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[New Times] At around 5 pm, scent dogs sniff samples collected from different passengers inside a Covid-19 detection site at Kigali International Airport to identify the virus causing the disease.
A November 26 letter from the presidency asked the head of Uganda's national drug authority to 'work out a mechanism' to clear the importation of the vaccines.
China has about five COVID-19 vaccine candidates at different levels of trials. It was not clear what vaccine was being imported into Uganda.
One of the frontrunners is the Sinopharm vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Product, a unit of Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group (CNBG).
On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates said the vaccine has 86% efficacy, citing an interim analysis of late-stage clinical trials.
China has used the drug to vaccinate up to a million people under its emergency use program.
On Tuesday, Morocco said it was ordering up to 10 million doses of the vaccine.
Record cases
Uganda on Monday registered 701 new COVID-19 cases, the highest-ever daily increase, bringing its national count to 23,200.
The new cases were out of the 5,578 samples tested for the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said in a statement.
Tuesday's tally was 606, the second-highest ever number of new infections, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the east African country to 23,860.
Health authorities have blamed ongoing election campaigns which have drawn huge crowds for the rise in infections.
Staying Afloat Amidst the Devastation
Sudan continues in a state of emergency due to devastating floods from heavy rainfall in the last few months that put several parts of the nation under water. Abdellah Hussein, a resident of Khartoum, shared his dismay, \"My house was destroyed, so were all of the other homes in our neighbourhood, and people are now sleeping out in the open.\"
Another resident of Khartoum, Walid Al Hassan, wonders what the future holds, \"We are so tired and our houses have been destroyed, it will be a problem to rebuild these houses again.\"
International Assistance
To aid victims, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is lending assistance and the United Arab Emirates sent 100 tonnes of relief goods in an emergency flight dispatched from Dubai — by way of a UAE aircraft loaded with large quantities of medical supplies, food and shelter material, such as tents, blankets and tarpaulins, and sanitary materials. \"We stand in solidarity with Sudan following the devastating floods,\" said Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. \"Our sincere condolences go out to the families of the victims and we pray for the swift recovery of the injured. Our thoughts remain with the Sudanese people during these difficult times.\"
Around 100 people have already lost their lives, over 100,000 homes have been destroyed and approximately 500,000 people have been displaced.
A situation that could worsen as more heavy rainfall is expected.
[New Times] With around 1.5 million deaths a year, Tuberculosis is the world's deadliest infectious disease. Over the years, the infection has developed resistance against Rifampicin, a standardized drug that is used to treat Tuberculosis.
Turkey supports the internationally recognised government of Fayez al Serraj.
[ANGOP] Luanda -- Angola president, João Lourenço, left Ghana Wednesday back to Angola following a two-day state visit, during which he developed an intense political and investment agenda for the country.
[Dalsan Radio] Somalia has rejected Arab League position to support Egypt in its dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
TRADE unionist Danny Roberts says countries like Jamaica with weak safeguards against employment termination, high rates of informality, and a heavy dependency on the service sector are likely to lag behind in the economic recovery process in the post-COVID-19 period.
\"Test, test, test\" has been the mantra for defeating the novel coronavirus, but African countries are finding themselves at the end of a long global queue for the chemical reagents and other commodities necessary for administering diagnostic tests, according to public health experts.
Although mass testing is seen as a key component to slowing transmission, African health authorities are struggling to compete with richer, more powerful countries when it comes to procuring the scarce testing material on the global market, notes a new commentary published in The Lancet scientific journal.
Building self-sufficiency
Many African researchers foresaw this scarcity and the consequent need for African countries to be as self-sufficient as possible when it comes to diagnostic tests.
Given the global shortages - particularly the reagents necessary to run polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which remain almost exclusively the basis for diagnosis - African countries need to take two paths forward, suggests Dr. Misaki Wayengera of Uganda's Makerere University.
But there are only a few diagnostics manufacturing facilities across Africa that have developed RDTs and could work on COVID-19 solutions, acknowledged Dr. Moses Alobo of the African Academy of Sciences, who is leading the effort to coordinate elite researchers across the continent.
