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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday said the country had “passed the peak” of its second coronavirus infection wave, allowing for the easing of restrictions ahead of first vaccinations this month. The country hit hardest in Africa had earlier taken delivery of its first shipment of coronavirus shots, paving the way to the first phase of inoculation. Ramaphosa said in an address to the nation that that “first good […]
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) — At least five people were killed in an hours-long Al-Shabaab attack on a Mogadishu hotel which ended around midnight on Sunday, Somali police said. The Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists detonated a car bomb at the entrance to the Hotel Afrik at a busy junction near the airport before gunmen stormed the hotel, exchanging fire with security personnel. Somali police spokesman Sadik Dudishe told a press conference that four attackers had also died. “Among […]
NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) — The African Union has secured an additional 400 million doses of coronavirus vaccines for its members, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said Thursday. This comes on top of an earlier announcement by the AU that it had secured 270 million vaccine doses. Most African countries have not begun vaccinating their populations, lacking the financial means to purchase the drugs which have largely been scooped up […]
MAPUTO, Mozambique (AFP) — A tropical cyclone that hit central Mozambique on the weekend has displaced thousands of people and caused severe flooding in an area battered by two deadly cyclones in 2019, response teams and aid agencies said. Cyclone Eloise made landfall in the early hours of Saturday, bringing high-speed winds of up to 150 km/h followed by torrential rain over the port city of Beira, the capital of Mozambique’s Sofala province, and the […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — The African Union said on Wednesday it had secured 270 million doses of anti-Covid vaccine for the continent, in a deal that will benefit countries unable to finance their own immunization campaigns. Under the deal, the vaccines will be supplied by Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. The doses will complement the vaccines secured via Covax, the globally-pooled vaccine procurement and distribution effort which has struck agreements to secure two […]
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar (AFP) — The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) appealed on Tuesday for emergency aid of $35 million to fight hunger in southern Madagascar, hit by the coronavirus pandemic and a third consecutive year of drought. “Some 1.35 million people are projected to be food insecure — 35 percent of the region’s population,” the WFP said in a statement. “With severe malnutrition rates continuing to spiral and many children forced to beg in […]
CAIRO, Egypt (AFP) — Egypt has approved the use of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinese pharma giant Sinopharm with its rollout to start later in January, the health minister said. “The Egyptian pharmaceutical authority approved on Saturday the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine,” Hala Zayed said late Saturday, on the local MBC Masr channel. The first batch of the vaccine was delivered in December, with further doses expected this month. “The second shipment of this vaccine […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — South Africa has become the first African nation to record one million coronavirus cases, according to new data published by the country’s health ministry on Sunday. Currently suffering a second wave of infections, of which the majority are a new variant of the coronavirus, South Africa is the hardest hit country on the African continent, with 1,004,413 infections and 26,735 deaths, the data showed. As of 1900 GMT, a total […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — South Africa’s health minister has rejected his British counterpart’s claim that a new coronavirus variant in the country is more contagious or dangerous than a similar one in spreading the UK. “At present, there is no evidence that the 501.V2 (variant) is more transmissible than the United Kingdom variant — as suggested by the British Health Secretary,” Zwelini Mkhize said in a statement published late Thursday. “There is also […]
RABAT, Morocco (AFP) — Morocco said Thursday it had ordered 65 million doses of novel coronavirus vaccine, as the North African kingdom prepared to launch a vaccination campaign targeting 25 million people. “Preparations have reached very advanced stages,” Health Minister Khalid Ait Taleb said in a statement on the roll-out plans. “Field exercises covering all stages of the process of vaccinating citizens have been put in place.” A government source confirmed to AFP that […]
NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) — Burundi’s former president Pierre Buyoya has died in Paris of Covid-19 at the age of 71, relatives said Friday, just weeks after he resigned as the African Union’s special envoy to Mali and the Sahel. Buyoya, who was credited with helping push democracy in the small African country but was accused of involvement in his successor’s assassination, was hospitalised in Mali’s capital Bamako on Wednesday, a family member told AFP. […]
by Claire Doyen with AFP bureaus in Africa JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — After being relatively spared by coronavirus, Africa is bracing for the pandemic’s second wave, noting how the microbe has once more cut a swathe through rich countries in Europe and North Africa. The continent’s most-hit nations are again having to contemplate stringent public health measures as they await the arrival of the vaccine cavalry. In South Africa, the start of summer has […]
