South Africa will host the continent’s first Covid-19 vaccine production facility, as President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday Africa now understood that doses would “never come” from elsewhere in time to save lives.

Ramaphosa joined the World Health Organization (WHO) and French President Emmanuel Macron in announcing the new hub for Messenger RNA coronavirus vaccine technology.

But as the project will take time to get off the ground, no vaccines are expected from it until next year.

At tech transfer hubs, the technology is established at industrial scale, while interested manufacturers can receive training and any necessary licences to the technology.

“The ability to manufacture vaccines, medicines and other health-related commodities will help to put Africa on a path to self-determination,” Ramaphosa told a WHO virtual press conference via video-link.

“It’s been shown now that we just cannot continue to rely on vaccines that are made outside of Africa because they never come. They never arrive on time and people continue to die.”

Hub seen as combating inequality

The hub is seen by the Geneva-based WHO as a way to combat the vast inequality in access to vaccines between the world’s wealthiest and poorest nations.

WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said it could take nine to 12 months before Covid-19 vaccines could be produced in South Africa using tested and approved processes.

Under the tech transfer hub system, the WHO and its partners bring in the production know-how, quality control and necessary licences to enable a rapid roll-out.

At the South African hub, the bio-pharmaceutical company Biovac will act as developer; the Afrigen biotechnology firm will be the manufacturer; and a consortium of universities will provide the scientific know-how.

Messenger RNA genetic technology — as used in the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus jabs — trains the body to reproduce spike proteins similar to those found on the coronavirus. When exposed to the real virus later, the body recognises the spike proteins and is able to fight them off.

The WHO said it would “continue its assessment of potential mRNA technology donors and will launch subsequent calls for other technologies, such as viral vectors and proteins, in coming months”.

Kate Stegeman of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that “Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech must immediately share their mRNA technology with the hub so that many more mRNA vaccines can be produced independently by manufacturers in South Africa and more broadly on the African continent”.

‘Great day for Africa’

During a visit to South Africa last month, Macron said he was pushing for the faster transfer of technology to allow poorer countries to start manufacturing their own Covid-19 jabs.

It was a “great day for Africa,” said Macron.

“Each continent must be able to develop and produce its own vaccines, its own medicines,” he added.

“Action for global public goods is the fight that this century must uphold and the fight that cannot wait.”

South Africa accounts for more than 35 percent of Africa’s total recorded Covid-19 cases, and is currently suffering a third wave of infections.

South Africa, along with India, has been pushing for a temporary waiver of vaccines’ intellectual property rights in order to speed up production.

More than 2.6 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been injected in at least 216 territories around the world, according to an AFP count.

In the highest-income countries, accounting for 16 percent of the global population, 74 doses have been injected per 100 inhabitants.

Source: AFP

Authorities in Cameroon are battling vaccine hesitancy with only eleven percent of doses received since April dispensed most of them due to travel requirements. Cameroon’s government and clergy have been struggling to get the public to accept that the vaccines are safe.

A group of 70 Cameroonian Muslims gathered at the Djoungolo government hospital in Yaoundé Friday to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Coordinator of the Council of Imams and Muslim Dignitaries of Cameroon, Moussa Oumarou says vaccine hesitancy meant he had to convince the group.

He says Cameroon’s government asked the clergy to convince their followers that the vaccines could save their lives.

Oumarou says every religion that puts God first seeks to protect human lives. He says it is both a divine and civic obligation to protect lives by accepting to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Oumarou says the council has asked all Imams and Muslim dignitaries in Cameroon to accept to be vaccinated and to encourage all their faithful to be vaccinated.

Cameroon health officials say only 75,000 people have been inoculated since April, when the government received 700,000 doses.

And most of the doses administered, say officials, went to people who were planning to travel outside of Cameroon, including expatriates.

37-year-old college teacher in Yaoundé Rigobert Fonbanla says many Cameroonians don’t trust authorities’ urging the jab after a COVID funds scandal and seizure of fakes.  

“The same government that is asking people to accept to be vaccinated against COVID-19 is the same government that is investigating the authenticity and origin of the coronavirus vaccines,” said Fonbanla. “There is a possibility that corrupt government officials may have imported fake COVID-19 vaccines or produced dubious COVID-19 vaccines. I will wait for investigations announced by the government to be complete before I can decide whether I will be vaccinated or not.”

