Day: April 7, 2022

Abuja, 7 April, 2021 – On a sunny afternoon in Dukpa village, a community at Gwagwalada Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), a 35- year-old housewife Mrs Asia Abdulkarim, was seated on a small stool beside the open firewood stand turning a pot of “tuwo”. (Tuwo is a local delicacy made from guinea corn or corn in the Northern part of Nigeria).

Using the edge of her wrapper to wipe her teary eyes and sweating face, Asia said she uses firewood to cook at least three times a day.

“I have been cooking with firewood for over 20 years every day. I started cooking with firewood when I was young. Cooking with firewood is tedious, the smoke affects my eyes; it makes me cough and I think the smoke is the cause of my chest pain. I wish I had another alternative way to cook, but other means are expensive. My children and I can pick firewood anytime we go to the farm. It is available and cheaper,” she said.

Another housewife, 38 years-old Fatimah Saliu, residing in Dukpa said she also wishes to stop using firewood, but cannot afford it.

“I know there are other alternatives like gas, electric cooker, but my husband cannot afford it. We cook in large quantities. The smoke affects my eyes and I usually have constant cough and chest pain. I use local medicine anytime the cough starts. I have a sister who has been coughing for a while too. She went to the hospital and was advised to stop using firewood if she wants to get better,” she said.

Smoke and health hazards

The stories of Asis and Fatimah are some of the several narratives by women whose lives are being threatened by the harmful effects of inhaling the smoke that comes from cooking with firewood, charcoal, and kerosene: all inefficient, polluting fuels which is a health risk and major contributor to respiratory diseases, natal complications, heart diseases and premature deaths of children.

According to a WHO report, 4.2 million people die from exposure to outdoor air pollution, in addition to the 3.8 million whose deaths are linked to household smoke produced by dirty stoves and fuels.

These solid fuels produce carbon, one of the biggest contributors to climate change after carbon dioxide. Also, the woods for cooking in form of firewood or charcoal contribute to deforestation which in turn have a negative impact on climate change.

Speaking on the negative effect of cooking with firewood, a family health doctor in Abuja, Dr Tolu Omodunbi, said the use of firewood and solid fuel is like a double edge sword which have a harmful effect on the user and the environment.

“For users, the smoke when inhaled affects the lungs and can lead to respiratory and heart diseases. Meanwhile, the smoke particles are deposited in the ozone layer which is still emitted into the environment and inhaled by people. The continuous use of firewood and other solid fuel constitutes dirty air and leads to air pollution which defects some of the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG3 (Good Health and Well-being, SDG 7 – Affordable and clean energy, SDG 11 -sustainable cities and communities and SDG 13 – climate action),” he said.

Message on 2022 World Health Day

Noting that fossil fuels are responsible for most of the harmful emissions linked to acute and chronic sickness, WHO, in commemoration of this year’s World Health Day, is calling for tangible steps to curb their use.

A report released in the lead-up to World Health Day showed that almost the entire global population (99%) breathes air that exceeds WHO air quality limits, and threatens their health.

The findings have prompted the WHO to highlight the importance of curbing fossil fuel use and the need to take other tangible steps to reduce air pollution levels.

The WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, in her message to commemorate the day said this year’s theme serves as a timely reminder of the inextricable link between the planet and our health, as the burden of noncommunicable and infectious diseases rises alongside growing incidence of climate-related challenges

“We cannot afford to lose sight of the fundamental truth that the climate crisis, the single biggest threat facing humanity today, is also very much a health crisis,” she said

Intervention

In Nigeria, WHO has been supporting Nigerian government to strengthen health and environment systems to implement Climate action and Air Quality control measures.

The Deputy Country Representative in Nigeria, Alexander Chimbaru said WHO has facilitated the activation of National Technical Working Group on Climate Change and Health and 45 public health experts were trained on COP26 health sector climate action.

He said “WHO is also providing guidance on the control on black soot air pollution in Port Harcourt Nigeria and has continued to disseminate WHO Air Quality Guidelines to the government at all levels to ensure monitoring of ambient air quality levels is within acceptable limit”.

The World Health Day is celebrated every year on 07 April. The theme of WHD for 2022 is, Our Planet, Our Health, which serves as a timely reminder of the inextricable link between the planet and our health, as the burden of noncommunicable and infectious diseases rises alongside growing incidence of climate-related challenges.

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

Without a single dollar of the $5 billion it requested for its global COVID-19 response approved, the Biden administration’s key program to help vaccinate the world is in danger of grinding to a halt.

