Tag Archives: Africa

WHO granted its first authorization for use of a vaccine against Mpox

mpox-virus-585x420

Important Takeaways:

  • The World Health Organization said Friday it has granted its first authorization for use of a vaccine against mpox in adults, calling it an important step toward fighting the disease in Africa.
  • The approval of the vaccine made by Bavarian Nordic A/S means that donors like vaccines alliance Gavi and UNICEF can buy it. But supplies are limited because there’s only a single manufacturer.
  • WHO also said it was creating an “access and allocation mechanism” to try to fairly distribute mpox tests, treatments and vaccines to the countries who need them most.
  • WHO said that while it was not recommending the vaccine for those under 18, the shot may be used in infants, children and adolescents “in outbreak settings where the benefits of vaccination outweigh the potential risks.”
  • The mpox vaccine made by Bavarian Nordic was previously authorized by numerous rich countries across Europe and North America during the global mpox outbreak in 2022. Millions of doses given to adults showed the vaccine helped slow the virus’ spread, but there is limited evidence of how it works in children.
  • Officials at the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that nearly 70% of cases in Congo — the country hardest hit by mpox — are in children younger than 15, who also accounted for 85% of deaths.
  • Overall, WHO said over 120 countries have confirmed more than 103,000 cases of mpox since the outbreak began two years ago. Its latest tally, as of Sunday, showed that 723 people in more than a dozen countries in Africa have died of the disease.

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Mutating Mpox strain is quickly spreading and doctors are working blind

mpox-virus

Important Takeaways:

  • Scientists studying the new mpox strain that has spread out of Democratic Republic of Congo say the virus is changing faster than expected, and often in areas where experts lack the funding and equipment to properly track it.
  • That means there are numerous unknowns about the virus itself, its severity and how it is transmitting, complicating the response, half a dozen scientists in Africa, Europe and the United States told Reuters.
  • A new strain of the virus, known as clade Ib, has the world’s attention again after the WHO declared a new health emergency.
  • The strain is a mutated version of clade I, a form of mpox spread by contact with infected animals that has been endemic in Congo for decades. Mpox typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions and can kill.
  • Congo has had more than 18,000 suspected clade I and clade Ib mpox cases and 615 deaths this year, according to the WHO. There have also been 222 confirmed clade Ib cases in four African countries in the last month, plus a case each in Sweden and Thailand in people with a travel history in Africa.

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WHO declares Mpox the new Global Health Emergency

Mpox-poster

Important Takeaways:

  • The World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the increasing spread of mpox in Africa is a global health emergency, warning the virus might ultimately spill across international borders.
  • WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in Africa this year, which already exceed last year’s figures.
  • WHO’s emergency declaration is meant to spur donor agencies and countries into action. But the global response to previous declarations has been mixed.
  • Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in a Congolese mining town that can kill up to 10% of people and may spread more easily.
  • Like any infectious disease, the new form of mpox seen in Congo could cross borders — cases have already been identified in four other East African countries.
  • Unlike COVID-19 or measles, mpox is not airborne and typically requires close, skin-to-skin contact to spread.

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Mpox: Africa’s CDC poised to declare for first time ever a “public health emergency of continental security”

Testing-for-Mpox

Important Takeaways:

  • The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has never done anything like this before.
  • Since the beginning of last year, mpox cases have been surging in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with children making up the majority of the 14,000 reported cases and 511 deaths so far in 2024.
  • In the last couple weeks, there’s been a new and alarming development. Mpox has been detected in countries that have never previously identified cases.
  • It is with past health emergencies in mind that Africa CDC is trying to move quickly and garner international support.
  • The World Health Organization has also taken note of the evolving mpox situation. This week it announced that the group is convening an emergency committee to determine whether it will make a similar declaration to that of Africa CDC, designating the situation a public health emergency of international concern. “The committee will meet as soon as possible,” says WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
  • There’s concern about mpox in the U.S. as well. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an mpox health alert this week.