Most of a $335 million International Monetary Fund loan to Cameroon to fight COVID disappeared.

Last week at least 15 ministers were called up at the supreme state audit office to justify their management of the funds.

In December, Cameroon announced that its military seized several tons of fake COVID drugs and vaccines from neighboring Nigeria, raising fears that other fakes might be in circulation.

Cameroon’s Health Minister Manaouda Malachie says the COVID vaccines being used are good quality and recommended by the World Health Organization.

He says the vaccines are not obligatory but will be administered freely to all civilians who want to save their lives from the deadly coronavirus. Malachie says Cameroon’s President Paul Biya is very keen to have transparency on all COVID-19 vaccination procedures. He says the state of Cameroon cannot joke with the lives of its citizens.

To encourage Cameroonians to get the jab, hospitals in the northwest region in April said they would wave a usual $2 consultation fee.

In May, Cameroon’s government instructed all its ministers and senior officials to be vaccinated in public.

Source: VOA

 In celebration of World Milk Day on June 1, Bord Bia Africa is hosting a series of in-store and online campaigns throughout Africa to celebrate the health benefits of Irish milk and dairy products.

Bord Bia (The Irish Food Board) is the Irish government agency responsible for the promotion, trade development and marketing of the Irish food, drink and horticulture industry. Headquartered in Dublin, Bord Bia has a network of 15 overseas offices, including Nigeria.

The theme for this year’s World Milk Day campaign is “enjoy milk” and Bord Bia is partnering with Irish agri-food cooperative, Ornua, to help promote milk consumption in Africa for the month of June.

Bord Bia’s Regional Director for Africa, Nicolas Ranninger, said: “Africa is a key market for Irish food and beverage exports and in particular for Irish dairy companies who enjoy a solid reputation for exporting high-quality dairy produce to African countries.

“Ireland is made up of 80 % green fields where Irish cows enjoy a nutritious and natural diet. We are delighted to participate again this year in the World Milk Day celebrations and to communicate on the unique characteristics of Irish grass fed dairy.”

In 2001, World Milk Day was established by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations to recognize the importance of milk as a global food, and to celebrate the dairy sector. Each year since, the benefits of milk and dairy products have been actively promoted around the world, including how dairy supports the livelihoods of one billion people.

Bord Bia’s West Africa manager, Ese Okpomo, who is based in Lagos, Nigeria, said: “For World Milk Day 2021 there is a strong focus on sustainability in the dairy sector. Ireland’s lush green fields, fresh clean air and plentiful rain have created the perfect environment for dairy farming which converts grass into nutrient-rich, premium quality dairy products and ingredients.”

Sustainable practices, she said, are at the heart of Irish dairy farming: Grass fed has always been Ireland’s production system where dairy herds enjoy a minimum of 95% grass and grass-based forage, grazing in open pastures for an average of 240 days per year, during their lifetime. 

She added: “Our aim with this year’s campaign is to drive consumption of Irish dairy outside the more traditional use of cream. We want consumers to enjoy milk in various forms and so we are encouraging consumers to make milkshakes, thereby creating a new consumption occasion for Irish dairy.”

In Nigeria, key social media influencers will be encouraging consumers to create a signature milkshake at home using Irish dairy milk powder and sharing their creations online with the hashtags #mykerrygoldmilkshake  #irishdairy #worldmilkday. The most creative entry to the competition will be rewarded with a six-month supply of Kerrygold milk powder.

There will also be in-store activation including a unique “Irish ranch” where consumers who purchase Irish milk will get to make a sustainable milkshake on a special milkshake bicycle in select malls.

In South Africa, some of the country’s best-loved foodies including influencers Siba Mtongana, The Lazy Makoti, Fatima Sydow, Clement Pedro and Tannie Aletta Francina will be inviting fellow South Africans to participate in the Ultimate Butter Master at-home challenge. The competition invites all butter-loving South Africans to compete in a fun social media challenge where they’ll create or cook one of their favourite, proudly South African dishes, using Irish butter and post their challenge video to social media, tagging @kerrygoldsouthafrica and including the hashtags #UltimateButterMaster #IrishDairy and #WorldMilkDay. The winning recipe will be featured on Woolworths TASTE magazine’s website, taste.co.za, and the bragging rights of being South Africa’s first Ultimate Butter Master.

