Africa CDC calls for vaccine production transparency
Global pharmaceutical firms should license production of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa rather than just do piecemeal contract deals, an African Union special envoy said on Thursday.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says Algeria and Tunisia are experiencing a 4th wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has on Wednesday welcomed an announcement of a collaboration between South Africa’s Biovac Institute and the global pharmaceutical producer Pfizer as a breakthrough in the protection of African nations against COVID-19
Zimbabwe's government on Tuesday ordered that all its workers should receive a COVID-19 vaccine and only 10% of civil servants report for duty, with the rest working from home in a bid to curb the spread of the pandemic.
With COVID-19 cases surging across Senegal, Pape Gueye made the difficult decision to spend the first Eid al-Adha of his life apart from his 88-year-old mother.
Nigeria has placed its capital Abuja and six other states on high alert following the emergence of the Delta variant of coronavirus infections in the country.
Nigeria has put six states on red alert after seeing a "worrisome" rise in COVID-19 infections, a government official said, urging people to curb gatherings and hold prayers outside mosques during this week's Muslim festival Eid-el-Kabir.
The ministry of health in Botswana says there has been a delay in the arrival of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the country.
African countries need to get equal access to COVID-19 vaccines so they can start rebuilding their devastated tourism industries, Kenya's tourism minister said on Friday.
The World Health Organization says Africa recorded a 43% jump in COVID-19 deaths last week. Infections and hospital admissions have risen and countries face shortages of oxygen and intensive-care beds.
In Charles Nicolle Hospital in the Tunisian capital, the emergency department is filled with patients who are sharing oxygen in rooms and even hallways.
Zimbabwe is aiming to vaccinate 1 million people against COVID-19 in the next two weeks, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Tuesday as he extended tough lockdown measures by another 14 days.
More than five million people in Kenya's informal sector, the country's largest employer, have lost their jobs since March 2020 when Kenya first declared its first positive case of COVID-19 and instituted stringent measures to control its spread, according to the Federation of Kenya Employers.
Newly appointed Algerian Prime Minister Ayman Benabderrahmane is infected with COVID-19, Algerian state TV said on Saturday.
Construction of a new plant in Senegal to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines is expected to begin later this year, and the facility should produce 25 million doses per month by the end of 2022, the financers of the project said on Friday.
Zimbabwe received two million COVID-19 vaccines from China's Sinovac on Thursday. It is the single largest shipment which is expected to boost a vaccination campaign that had been slowed by shortages while infections and deaths rise.
The global vaccine distribution scheme COVAX aims to deliver 520 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa this year, its managing director said, with supplies ramping up from September after delays caused by Indian export restrictions.
Hotel occupancy rose to 35-40% in Egypt's Red Sea resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada in the first six months of the year, from 20-23% a year earlier, a tourism official said on Tuesday.
Egypt's cabinet eased guest limits for hotels, restaurants, cinemas and theatres to 70% of their capacity from 50% at present as coronavirus infections slow, a cabinet statement said.
The World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO-AFRO) says the Vaccines Learning Agenda team is building a dynamic database of valuable information for African countries, and is set to create case studies on a range of positive vaccine experiences and overcoming risks and challenges.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced several truths about the detrimental effects of Africa being over-reliant on western and international stakeholders to solve its health challenges and using western solutions to Africa’s health problems.
Police in Uganda are on the hunt for a man who posed as a doctor to sell and administer fake coronavirus vaccines to hundreds of people, authorities said on Thursday.
WHO Africa regional director, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, told a virtual media briefing that the Delta variant is now in three of the five countries reporting the highest caseloads for the week ending 27 June.
The United States will begin shipping the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines it has donated to Africa from this weekend, a special envoy of the African Union said on Thursday, as the continent sees a surge in cases fuelled by variants.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the current rise in COVID-19 cases in Africa is "extremely worrying" as more countries record increases in cases.
The African Union has criticised an EU decision not to include Covishield, a version of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine used by the global COVAX facility, on a list of approved vaccines for a digital certificate meant to ease travel in the bloc.
Nigeria is adding South Africa to its "red list" of countries for which there are stringent restrictions for arriving passengers, officials said during a briefing on Monday.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it is worried about recent developments that the COVID-19 Delta variant that was first detected in India is spreading rapidly across Africa.
Namibia will from Tuesday temporarily suspend administering first doses of COVID-19 vaccines as supplies run low, a health ministry memo seen by Reuters showed.
South African biotech start-up, Afrigen Biologics, expects a final decision to be made mid-July on who its partners would be as it gears up to produce Africa's first COVID-19 vaccine using the mRNA platform.