Even as the administration marked World Health Day on Thursday with a commitment to build a safer, healthier and more equitable future around the globe, without additional funding from Congress, by September the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will no longer be able to finance Global Vax. The U.S. launched the international initiative in December to deliver shots in arms in 11 countries: Angola, Ivory Coast, Eswatini, Ghana, Lesotho, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

“Without additional funding to support getting shots into arms, USAID will have to curtail our growing efforts to turn vaccines into vaccinations — just as countries are finally gaining access to the vaccine supplies needed to protect their citizens,” a USAID spokesperson told VOA. USAID had initially requested $19 billion for its global vaccination initiatives.

USAID had planned to expand Global Vax to 20 additional countries, but those plans are now on hold.

Without additional funding, the U.S. will also be unable to provide oxygen and other lifesaving supplies around the world, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters earlier this week.

“And our global genomic sequencing capabilities will fall off and undermine our ability to detect any emerging variants around the world,” Zients added.

On Monday, the U.S. Senate agreed to provide $10 billion in supplemental funding for COVID-19 response domestically but did not approve the $5 billion requested by the White House for its global pandemic efforts.

With Senate Republicans insisting that any new COVID-19 spending be paid for with unspent funds from the nearly $6 trillion in COVID-19 legislation that had already been passed, Senate Democrats dropped the international funding request to get the domestic package approved first.

“While we were unable to reach an agreement on international aid in this new agreement, many Democrats and Republicans are committed to pursuing a second supplemental later this spring,” Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who had been leading negotiations with Schumer on the $10 billion COVID-19 domestic response package, said he is willing to explore a fiscally responsible solution to support global pandemic efforts in the weeks ahead.

Airports to arms

Globally, the issue now is not the lack of vaccine doses but the ability of getting them “from airports to arms,” said Krishna Udayakumar, who leads a Duke University team that tracks global vaccine production, distribution and donation.

“How do we make sure that the trained vaccinators are there, the data system, the cold chain, that’s where a lot more money is needed,” Udayakumar told VOA.

The administration has already purchased all of the 1.2 billion doses of vaccines it has pledged to donate around the world. However, without the additional funding, some of them are in danger of expiring in warehouses in the U.S., said global health advocate Tom Hart.

Hart, president of the ONE Campaign, an advocacy organization that fights preventable diseases, said that in his decadeslong career in global health, he has never seen the U.S. reneging on its commitment.

“In the 20 years I’ve been doing this, every time we have pledged to deliver something, the United States has been able to keep that pledge, and it has created enormous goodwill around the world,” Hart told VOA.

But now, U.S. credibility is on the line. “We’ve said with great fanfare that we have these incredibly effective doses. And they are sitting here in America, ready to go to those who need them, and we can’t get them to them,” he said.

The White House said it will continue to work with lawmakers to push for additional international funding.

“We’re not quite there yet,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked by VOA about the fate of those undelivered doses. “And our hope is that we will be able to turn … vaccines into vaccinations.”

Other multilateral programs may have to step in to pick up the U.S. slack, including the COVID Vaccine Delivery Partnership mechanism established earlier this year as the next phase of COVAX, the international vaccine-sharing facility supported by the World Health Organization and health organizations Gavi and CEPI.

“The aim of the partnership is to focus on providing bespoke support for those countries furthest behind in coverage: coordinating efforts around delivery funding, technical assistance, demand planning and political engagement, led by countries themselves,” a Gavi spokesperson told VOA.

The administration would not say whether it is pushing for a separate global pandemic funding package, or one that is attached to potential additional funding for Ukraine and the global food crisis, which could come in weeks or months.

It is also not providing details on when President Joe Biden will host the second global COVID-19 summit, originally scheduled for March. Biden hosted the first summit in September 2021 when he sought to galvanize a robust response from wealthy nations to help vaccinate the world.

Source: Voice Of America

Lilongwe, 7 April 2022- The World Health Organization Malawi Country Office (WCO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health held World Health Day commemoration under the theme ‘Our Planet, Our Health’ at the Ministry of Health headquarters in Lilongwe. The World Health Day commemoration involved a special press briefing which was hosted by the Minister of Health Honorable Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda, MP and Acting WHO Representative in Malawi Dr Janet Kayita and a panel discuss with environmental and health experts.

World Health Day is observed annually on 7 April, since 1950, to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) two years previously. This year’s theme, Our Planet, Our Health, serves as a timely reminder of the complex link between the planet and our health, as the burden of noncommunicable and infectious diseases rises alongside growing incidence of climate-related challenges.

Climate change is manifesting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, changing rainfall patterns, and more frequent and severe extreme weather conditions. WHO estimates that more than 13 million annual deaths globally are due to avoidable environmental causes, including the climate crisis.

