French Cameroun’s Alibaba treasured paradise. It will be liberated soon through the contributions and support of its determined citizens.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman/Editor-In-Chief

Sisiku AyukTabe is due to appeal his life sentence in court in April. The leader of the bloody quest for an independent Ambazonia in Anglophone Cameroon told DW about his terms for dialogue with the regime in Yaounde.

“It will be a shame for the international community to wait and come late, as was the case in Rwanda,” Sisiku AyukTabe told DW. The Ambazonian leader sounded the often repeated warning in a written reply to DW from his cell at Yaounde Principal Prison. AyukTabe and nine members of his de facto cabinet had just heard from their lawyers that their appeal case was postponed to April 16. A military court condemned the 10 men to life in prison for terrorism and incitement in August 2019. They had been among scores of separatists who were detained in a brutal crackdown by the regime of President Paul Biya. The separatist movement, AyukTabe told DW, is open to dialogue but on condition that the regime in Yaounde is not at the forefront. A UN-backed mediation process is the only way forward.

In 2017, secessionists declared the Anglophone parts of Cameroon, known also as Southern Cameroons, as an independent nation called Ambazonia ‘An issue of sovereignty’ “Southern Cameroons is fighting for a total and unconditional independence from Cameroon as opposed to the independence by joining [French Cameroon] to which we were lured by the United Nations and the Trusteeship System in 1961,” said AyukTabe. Four years into the separatist struggle, Biya still sees the conflict as an internal matter. His national dialogue for peace was stillborn and his decision to grant ‘special status’ for the English-speaking North West and South West regions rejected. “The Special Status as conceived by the regime of Cameroon’s president, Mr. Paul Biya, is clearly a joke in very bad taste,” said AyukTabe. Biya, he argues, is in no position to confer any status on any portion of the Anglophone regions. “The conflict in Southern Cameroons relates to issues of sovereignty brought about by a botched UN decolonization of the former trust territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom administration.” The people of the region are united and determined to right the wrongs of an aborted independence process and to “restore their sovereignty,” he told DW.

Anglophone separatists leaders were absent from President Biya’s dialogue for peace in September 2019 President Biya’s internal matter Political analyst John Ako agrees that Biya’s interventions to end the crisis to date are laughable at best. “Of what nature is the so called special status in Cameroon? A special status in reality including government officals is known as nothing. In fact there is no substance to the special status.” In the meantime, the bloodshed has continued unabated. An accurate picture of the atrocities and the cost to human life in the Anglophone regions is hard to gauge. The UN puts death toll at 3,000 and the number of internally displaced people at more than 679,000. In November 2016, lawyers and teachers in the region embarked on a series of street demonstrations to demand equal treatment. Their civic action later morphed into frequent running gun battles between the military and separatist fighters. AyukTabe and his followers have been engaged in a full-scale armed separatist struggle since. The bodies have been piling up and residents have been fleeing the most volatile parts of the Anglophone regions as Biya’s army tries to crush the movement. Some 60,000 of them have crossed the border into Nigeria. Over 855,000 children have been unable to attend school amid the fighting and tensions for several years. AyukTabe insists that Biya must withdraw the military from the streets of the regions, free those who have been detained over the conflict. That, and engaging in talks mediated by the UN, would address the root causes of the crisis.

Separatists are arming up Political analyst John Ako warns of the risk that fighting could escalate as separatist fighters, known locally as “Amba Boys” who started with Dane guns have now acquired sophisticated weaponry and experience. “The days are getting darker because these boys have not only gained experience and formal training in neighboring countries, but are bringing sophisticated weapons too,” Ako told DW. Human Rights Watch has reported that the armed separatists have committed untold atrocities in the Anglophone regions.  AyukTabe told DW that the perpetrators were militias who are sponsored by the Biya regime that wants to “demonize“ the separatist movement. “The pace, intensity and gruesomeness of killings has accelerated in recent times. The presence of Ambazonian self-defence fighters is the only thing preventing the complete extermination of the civilian population in Southern Cameroons,” he said. “For the very few self-defence fighters that were foolish enough to heed to Mr. Biya’s call and dropped their weapons, they have been subjected to torture, imprisonment and even summary execution.” Ako says the question of which side is to blame is not that clear cut. “The Ambazonian soldiers are committing a lot of errors. If they miss their target and continue attacking civilians and civilian targets such as churches, markets, or schools, these are war crimes.”

Civilians in Cameroon caught up in separatist battle

An appeal court victory? In the separatist strongholds of Buea and Bamenda, many believe that the release of AyukTabe and other separatist leaders could signal a return to peace. “Let them be released so people can get back to their normal lives because there has been a lot of suffering,” Sangtum Banabas, a 33-year-old commercial motorbike rider, told DW. Tem Hycenth is sad that thousands have died in the Anglophone regions. He wants the two sides to the conflict to make peace for the sake of the people. Taniform Jonas is of another opinion. “Cameroon has no judicial system. It is only Almighty God who will free the detained Ambazonia leaders. I pray that President Paul Biya pardons them so we can have peace again,” the 67-year-old said. As Cameroon reports a rising number of coronavirus cases, concern is growing in the conflict-torn regions and many would like to see an end to conflict sooner rather than later, in order to deal with the outbreak. Ayuk Tabe and the others were arrested in Nigeria in January 2018 and extradited under questionable circumstances. Around seven months later, at a nightlong trial in a military court in Yaounde, he and his co-accused were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The 10 had asylum status in Nigeria at the time of their arrest. AyukTabe and his de facto cabinet have appealed their conviction. The hearing is set for April 16, 2020 in the Yaounde Appeal Court. DW asked barristers what they thought of Ayuk Tabe’s pending appeal case.

President Paul Biya is one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders Diplomacy, not guns Defence lawyer Amungwa Tanyi Nico is sure that the verdict of the military court will ultimately be overturned. It has been a case that is “more political than judicial” being heard in “kangaroo courts,” he said. “We’ve been putting our best as usual in order to get the public to understand that our people can never have justice here because at the court of first instance — the military tribunal  they were supposed to be freed. That court did not have the competence to try people with refugee status.” But Julius Achu, a lawyer for the regime in cases against the separatists, believes the appeals court could amend the military court’s verdict. “The judges take the decision according to their consciences and the law,” he told DW. It is his view that releasing the separatists would have little effect if the fighters who hiding out in the bushes of the Anglophone region fail to disarm. “There’s no government in this world that will ever accept that you take up arms and say we should separate and they accept to separate.”

 Culled from DeustcheWelle