About Bord Bia ( Irish Food Board)

Bord Bia works to enhance the reputation of Irish food, drink and horticulture, to develop markets for Irish suppliers and bring the taste of Irish food to more tables world-wide. With its headquarters in Dublin, Bord Bia’s extensive overseas presence, coupled with authoritative strategic insight, enables Bord Bia to pursue emerging opportunities and actively respond to significant market issues that affect the industry.

About Irish dairy farming

The Irish dairy sector is still predominately farmer owned and controlled in Ireland and the 16,000 dairy farmers in Ireland (representing 95% of the milk produced in Ireland) are all members of the Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme (SDAS), a voluntary scheme operating under Bord Bia’s Origin Green, Ireland’s national food sustainability programme.

Cameroon rights groups, opposition parties and local media are asking the government to publish its findings after most of a $335 million loan from the IMF could not be accounted for.  At least 15 officials have appeared before commissions of investigation.

 A government statement read on Cameroon state media Monday calls on civilians to remain calm as investigations on missing funds continue.  The statement from government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi states that justice will take its course.

 The statement comes after Cameroon rights groups and opposition asked the government to explain what happened to about $335 million loaned by the International Monetary Fund to fight COVID-19.

Cameroon says within the past week, 15 ministers have appeared at the audit bench of the Supreme Court and a special criminal tribunal to account for the funds.

Joseph Lavoisier Tsapy is legal adviser to the opposition Social Democratic Front Party and a member of the Cameroon Human Rights League.

Tsapy says the Cameroon Special Criminal Tribunal should have ordered their arrest after the audit bench of the Supreme Court found out that some ministers stole COVID-19 funds. He says the money should have been invested to save lives and assist suffering people. He says he wants to make it clear that government ministers in Cameroon do not have immunity like lawmakers.

In June 2020, SDF lawmakers complained that the awarding of COVID-19 contracts did not respect procurement procedures and gave room for massive corruption. 

Local media like Equinox Radio and TV, Roya FM reported gross cases of embezzlement.

 In one case, the Ministry of Scientific Research received $9 million to produce the drug chloroquine. The ministry instead bought chloroquine amounting to 30 percent of the funds from China.

Other cases involve overbilling and failure to render services or provide supplies after payment.

André Luther Meka speaks for the ruling CPDM party, to which all of the ministers called up for questioning belong.

Meka says Cameroonians should stop asking for ministers to either be punished or to refund COVID-19 funds. He says Cameroon considers all suspects innocent until found guilty by the law courts. He says Cameroon President Paul Biya has a strong political will to punish everyone who has either mismanaged, embezzled or siphoned state money.

Angelbert Lebong is a member of the Cameroon Civil Society. He says President Biya should explain to the Cameroonian people how his government has managed the COVID-19 funds.

He says Biya should for once speak out against embezzlement and publicly condemn his collaborators who have stolen COVID-19 funds. He says Cameroon has more serious life-threatening issues to handle than the heavily publicized receptions Biya gives diplomats in his office.

Last month, Human Rights Watch urged the IMF to ask Cameroon to ensure independent and credible enquiry on the management of COVID-19 funds before approving a third loan.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Cameroon in March 2020, the IMF has approved two emergency loans to the central African state totaling $382 million.

Source: VOA

Mengueme says she is making it clear that mentally ill patients should not be removed from the streets as refuse. She says local councils in Cameroon have social affairs services that will assist in the treatment of all abandoned mental health patients in the company of family members. Among those listening to Mengueme is 49-year-old secondary school teacher Theresia Mbiteh. Mbiteh says her 19-year-old son became violent in the English-speaking northwestern town of Bamenda in 2017. She says his son began taking illegal drugs when separatist fighters prohibited children from going to school.

