Author: anadmin

Monrovia,10th September 2021: To better detect acute public health events with pandemic potential and to monitor disease control measures on a real time basis, the National Institute of Public Health in Liberia (NPHIL) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) with support from World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a three-day workshop on Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources (EIOS).

The three-day workshop held from September 8-10, 2021, brought together 40 participants from MOH, NPHIL, Ministry of Defense, AFENET, WHO and was facilitated by EIOS experts from WHO AFRO. The virtual and in-person meeting was held under strict observance of COVID-19 protocols.

The EIOS initiative is a unique collaboration between various public health stakeholders that brings together new and existing initiatives, networks and systems to create a unified all-hazards, One Health approach to early detection, verification, assessment and communication of public health threats using publicly available information. EIOS is an important aspect of Event Based Surveillance as emphasized in the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) strategy. The system builds on a long-standing collaboration between WHO and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) to develop a system for public health intelligence with an ultimate goal of saving lives through early detection of threats and subsequent interventions.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Zabulon Yoti, acting WHO Country Representative in Liberia said early detection is key for timely response, contributes to the overall global health security, and ensures that populations are better protected from the effects of health emergencies.

“I wish we had better tools before the 2014 Ebola outbreak to have picked up the outbreak and responded early; we could have avoided the catastrophic effects Ebola had on Liberia some of which the country is still trying to recover from today.” Dr. Yoti added.

Speaking during the official closing ceremony, Hon. Jane MaCaulay, the Director General of NPHIL thanked the WHO team from both the country office and AFRO for making this training available to Liberia. “When we heard of COVID-19 in Wuhan, we started our preparedness for an effective response to the outbreak, which has contributed to the low numbers we are seeing as a country.” She said.

The EIOS system is aimed at consolidating a wide array of endeavors and platforms to build strong Public Health intelligence (PHI) communities supported by robust, harmonized, and standardized PHI systems and frameworks across organizations and jurisdictions.

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

Juba, 14 September 2021 –South Sudan received its first consignment of 152,950 doses of the Johnson & Johnson ‘Janssen’ COVID-19 vaccines today. These single dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines are the third batch of vaccine shipments to South Sudan through the COVAX Facility.

The first batch of AstraZeneca vaccines were shipped through the COVAX facility to South Sudan on 25 March 2021 and the second batch of 59,520 AstraZeneca vaccines donated by France arrived on 31 August 2021 and a donation from Sweden is slated for arrival soon.

The COVAX Facility is a global partnership comprised of Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, UNICEF and WHO, that aims to ensure all countries can equitably access COVID-19 vaccines.

“Thanks to the United States Government, the vaccines will ramp up the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination programme to prevent COVID-19 in individuals 18 years of age and older”, said Minister of Health Hon Elizabeth Achuei. “The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the second vaccine in South Sudan’s programme, while the double-dose AstraZeneca vaccines have already been administered in the country.”

The arrival of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine means that the country has now received a total of 271,200 COVID-19 vaccine doses that are for providing protection against this global COVID-19 pandemic. So far, 120,000 AstraZeneca vaccines had been provided through COVAX. As of Sunday, 12 September, 76,207 having received their first dose while 17,588 persons have been fully vaccinated with two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Thus, 1.3% of South Sudanese adults have received at least one dose while only 0.30% are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

“The Johnson and Johnson vaccines that arrived today in South Sudan will offer an important contribution in the roll out of COVID vaccines by the convenience of a one-shot dose, this will help to reach hard to reach areas of South Sudan and further accelerate the journey back to normalcy. Protecting health workers, teachers and other delivering key social services is key to secure the continuation of services for children. We thank the US government and the COVAX facility. This delivery demonstrates the power of partnership,” said Jesper Moller, UNICEF Deputy Representative.

“Along with other public health measures, vaccines are a vital and powerful tool to win the fight against COVID-19. The arrival of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines is crucial to increase coverage and prevent COVID-19”, said Dr Fabian Ndenzako, WHO Representative a.i. in South Sudan.

While people are waiting to be vaccinated, everybody must contribute to stop the spread of the disease in South Sudan. This means adhering to the simple, yet very effective public health COVID-19 disease prevention measures such as keeping 2 meters distance in public places, wearing face masks and practicing good hand hygiene.

Note for the editors:

About COVAX

COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, is co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance Gavi) and the World Health Organization (WHO) – working in partnership with UNICEF as key implementing partner, as well as civil society organisations, vaccine manufacturers, the World Bank, and others.

About CEPI

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organisations, launched at Davos in 2017, to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. CEPI has moved with great urgency and in coordination with WHO in response to the emergence of COVID-19. CEPI has initiated ten partnerships to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus. The programmes are leveraging rapid response platforms already supported by CEPI as well as new partnerships.

About Gavi

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunise a whole generation – over 822 million children – and prevented more than 14 million deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 developing countries. Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningitis and yellow fever vaccines.

About WHO

The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.

For updates on COVID-19 and public health advice to protect yourself from coronavirus, visit www.who.int and follow WHO on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest,

Snapchat, YouTube.

About UNICEF

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone. For more information about UNICEF and its work for children, visit www.unicef.org. For more information about COVID-19, visit www.unicef.org/coronavirus.

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

The tourist site Elonda, located in the northern suburbs of Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, has been hosting since this morning of Monday, September 13, 2021, the work of the training workshop for executives of the Ministry of Health and Population (MSP ) and harmonization of educational content as a prelude to the training of stakeholders in 93 health areas of the 2020-2021 Operational Strategy, jointly adopted and implemented by the Ministry of Health and Population and the Office of World Health Organization (WHO) in Congo.

