Login to BlackFacts.com using your favorite Social Media Login. Click the appropriate button below and you will be redirected to your Social Media Website for confirmation and then back to Blackfacts.com once successful.
Enter the email address and password you used to join BlackFacts.com. If you cannot remember your login information, click the “Forgot Password” link to reset your password.
This World Health Day, World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling on everyone to participate in building a fairer, healthier world. Matshidiso Moeti The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on inequalities between countries. Amid shortages of essential supplies, African countries have been pushed to the back of the queue in accessing COVID-19 test kits, personal protective equipment and now vaccines. Of the 548 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered worldwide, Africa only had 11 million or 2%, whereas the continent accounts for around 17% of the global population. There are also inequities within countries. Discrimination based on gender, place of residence, income, educational level, age, ethnicity and disability disadvantage vulnerable populations. Recent data from 17 African countries show, for example, that a person with secondary school education is three times as likely to have access to contraception as someone who has not attended school. Those in the highest economic quintile are five times more likely to deliver their babies in health facilities and have their babies vaccinated with BCG compared to those in the lowest quintile. To improve this situation, we need to act on the social and economic determinants of health, by working across sectors to improve living and working conditions, and access to education, particularly for the most marginalised groups. Communities need to be engaged as partners, through their networks and associations, to shape and drive health and development interventions. A key challenge in overcoming inequities is that there is limited data showing who is being missed and why. To address this, national health information systems need to capture age, sex and equity stratified data. This information can then be used to inform decision and policy-making. At WHO, we are working with countries to strengthen capacities to collect, manage and use data, and to enhance monitoring and action to address avoidable inequities. In the past year we have disseminated technical guidance on gender, equity and COVID-19 and trained 30 country teams in gender and health equity integrated programming. The teams are using skills gained to support equitable health response, including to deal with gender-based violence in the context of COVID-19. Investment is also needed to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage, to protect individuals from financial hardship in accessing needed care and to improve service coverage. Most African countries have initiated reforms in these areas believing that these reforms will in turn contribute to building more resilient health systems and societies. Moving forward, leaders need to work together to address inequities in their own countries and abroad in the spirit of international solidarity. Specifically, on COVID-19 vaccines, we strongly encourage pharmaceutical companies to expand their manufacturing capacities to overcome current supply shortages. We also encourage wealthy countries to share their doses with poor ones, so that the most-at-risk popula
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.
[Chatham House] The continent now has a chance to reshape its relations with the global economy to create greater pan-African prosperity and resilience for future generations.
After winning the 30 December daily Lotto jackpot of R314 000, the anonymous punter collected his winnings this week. The winner used R15 to bet.
www.huffingtonpost.com By Joyce M. Rosenberg and Justin Myers AP Thousands of minority-owned small businesses were at the end of the line in the government’s coronavirus relief program as many struggled to find banks that would accept their applications or were disadvantaged by the terms of the program. Data from the Paycheck Protection Program released Dec. […]
[Capital FM] Nairobi -- China has indicated its willingness to suspend Kenya's debt as part of measures to help developing countries weather the COVID-19 storm.
[Manchester Trade] A Growth Engine for the Next Fifty Years
A digital COVID-19 vaccination passport might be required by airlines, stadiums, workplaces and other establishments.
[MAP] Rabat -- Morocco's experience in the field of renewable energy was highlighted on Thursday during the 1st UK-Africa Virtual Ministerial Symposium, held under the theme \"Opportunities and Challenges of Renewable Energy in Africa.\"
[New Times] The Ministry of Health has promised that it will undertake all necessary precautionary measures to ensure that people are safe while being vaccinated for Covid-19.
[Monitor] The scramble to represent Bukedea District in the 12th Parliament has drawn 11 candidates, all of whom are determined to win the race.
[This Day] In the wake of the recent actions of nation state actors and associated groups in many African countries to subvert civil and digital rights of their citizens, Paradigm Initiative, a pan-African social enterprise working to advance digital rights and inclusion in Africa, has released a short film entitled Training Day as a vehicle to seed major take outs from it's 2019 Digital Rights in Africa Report.
