Africa Archives - The Gulf Indians https://thegulfindians.com/tag/africa/ Fri, 15 Jan 2021 07:34:30 +0000 en hourly 1 https://thegulfindians.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/fav-100x100.png Africa Archives - The Gulf Indians https://thegulfindians.com/tag/africa/ 32 32 Africa to get first COVID vaccine doses from COVAX in March 2021: WHO https://thegulfindians.com/africa-to-get-first-covid-vaccine-doses-from-covax-in-march-2021-who/ https://thegulfindians.com/africa-to-get-first-covid-vaccine-doses-from-covax-in-march-2021-who/#respond Fri, 15 Jan 2021 07:25:53 +0000 https://www.thegulfindians.com/?p=21580 World Health Organisation confirmed that Africa will get the first COVID-19 vaccine doses in March under the global COVAX effort aimed at lower-income countries obtaining the shots. The announcement came at a time, as deaths on the continent are rapidly rising. Matshidiso Moeti told reporters that a larger rollout of the millions of doses from

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]]> World Health Organisation confirmed that Africa will get the first COVID-19 vaccine doses in March under the global COVAX effort aimed at lower-income countries obtaining the shots. The announcement came at a time, as deaths on the continent are rapidly rising.

Matshidiso Moeti told reporters that a larger rollout of the millions of doses from COVAX is expected by June – the second major vaccine announcement this week for the African continent of 1.3 billion people as infections surge for a second time.

The African Union chair on Wednesday said 270 million doses have been secured from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca via the Serum Institute of India. Doses of the vaccines are expected to be allocated to countries based on population size and the severity of the outbreak, with health workers considered the highest priority after thousands have been infected.

The African continent is now recording about 30,000 new virus cases daily. More than 5,400 deaths were reported last week in Africa. The continent has more than 3.1 million confirmed virus cases as the second wave of infections is hitting hard.

The case fatality rate in Africa is now 2.4 percent, above the global rate of 2.2 percent. Some 20 African countries have case fatality rates above the global average, including Sudan at 6 percent, Egypt at 5.5 percent, Mali at 3.9 percent, Congo at 3.1 percent and South Africa at 2.8 percent.

South Africa,one of the hardest-hit countries in Africa is now dominated by the highly infectious variant of the virus. The country has more than 1.2 million cases including 35,000 deaths.

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]]> https://thegulfindians.com/africa-to-get-first-covid-vaccine-doses-from-covax-in-march-2021-who/feed/ 0 Hunger set to soar as COVID-19 obliterates lives, livelihoods: UN https://thegulfindians.com/hunger-set-to-soar-as-covid-19-obliterates-lives-livelihoods-un/ https://thegulfindians.com/hunger-set-to-soar-as-covid-19-obliterates-lives-livelihoods-un/#respond Sat, 18 Jul 2020 06:55:01 +0000 https://www.thegulfindians.com/?p=7761 People in 25 countries are set to face devastating levels of hunger in coming months due to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. While the greatest concentration of need is in Africa, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in the Middle East and Asia – including middle-income countries – are also being ravaged

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]]> People in 25 countries are set to face devastating levels of hunger in coming months due to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. While the greatest concentration of need is in Africa, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in the Middle East and Asia – including middle-income countries – are also being ravaged by crippling levels of food insecurity, according to the Early Warning Analysis of Acute Food Security Hotspots, compiled by the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, published on July 17.
“Three months ago at the UN Security Council, I told world leaders that we ran the risk of a famine of biblical proportions,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. “Today, our latest data tell us that, since then, millions of the world’s very poorest families have been forced even closer to the abyss. Livelihoods are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate and now their lives are in imminent danger from starvation. Make no mistake – if we do not act now to end this pandemic of human suffering, many people will die.”
To prevent the worst, WFP is scaling up to provide food assistance to an unprecedented 138 million people who face desperate levels of hunger as the pandemic tightens its grip on some of the most fragile countries on earth.
The cost of WFP’s response to this burgeoning food insecurity is estimated at US$ 4.9 billion, with an additional $500 million being earmarked to prevent the outbreak of famine in countries most at risk.
This represents more than half of the updated COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan, the largest appeal in the UN’s history, launched today, for more than US$ 10 billion. The plan covers wide-ranging humanitarian needs in more than 60 countries, many of them already reeling from the impact of conflict, climate change and economic crisis.
The number of acute food insecure people in these at-risk countries could increase from an estimated 149 million pre-COVID-19 to 270 million before the end of the year if life-saving assistance is not provided urgently. Recent estimates also suggest that up to 6,000 children could die every day from preventable causes over the next six months as a result of pandemic-related disruptions to essential health and nutrition services.

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