Malawi lately experienced heat waves, extreme coldness, drought, and flooding from tropical storm Ana and cyclone Gombe. These extreme weather conditions have caused injuries, flooding, damaged water and sanitation facilities, houses, health facilities and disrupted electricity supply. According to the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA), close to one million people have been affected with close to two hundred thousand of them being internally displaced by floods in 2022 alone. On March 3rd, the Country declared a cholera outbreak.

During the media briefing, Acting WHO Representative in Malawi Dr Janet Kayita highlighted on the impact of climate change in the country and how it has overall disrupted health service delivery.

“As the WHO Regional Director for the Africa Region notes at the end of her message on this year’s World Health Day, the climate crisis, is also very much a health crisis as played out earlier this year in Malawi,” said Dr Kayita.

Meanwhile, a heating world is seeing mosquitos spread diseases further and faster than ever before, with serious consequences for African countries which reported 94% of the 229 million malaria cases recorded globally in 2019. Deaths due to malaria in Africa accounted for about 51% of all malaria deaths worldwide.

The World Health Organization is supporting the Malawi Government to institute strategies for mitigation and adaptation to reduce the impact of climate change. In 2018, African health and environment ministers endorsed the 10-year Libreville Declaration on Health and Environment in Africa, signed in 2008. This is a WHO-supported framework aimed at promoting government investment in addressing environmental problems that impact human health – such as air pollution, contamination of water sources, and ecosystem damage.

With technical and financial support from WHO, Malawi conducted vulnerability and adaptation assessment on climate change, and drafted Health National Adaptation Plans (H-NAPs). WHO is also supporting Malawi to implement Early Warning, Alerts and Response Systems (EWARS) to identify potential risks for climate-sensitive water- or vector-borne diseases in 4 selected districts. Notably, since 2019 seven public health advisories on extreme weather events were developed and are disseminated accordingly requesting communities to follow public health safety measures. Additionally, the Health and Climate Change Core Team (HCCCT), comprised of various government sectors and partners, was instituted in order to provide an oversight and guidance on the implementation of health and climate change in the country.

“The Malawi Government made a commitment to build climate resilient and sustainable low carbon emissions health systems through Conference of Parties (COP) number 26,” said Minister of Health Honourable Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda. “On World Health Day, Malawi reaffirms its commitment to invest in addressing environmental problems that impact human health – such as air pollution, contamination of water sources, and ecosystem damage.”

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

Brazzaville – Up to 65% of Africans have been infected by SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, a World Health Organization (WHO) analysis finds. The study finds that true infections on the continent were 97 times larger than reported confirmed cases.

The analysis, which is available as a pre-print under peer review, synthesized 151 studies published on seroprevalence in Africa between January 2020 and December 2021. It found that exposure to SARS-CoV-2 skyrocketed from 3% (1.0-9.2% range) in June of 2020 to 65% (56.3-73% range) by September of 2021, or 800 million infections compared with 8.2 million cases reported at that time. The study showed that exposure to the virus rose sharply following the emergence of the Beta and the Delta variants.

The analysis revealed that the true number of infections could be as much as 97 times higher than the number of confirmed reported cases. This compares to the global average where true number of infections is 16 times higher than the number of confirmed reported cases.

However, seroprevalence varied widely within and across countries in Africa – higher in more dense urban areas than in less populated rural areas – and between age groups, with children aged 0-9 years having fewer infections compared with adults. Exposure to the virus also varied between countries and Africa’s sub-regions: seroprevalence appears to be highest in Eastern, Western and Central African regions.

The new analysis suggests that more than two-thirds of all Africans have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus. Globally seroprevalence studies have found a significant under-counting of cases occurring across the globe with 45.2% of the world’s population estimated to have been infected with the virus by September 2021. It is, however, difficult to compare figures for Africa with those of other regions, as many of the studies conducted cover different time periods.

The continent differentiates itself from other regions by its high number of asymptomatic cases, with 67% of cases having no symptoms.

“This analysis shows that current reported COVID-19 confirmed cases are only a fraction of the actual number of infections on the continent,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “This under-counting is occurring world-wide and it’s no surprise that the numbers are particularly large in Africa where there are so many cases with no symptoms.”

Seroprevalence studies provide data on asymptomatic or under-reported infections that may have been missed by routine diagnostic testing, which in Africa has focused on travellers and people who came to hospitals with COVID-19 symptoms. While this new analysis provides insight into the evolution of the pandemic, routine testing remains a critical component of the COVID-19 pandemic in all countries.