South Africa has started outlining its Covid-19 inoculation plans, despite not yet receiving a single vaccine dose, as it faces criticism over unrealistic targets and a lack of clarity.
[East African] The UK has banned people travelling from 33 countries from entering its territory starting February 15 to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 variant originally identified in South Africa.
BY SILAS NKALA A BULAWAYO company, Green Afrique Technologies, has ventured into processing green tea using zumbani/umsuzwane to promote local herbal remedies for various respiratory ailments. Zumbani recently emerged as one of the most sought-after remedies in the fight against coronavirus. Green Afrique chief executive Anglistone Sibanda said women in Matobo district, Matabeleland South province, his home area, were harvesting the leaves which the company processes into herbal tea. “We are promoting our own local herbal remedies and nutritional boosters,” Sibanda said. “We are working with local communities, doing research and getting local women in Matobo to gather umsuzwane that has become a hit due to its nutritional and medicinal properties. “As a company, we seek to create incomes for local women who are collecting the leaves and drying them, we package, brand and promote them. We are currently working on supplying orders in the United Kingdom and South Africa where people are using it as a home remedy in the fight against COVID-19.” Sibanda, who is a pastor with the Everlasting Gospel of Christ Church, said the herb was abundant in Matobo Hills. The area is also rich in other herbal remedies still under research to establish their medicinal and nutritional properties. “Plants like sourplum (umthunduluka), ukhalimela (Sicoma Anomala), among many others will soon be professionally processed and promoted to compete with the Chinese herbals, the Swiss and the American products,” Sibanda said. “We believe that Africa is endowed with natural resources and vast indigenous knowledge systems that have been untapped and it is high time we promoted them at a global stage for the benefit of local communities.” Sibanda said people had been stampeding for Chinese herbals, ginseng tea, and now the Swiss Apple seeds STC30 and there is no reason why they could not market umsuzwane. He said people forget that Moringa originated in Binga and became a global discovery, with foreign companies now making a killing through products from the tree. “Our education system trained us for servitude. We do not have entrepreneurship skills to see opportunities and create employment. We are all looking for employment opportunities. It is a common trend in most African countries,” he said. “That is why we get employed by Chinese convicts and any rogue European who comes to Africa and sees opportunities on our land. They start a business using our resources and all we want is to get employed by the fellow. I am fighting against that brainwashing and trying to liberate the African church from colonial white supremacist brainwashing.” Sibanda said people ignored their own herbal remedies preferring foreign ones to the extent that an American took the African aloe (inhlaba) to the US, planted it and built a factory to process it and create Forever Living Products, but Africans are busy doing chain marketing of those products. “Now the Chinese have been all over looking for Sourplum tree (Umthunduluka) and taking GIS co-ordinates, paying elders U
(RNS) — The truth is, this is precisely who we are. White supremacy is at the foundation of this country.
Michael B. Jordan, crowned by People Magazine in November as the 2020 'Sexiest Man Alive,' recently announced his launch of the Hoop Dreams Classic, an event featuring HBCU basketball teams and games. Jordan, who has recently added the title of producer to his formidable acting resume, has set Dec. 18,2021 as the debut of the […]
The post Michael B. Jordan announces HBCU Hoop Dreams Classic appeared first on DefenderNetwork.com.
[This Day] Treble production, understand the vaccine, involve WHO.
[allAfrica] Johannesburg -- Twenty-one countries have experienced three consecutive years of zero indigenous cases of malaria since 2000. Ten countries where malaria once raged have been certified free of malaria by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Press Release - The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organisation, as co-leads of the COVAX initiative for equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines, alongside key delivery partner UNICEF, are pleased to publish COVAX’s first interim distribution forecast.
...dons warn FG against mass vaccination plan
• Reps set to revisit bill mandating vaccines for Nigerians
• FG places six-month ban on 100 travel...
Chad's former prime minister Moussa Faki Mahamat on Saturday won a second term as head of the African Union's executive body at the opening of a two-day virtual summit expected to focus on the continent's pandemic response.