“I have done a lot, many people can testify. He escaped from here (Cameroon} and trekked to Nigeria,” said Mbiteh. “A person picked (found) him in Nigeria, called me one day after six weeks of his stay there and then told me. I had to borrow money to go collect him from Nigeria. When I brought him back here I thought things were going to be better, but nothing changed.” “There are several reasons why people who are developing mental illnesses are increasing,” said Ngwen. “Some of them are very eminent including the sociopolitical crisis in the northwest region, the southwest region and the Boko Haram crisis in the north. This has given an opportunity for a lot of abuses, violence and trauma and these traumas can result to the development of mental illnesses. We also have schools where teenagers are using a lot of drugs and all these drugs are contributing to the development of mental illnesses.”

Frankline Ngwen is supervisor of the mental health department of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services. He says abuse and trauma from the various crises Cameroon faces has led to an increase in the number of psychiatric patients. Traditionally, many Cameroonians believe that mental health crises are divine punishment for wrongdoing. Some say witchcraft or spiritual possessions are responsible for mental illness.

The health ministry reported that the number of abandoned psychiatric patients increased from 50 to more than 300 in Yaounde within two years. At least 2,700  patients are on the streets all over Cameroon with more than 400 in the commercial capital city Douala. Cameroon counted 1,300 such patients in its territory in 2019. Mbiteh said she travelled from Bamenda to Yaounde when Cameroon state radio reported that the government was helping families take their loved ones off the streets.

“They should not be beaten. Patients with psychiatric conditions should not be tied up. Some kind of brutal force should not be meted on them,” said Fonbe. “We encourage families to avoid taking them to places where they think that they {pastors} will just pray for these patients and they get miracle healing or to traditional healers who will think that they will do some concoctions and these patients will get well. This is our message to all the families and all the communities.” Fonbe Hedwick runs Living Vine Mental Health Center in the English-speaking northwestern town of Bamenda. He is part of the campaign to remove mental patients from the streets. Fonbe says some patients are escaping from the homes of African traditional healers and Pentecostal pastors who abuse them, claiming that they are chasing evil spirits.

The health ministry is asking family members to take relatives with mental health problems to hospitals for treatment. Source Fonbe said with the arrival of the coronavirus in Cameroon in March 2020, many families have lacked the resources to care for psychiatric patients at home, putting them on the streets.

Source: Bollyinside

At a local Covid-19 vaccination center in Yaoundé, Cameroon just a few people have come to get the jab. Among them is Menan Germain an expatriate.

After learning about the procedure, he is ready to be injected with the Chinese dose, called Sinopharm. For him, taking this vaccine is a matter of trust.

Despite the struggle to get an appointment, Germain finally got through.

“We can’t destroy a whole population, so I’m confident about the vaccine. I tell myself that it is a safe product, otherwise it would not be put it on the market”, Germain said.

Like him, other Chinese expatriates have been jabbed here. Unfortunately, no Cameroonian in sight. 90% of those who come for the vaccines are non-citizens.

Chinese and the nationals of other countries were counted among those who received their dose during this first vaccination campaign, and according to a source at this regional vaccination center, Cameroonians were in the minority of those who took the vaccine.

For the few Cameroonians who come to be vaccinated, it’s only for travel reasons. As a result, out of the 700,000 doses that the country has received, only 45,000 people have been inoculated.

Dr. Shalom Tchokfe Ndoula is Permanent Secretary of the Expanded Program of Immunization of Cameroon (EPI).

“We vaccinated more than 45,000 people in Cameroon for the first phase of our vaccination campaign. In reality, this did not reach our maximum capacity to offer services, which means that we could have vaccinated more for the same period”, Dr. Tchokfe Ndoula said.

He said they’ve hardly reached the 10% of the expected numbers for this first month of vaccination. According to the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), the low number of vaccination centers in the country, is due to the fact that social media users have managed to make Cameroonians believe that the Covid-19 vaccine is dangerous for people of color.

As a result, vaccination centers are empty and on the street, Cameroonians openly express their opposition to this vaccine. This is the case of Guillaume Paul Mouté, a believer in medicinal herbs.