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Price of Rice expected to continue going up as El Nino brings drier conditions to Asia

Bag-of-Rice

Important Takeaways:

  • Rice on cusp of fresh 15-year high in Asia
  • Rice prices are on track for a new 15-year high, threatening to spark more angst in Asia and Africa where the grain is the staple for billions.
  • …an Asian benchmark — has jumped by $57 over the past two weeks to $640 a ton following a period of relative calm, putting prices just short of the highest level since October 2008. That milestone was reached in early August in the wake of sweeping export curbs from top shipper India.
  • Rice is vital to the diets of billions and contributes as much as 60% of the total calorie intake for people in parts of Southeast Asia and Africa. Rising prices have fueled higher inflation in major buyers Indonesia and the Philippines.
  • The onset of El Niño, which typically brings drier conditions to growing areas in Asia, is poised to crimp supply even further. Thailand’s production is set to decline 6% in 2023-24 due to the climate phenomenon, while Vietnam directed some farmers to plant their new crop early warning of drought risks.

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If you don’t think that inflation is going to continue to go higher read this joint statement form Global bank, World Trade, IMF, and the Agricultural Organization

Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’

Important Takeaways:

  • Joint Statement by the Heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Food Program and World Trade Organization on the Global Food and Nutrition Security Crisis
  • Globally, poverty and food insecurity are both on the rise after decades of development gains. Supply chain disruptions, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, financial tightening through rising interest rates and the war in Ukraine have caused an unprecedented shock to the global food system, with the most vulnerable hit the hardest. Food inflation remains high in the world, with dozens of countries experiencing double digit inflation. According to WFP, 349 million people across 79 countries are acutely food insecure. The prevalence of undernourishment is also on the rise, following three years of deterioration. This situation is expected to worsen, with global food supplies projected to drop to a three-year low in 2022/2023. The need is especially dire in 24 countries that FAO and WFP have identified as hunger hotspots, of which 16 are in Africa.

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Africa’s struggle with Drought, War, internal conflict are inflaming the biggest Food Crisis

Deuteronomy 28:1,15“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God

15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:”

Important Takeaways:

  • Africa’s food crisis is the biggest yet – five reasons why
  • Across Africa, from east to west, people are experiencing a food crisis that is bigger and more complex than the continent has ever seen, say diplomats and humanitarian workers.
  • East Africa has missed four consecutive rainy seasons, the worst drought in 40 years, Michael Dunford, the WFP’s East Africa director said.
  • Some 22 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia face high levels of acute food insecurity due solely to the drought, a number projected to rise to up to 26 million by February if the rains again fail,
  • Conflict has long been a driver of hunger. War forces civilians from their homes, livelihoods, farms and food sources. It also makes it dangerous to deliver assistance.
  • The number of displaced people in Africa has tripled over the past decade to a record 36 million in 2022, according to U.N. data. That represents almost half the displaced people in the world. Most were displaced internally within their own countries by conflict.
  • Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, which Moscow calls a “special military operation,” added to Africa’s problems.
  • The crisis distracted wealthy governments’ humanitarian agencies for the first half of this year, said a senior Western government official
  • COVID-19 left Africa facing the strongest economic headwinds in years, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
  • After years of borrowing, countries are struggling to service their debts. According to the IMF
  • African governments have done little to prevent food crises from recurring.

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Food crisis becomes more complex: Head Nurse at FAO questions “Maybe the whole world is hungry and donors are bankrupt”

Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’

Important Takeaways:

  • Africa’s food crisis is the biggest yet – five reasons why
  • Across Africa, from east to west, people are experiencing a food crisis that is bigger and more complex than the continent has ever seen, say diplomats and humanitarian workers.
  • One in five Africans – a record 278 million people – were already facing hunger in 2021, according to data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It says the situation has worsened.
  • Half a million children’s lives are at risk from a looming famine in Somalia, according to the United Nations
  • “Sometimes mothers bring us dead children,” said Farhia Moahmud Jama, head nurse at the pediatric emergency unit. “And they don’t know they’re dead.”
  • “Maybe the whole world is hungry and donors are bankrupt, I don’t know,” she said. “But we’re calling out for help, and we do not see relief.”