“Testing enables us to track the virus in real-time, monitor its evolution and assess the emergence of new variants. Countries must ramp up testing, contact tracing and surveillance so we can stay a step ahead of COVID-19,” said Dr Moeti.

As of 6 April 2022, there were 11.5 million confirmed cases and more than 252 000 deaths reported on the continent. It is likely that numbers of actual exposure to the virus have increased even more since September 2021.

Africa has had milder COVID-19 cases compared with other parts of the world because there is a comparatively smaller proportion of people with risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension and other chronic diseases that are associated with more severe cases and deaths. Africa’s youthful population is also a protective factor.

“Despite Africa’s declining infections and high exposure to the virus, we cannot declare victory yet against COVID-19,” Dr Moeti said. “The seroprevalence analysis shows just how much the virus continues to circulate, particularly with new highly transmissible variants. The risks of more lethal variants emerging which overwhelm immunity gained from past infections cannot be brushed aside. Vaccination remains a key weapon in the fight against COVID-19.”

Multiple studies have shown that vaccination for those with prior infection is beneficial resulting in improved protection over infection-induced immunity alone. Africa has to date fully vaccinated 209 million people, or 16% of the population, administering 457 million of the 816 million vaccine doses received. WHO is working to support countries ramp-up vaccination.

Dr Moeti spoke during a virtual press conference today. She was joined by Professor Guéladio Cissé, Coordinating Lead Author, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel, Switzerland, and Dr Irene Owusu Donkor, Postdoctoral fellow, African Postdoctoral Training Initiativeand Research fellow, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Ghana.

From the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Dr Joseph Okeibunor, Team Lead, Research Development and Innovations, Dr Thierno Balde, Regional COVID-19 Incident Manager, Dr Edinam Amavi, Vaccine Safety Officer, and Dr Brama Koné, Technical Officer, Climate Change and Health, were also on hand to answer questions.

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The “Angola – Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband – Statistics and Analyses” report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s offering.

Angola gains additional international broadband capacity

Angola’s telecom infrastructure benefits from a number of submarine cable networks, including the recently expanded 2Africa system. Progress has also been made with terrestrial links. Angola Telecom in May 2021 completed an 800km cross-border cable linking Luanda to Cabinda province, bordering the DRC. The cable has onward connectivity across the DRC.

Liquid Intelligent Technologies and Facebook have also partnered to build a 2,000km network in the DRC which will serve as a hub for connecting to other cables linking to Atlantic Ocean to East Africa. This creates a digital corridor connecting the DRC with Angola and other countries in the region, with work expected to be completed by late 2023.

A separate 600km link connecting Angola and the DRC was completed by Internet Technologies Angola (ITA) in September 2021, providing an additional 200Gb/s of capacity which is expected to result in reduced access prices for end-users. Investment in the cable by Paratus Group was stimulated by the strong growth in broadband traffic and connectivity needs resulting from measures adopted by the government during the pandemic.

In line with these developments, the government has launched a tender for an operator to manage Angola Telecom’s national backbone and metropolitan networks. The new operator of the company’s network infrastructure is expected to improve the quality of services nationally by extending metro fibre networks.

Source: Business Wire

Grace Oluwasanya Research Lead, Water, Climate and Gender, United Nations University

Duminda Perera Senior Researcher: Hydrology and Water Resources, United Nations University

When it comes to water security — a reliable, good supply of safe water — just 29 African countries have made some progress over the past three to five years. Twenty-five have made none.

This data comes out of the UN’s first-ever assessment of water security in Africa. Published by the UN University’s Canada-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health, the assessment used 10 indicators to quantify water security in Africa’s 54 countries. Such an assessment had been done before in the Asia-Pacific region, but never for Africa.

The UN’s concept of water security encompasses various needs and conditions. These include: water for drinking, economic activity, ecosystems, governance, financing, and political stability. Water security, therefore, is not just about how much natural water a country has but also how well the resource is managed.

The assessment is limited by very poor data on some issues — such as access to drinking water or sanitation. It nevertheless offers some preliminary, but obvious, conclusions.

Overall levels of water security in Africa are low. Not a single country, let alone a sub-region, is at the highest “model” stage of water security. The top five countries — Egypt, Botswana, Mauritius, Gabon, and Tunisia — are at best at a “modest” (just above average) stage of water security.

Without water security, people are exposed to environmental and health risks, increased susceptibility to water-related disasters and lack water for economic and social use.

The assessment team hopes that as this quantitative tool develops, it will help generate targeted policy recommendations and inform decision-making and public-private investments toward achieving water security in Africa.