‘’I find the vaccine very controversial. Because for most of the time for a vaccine there should be time, there is not enough time and barely 6 months we start to vaccinate people. When you go to the hospital you don’t find BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guérin, a vaccine for Tuberclosis disease), nor any other vaccine, but you find this one. Why do we give it so much importance?”, Paul Mouté queried.

Mass sensitization campaign

In addition to these poor results, an internal EPI survey revealed that 37% of doctors and medical staff are unwilling to receive any vaccine, casting doubt on its reliability.

The situation has prompted the EPI to review its strategy through a mass sensitization campaign, even if it means employing door- to- door campaign to explain to the population about the safety of the vaccines.

The campaign comes at a time when a report of the Cameroonian Chamber of Commerce has found authorities and ministers guilty for dubiously mismanaging funds intended for the fight against Covid -19 in this Central African nation.

While the country awaits a third shipment of vaccines to arrive, the program is concerned about what will happen if the first tranche is not utilized.

Source: Africa News

Ireland’s health authority said Friday it had shut down its computer systems after experiencing a “significant ransomware attack”, a week after the largest US fuel pipeline network was also targeted.

The Irish attack was blamed on international criminals and was said to be targeting healthcare records.

Officials said patient safety was not at risk however the Health Services Executive (HSE) said it is currently unable to make referrals for coronavirus testing.

Government minister Ossian Smyth told RTE it is “possibly the most significant cybercrime attack on the Irish State”, calling it an “international attack” but “not espionage”.

“These are cyber criminal gangs, looking for money,” he told Ireland’s state broadcaster.

Shut down all IT systems

The HSE said it shut down all its IT systems as a precaution but said the country’s coronavirus vaccination programme was unaffected, as were emergency service calls.

But the referral system used to book Covid-19 tests was down.

Health minister Stephen Donnelly said the attack was having a “severe impact” but “individual services and hospital groups are impacted in different ways”.

On Twitter he claimed that “Covid-19 testing and vaccinations are continuing as planned”.

Liz Canavan, a top official in prime minister Micheal Martin’s office, said the outage was also affecting child protection services, which are hosted on HSE servers.

She urged people needed urgent treatment to attend hospital as normal but HSE chief operations officer Anne O’Connor warned of disruption if the outage continued.

“If this continues to Monday we will be in a very serious situation, and we will be cancelling many services,” she said.

Another ransomware attack last Friday forced the shutdown of the United States’ largest fuel distribution system, leading to some panic buying at gasoline stations along the east coast.

Moscow has rejected US accusations that a Russia-based group was behind the cyberattack.

Ransomware attacks use a type of malware that encrypts files on an infected computer, normally via an email attachment or download, and demands money to unlock them.

“We are at the very early stages of fully understanding the threat,” said HSE chief executive Paul Reid.

The authority was working with police, the army and its major IT security providers to “contain” the attack, he added.

‘Industrial-scale vandals’

The Rotunda maternity hospital in Dublin said that “due to a serious IT issue”, it was only admitting emergency cases and women who are at least 36 weeks pregnant.

Hospital chief Fergal Malone said the attack had targeted computers storing patient records.

Life-saving equipment is operating fine, “there’s no problem for patient safety”, and the hospital has switched to backup paper records, he told RTE.

“But obviously throughput will be much slower,” he said, urging out-patients with routine appointments to stay away.

The HSE said the attack was an adaptation of ransomware known as “Conti”, in which hackers have already compromised a computer system and lie low until springing their trap.

Health care institutions have been frequent victims of ransomware attacks. In Los Angeles, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center revealed in 2016 it paid $17,000 to hackers to decrypt important data.

Last October, it emerged that the then-CEO of Finnish company Vastaamo had covered up a data breach that exposed the confidential treatment records of tens of thousands of psychotherapy patients.

Many patients reported receiving emails with a demand for 200 euros ($240) in bitcoin to prevent the contents of their discussions with therapists being made public.

In 2017, the United States and Britain blamed North Korea for the “WannaCry” ransomware attack that infected some 300,000 computers in 150 countries, including one-third of British hospitals.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab this week called for a global effort to counter online threats as he slammed countries including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea over cyberattacks.

Authoritarian states “are the industrial-scale vandals of the 21st century”, he said.

Source:AFP