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UN security council warns weeks away from global food crisis

Rev 6:6 NAS “And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Zelenskyy’s global food crisis prediction may be 10 weeks away, UN official says: ‘Seismic’
  • “Russia has blocked almost all ports and all, so to speak, maritime opportunities to export food – our grain, barley, sunflower and more. A lot of things,” Zelenskyy said Saturday. “There will be a crisis in the world. The second crisis after the energy one, which was provoked by Russia.”
  • “Now it will create a food crisis if we do not unblock the routes for Ukraine, do not help the countries of Africa, Europe, Asia, which need these food products,”
  • The world has only 10 weeks’ worth of wheat left to deal with the crisis, according to Sara Menker, CEO of Gro Intelligence.
  • “This is seismic,” Menker said during a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “Even if the war were to end tomorrow, our food security problem isn’t going away anytime soon without concerted action.”

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Poland’s push-back policy leaves migrants facing an uncertain future as winter looms

By Joanna Plucinska and Kacper Pempel

Near SIEMIANOWKA, Poland (Reuters) – Somali migrant Abdi Fitah’s bid to cross into Poland from Belarus ended with him barefoot and freezing after he lost his shoes in a river and wandered for days in the woods along the border.

The 23-year-old is one of thousands of people, including children, from the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan who have tried to enter Poland from Belarus in recent weeks, with charities saying they face harrowing conditions on the border.

Jakub Sieczko, a medical doctor and coordinator of the Medycy na Granicy (Medics on the Border) aid group, said he feared there would be more deaths as temperatures drop.

“There are more and more people who are hungry and dehydrated…The conditions are getting worse,” Sieczko told Reuters, adding that many migrants are from warm countries and unprepared for the cold.

Ibrahim, who said he left Somalia 15 days ago, thought he was having a heart attack while walking through the woods with a group of fellow migrants, before receiving medical help for hypothermia at the border.

“The conditions are very cold, (we’re) not wearing shoes,” he said, explaining how he lost his shoes in the river. “The leg is a big problem. I’m not wearing (enough) clothes…(or) shoes.”

He crossed the border with six other Somalis. Three of them ended up in an ambulance due to their health problems, which included a sprained ankle and symptoms of hypothermia.

Four were driven off in a border guard truck. It’s unclear if they went to a detention center or were pushed back to the border.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said Poland is in breach of international law in its efforts to force migrants back into Belarus instead of offering them asylum.

Poland says it is respecting its international obligations while trying to stem the flow of migrants who, it says, often do not want asylum in Poland but rather in western Europe.

The European Union accuses Belarus of orchestrating the flow to put pressure on the bloc in retaliation for sanctions slapped on Minsk over human rights abuses.

MORE AND MORE MIGRANTS

Polish authorities say more than 15,000 attempts to cross the border have been made since early August, mostly by Iraqi, Afghan and Syrian nationals. The attempts have become more frequent and now exceed 500 a day.

Under EU rules, migrants should in principle apply for asylum in the first country they enter, but the bloc is planning reforms to ensure asylum obligations are more evenly spread.

Franek Sterczewski, a Polish parliamentary deputy with leading opposition group Civic Coalition, said more migrants were being turned back by border guards into the woods.

“(The Somali migrants) were sent back to the border seven times,” he said. “They’ve been wandering the forest for weeks, the temperature at night is around zero degrees, it’s raining and it’s very cold. Pushing them back will put their health and life at risk.”

(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Kacper Pempel; Writing by Michael Kahn; Editing by Mike Harrison)