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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) – South African government on Sunday said the sea pollution linked to a spill from a chemical plant attacked during riots in July had caused a serious environmental catastrophe. Rioters ran amok looting and setting structures ablaze in July after former president Jacob Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in jail for snubbing a corruption inquiry. An agrochemical warehouse near the eastern port city of Durban storing chemicals used for making herbicides, […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) – South Africa’s energy regulator on Tuesday approved generating licenses for three controversial floating power plants, stoking environmental concerns as Africa’s most industrialised nation grapples with electricity shortages. Turkey-based Karpowership, one of the world’s largest floating power plant operators, in March won a government tender to supplement South Africa’s fragile electricity supply with gas-to-power projects at three ports. But the environment ministry subsequently blocked Karpowership’s permit application over concerns about the environmental […]
PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa (AFP) – A swarm of bees has killed 63 endangered African penguins on a beach outside Cape Town, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds said on Sunday. “After tests, we found bee stings around the penguins’ eyes,” said the foundation’s David Roberts, a clinical veterinarian. “This is a very rare occurence. We do not expect it to happen often, its a fluke. “There were also dead bees on […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spain on Tuesday extended its ban on arrivals from Britain, Brazil and South Africa until the end of March to avoid the spread of new coronavirus strains. Only legal residents or nationals of Spain and the neighboring micro-state of Andorra are currently allowed in on flights from these countries. The restriction on arrivals from Britain was imposed at the end of December to halt the spread of the highly contagious Covid-19 […]
LYON, France (AFP) — Police in China and South Africa have seized thousands of fake doses of Covid-19 jabs, global police organization Interpol said on Wednesday, warning this represented only the “tip of the iceberg” in vaccine-related crime. The Lyon-based Interpol said 400 vials — equivalent to around 2,400 doses — containing the fake vaccine were found at a warehouse in Germiston outside Johannesburg in South Africa, where officers also recovered fake masks and arrested […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — A South African company is seeking to help solve the logistical nightmare of keeping Covid-19 vaccinations at the ultra-cold temperatures necessary as they are shipped across the continent. Johannesburg-based natural gas producer Renergen is developing an ultra-cold biologic transport freezer for the task as countries throughout Africa plan for rollouts of comprehensive vaccination programmes. The vaccines developed jointly by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech must be stored at […]
by Nina Larson with AFP Bureaus GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The World Health Organization insisted Monday that the AstraZeneca vaccine was still a vital tool in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, after South Africa delayed the start of its inoculation programme over concerns about its efficacy against a virus variant. “It is vastly too early to be dismissing this vaccine,” said Richard Hatchett, who heads the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which […]
PRETORIA, South Africa (AFP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday lashed “vaccine nationalism,” accusing rich countries of bulk-buying coronavirus vaccines and hoarding them to the detriment of others. Addressing the all-virtual 2021 World Economic Forum (WEF), Ramaphosa said low- and middle-income countries were being shouldered aside by wealthier nations able to acquire “up to four times what their population needs”. “We are concerned about vaccine nationalism,” he warned. “Rich countries in the world are […]
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) — The World Health Organization on Thursday urged African countries to improve their capacity to vaccinate populations against Covid-19, warning the continent was still “far from ready” for mass immunization. With three coronavirus vaccines now showing efficacy rates of 70 percent or more, the UN body called on Africa to “ramp up” preparations for “the continent’s largest ever immunization drive”. The African region is so far only 33 percent ready to […]
by Sofia CHRISTENSEN JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — South Africa will roll out the continent’s first coronavirus vaccine trial this week, the university leading the pilot said Tuesday, as the country grapples with the highest number of cases in Africa. The vaccine, developed by the Oxford Jenner Institute, is already being evaluated in Britain, where 4,000 participants have signed up for the trial. South Africa has set out to vaccinate 2,000 people with the vaccine […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) –The number of coronavirus cases in South Africa surged past the 5,000 mark on Thursday after it saw the largest single-day jump to date, health ministry figures showed. A total of 354 new cases were confirmed on Thursday, bringing the overall total to 5,350, and the number of fatalities spiked by 10 to 103. “This is the highest number of cases in a 24 hour cycle recorded to date and represents […]