Key findings

The assessment introduced five stages of water security: Emerging (a score of 0 — 45), slight (45 — 60), modest (60 — 75), effective (75 — 90), and model (90 — 100).

Except for Egypt, all countries scored below 70. Only 13 of 54 countries were found to have a “modest” level of water security. Somalia, Chad and Niger appear to be the three least water-secure countries in Africa.

Over a third of the 54 countries had “emerging” level water security, representing a large gap to be closed to reach an acceptable level. These countries are home to half a billion people.

The situation doesn’t appear to be improving very quickly. Between 2015 and 2020, the continent as a whole progressed only by 1.1% based on the indicators.

Examining the indicators

Here is an overview of how countries fared on each indicator.

Access to drinking water

Access to “at least basic” drinking water services ranged from 37% of the population in the Central African Republic to 99% in Egypt. Regionally it ranged from 62% in central Africa to 92% in north Africa. Africa’s average basic drinking water service is 71%. This leaves behind about 29% of the total population, or more than 353 million people.

“At least basic” means access to improved water sources — such as piped water, protected hand-dug wells and springs. These either need to be “safely managed” (accessible on premises, available when needed, and free from contamination) or can be collected in a trip of 30 minutes or less.

Access to sanitation

Access to sanitation — meaning access to, and use of, sanitation facilities and services — was broadly similar at the regional level. There’s an average of 60% access to limited sanitation. This means at least 40% of the total population (483 million people) are left behind.

A few countries — Seychelles and most countries in north Africa — have reached, or nearly reached, 100%. The most challenged countries are Chad and Ethiopia.

Access to hygiene facilities

This indicator refers to access to practices like hand washing. The greatest access was found in north Africa (67%), the least access was in west Africa. Liberia was the lowest in the region with less than 10% access.

Chad and the Central African Republic suffer from the highest number of deaths from diarrhoea, an indicator of ineffective hygiene practices.

Per capita water availability

The amount of water available per person was highest in central Africa, with the Republic of Congo considered Africa’s most water-rich country. At the other end of the spectrum, half of the countries in north Africa appeared to be absolutely water scarce.

Water availability has recently declined in west, central and southern Africa. This was most notable in Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Somalia, Mozambique and Malawi.

Water use efficiency

This indicator assesses the economic and social value. The score is a sum of efficiencies — a measure of how well a country uses the water it has in its economy.

On this basis, water use efficiency appears to be lowest in north Africa (with Somalia lowest at the national level) and highest in central Africa (with Angola highest at a national level).

Water storage infrastructure

Water storage in large dams, measured in volume (m3) per capita, is deemed best in the southern Africa, worst in east Africa.

South Africa, with over 25% of all large dams in Africa, is outscored by Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, likely due to just one mega reservoir in those countries.

Half of all countries score very low, reflecting the continent’s low level of water storage development. Only Ethiopia and Namibia have increased their storage over recent years.

Wastewater treatment

Scores are highest in north African countries, lowest in east and west Africa, where 12 countries in each region treat less than 5% of wastewater. No country treats more than 75%. Only Tunisia, Egypt and Lesotho treat over 50% of wastewater.

Water governance

Governance takes into account the various users and uses of water with the aim of promoting positive social, economic, and environmental impacts. This includes the transboundary level.

Water governance appears to be most advanced in north and southern Africa and least advanced in central Africa.

Nationally, Ghana reported reaching 86% of integrated water resource management implementation in just two years — a significant improvement.

Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, and Comoros are the lowest-performing countries.

Disaster risk

Disaster risk is a measure of the potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets, which could occur to an ecosystem, or a community in a specific period of time.

North Africa appears to be the least risky sub-region (it has less exposure or high ability to adapt), with Egypt the least risky country. West Africa was the riskiest.

Some 49 of 54 African countries have seen increased disaster risk scores over five recent years.

Water dependency on neighbouring nations and water resources variability

Egypt stands out as Africa’s most water-dependent country. It relies on the Nile river which flows through 10 countries — Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, and Sudan — before reaching Egypt. And the southern Africa sub-region has a wide disparity in the available water per year.

Preparing for the future

Our paper calls for a pioneering effort to create global standards for water security measurement data and assessment.

Some critical components of water security simply cannot be assessed without good data. For example, it’s not possible to estimate the percentage of the African population that will have access to safely managed drinking water services or safely managed sanitation by 2030, a key UN Sustainable Development Goal.

Our water security assessment tool is a work in progress, guided by a goal of an influential and nationally-owned tool used by all African countries and that it helps generate targeted policy recommendations and inform decision-making and public-private investments in Africa.

Source: The Conversation