The work of this workshop follows on from the recommendations of the joint planning workshop for priority activities for the second semester of the 2020-2021 operational strategy, held in Ouesso in the Sangha department from July 12 to 16. This work was officially opened by Dr Ludovic Gnekoumou, Technical Advisor representing the Minister in charge of health and population, in the presence, among others, of Prof. Germain Monabeka, Director General of Health Care and Services (DGSSSa), by Dr Hamadou Nouhou, Program Coordinator at the WHO office in Congo, delegate of the Resident Representative, Dr Lucien Manga.

The workshop aims to strengthen the pedagogical skills of managers at the central level, with a view to building a pool of trainers and supervisors of actors at the operational level in the areas of local governance and the provision of care. Specifically, it will make it possible to: i) develop the learning objectives of decentralized training; ii) identify and list the training materials by module; iii) adapt the training modules to be given by area in the form of a trainer’s manual; iv) determine or estimate the duration of training by theme and by module; v) develop the pedagogical approach to be adopted during decentralized training.

To this end, Dr Nouhou, in his remarks for the occasion, specified: “this training will allow trainers to acquire the tools necessary to train the actors of 93 health areas on the 4 priority areas which are: the minimum package of activities, drug management, epidemiological surveillance and health information system and community participation in order to increase health care and services ”.

For his part, Dr Gnekoumou recalled the Congo’s adherence to the implementation of the “Triple billion” objectives defined within the framework of the thirteenth General Work Program of the WHO, and which places particular emphasis on strengthening the optimal functioning of the integrated district health system. He also recalled the orientation of the Minister in charge of health and population, on the need to fill the void in normative documents relating to the development of health areas as part of improving the quality of providing care, strengthening community participation and managing resources including drugs.

He concluded his remarks by indicating the expectation by the Cabinet of the Minister of two deliverables: “the internalization and harmonization of the educational approaches of the trainers of the actors who will be deployed in the next few days at the operational level, as well as the production of documents. teaching in the targeted areas (establishment or strengthening of community participation bodies, management of health information, including epidemiological surveillance, financial management including management of drugs and PMA) ”./-

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

The Green Light Committee (GLC) Initiative, together with the Working Group on MDR-TB, promotes implementation of the component two of the Stop TB Strategy that calls for the control and prevention of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) through: (i) increased access to quality-assured second-line anti-TB drugs; and (ii) prevention of development of resistance to anti-TB drugs in accordance with the Global Plan to Stop TB (2006–2015) and the Global MDR/XDR-TB Response plan (2007–2008).

It was established in 2000, and enables countries access to affordable, high-quality, second-line anti-TB drugs for the treatment of MDR-TB. Its main Objectives include ensuring effective treatment of patients with MDR-TB in accordance with guidelines published by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the programmatic management of MDR-TB; increasing access to technical assistance to facilitate rapid scale-up of MDR-TB management; increasing access to high-quality, low-cost, second-line anti-TB drugs for the treatment of MDR-TB among well-performing programmes; preventing the development of resistance to second-line anti-TB drugs by ensuring rational drug use and advising WHO on policy-related matters to effectively prevent and control MDR-TB based on the best available scientific evidence. The Initiative is coordinated by the GLC Secretariat, which is hosted and administered by WHO. The Global Drug Facility (GDF), an arm of the Stop TB Partnership, which is also hosted and administered by WHO, carries out drug procurement for GLC-approved programmes. Technical assistance to MDR-TB programmes is coordinated and delivered by WHO and its technical partners.

Eritrea conducted Green Light Committee monitoring mission during 9-18 August and 20-31 August 2021 by two TB experts namely TB Laboratory and TB Programmatic expert respectively. The main objective was to assess the TB/DR-TB program implementation, evaluate current achievements and sustainability of the program, and develop recommendations for future activities. Furthermore, annual monitoring missions are one of the conditions for implementing the Green Light Committee (GLC)-approved treatment programs for drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), especially those financed from the Global Fund grants where Eritrea is funded from.

During the debriefing on 30th August 2021 that was attended by the Director of Communicable Disease Control, Dr Araia Berhane, Sr Hiwet Negusse, TB Unit Head, Dr Assefash Zehaie, WHO/ATM and focal persons of MDR-TB center, TB National Health Laboratory, National Medicine & Food Administration and Procurement Supply Management System.

Findings showed that Eritrea has achieved much that includes a new TB national strategic plan (NSP) 2021-2026 recognizes the need to ensure universal health coverage and the public health importance of DR-TB in Eritrea. The political commitment was strong as evidenced by government funding to most TB and RR/MDR-TB services, clear PMDT guidelines with identified key populations for TB, case finding strategies, treatment strategies, 2nd line anti-TB drug supply and recording and reporting. Identified key populations for active TB screening were children, persons with diabetes, nomads, miners, prisoners, elders and people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the country adopted the universal use of Gene Xpert for all presumptive TB cases. Then recommendation, implementation plan with timeline was also delivered.

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

Luanda- Angola on Tuesday recorded 579 patients recovered, 309 new cases and 7 deaths in the last 24 hours.

According to the daily bulletin, 535 people recovered reside in Luanda, 20 in Bié, 16 in Huambo, 3 in Moxico, 2 in Cunene, 2 in Namibe and 1 in Lunda Sul.

Among the new cases, 192 were diagnosed in Luanda, 53 in Cabinda, 21 in Huambo, 16 in Namibe, 6 in Malanje, 6 in Uige, 6 in Zaire, 4 in Bié, 3 in Moxico, 1 in Bengo and 1 in Cuanza Norte.

With ages ranging from 1 to 88 years old, 190 are male and 119 are female patients.

The deaths were registered in Bié, with 2, Cabinda with 2, Cunene with 1, Malanje with 1 and Luanda with 1, respectively.

In the last 24 hours, laboratories processed 2,469 samples.

In the treatment centres, 282 patients are hospitalised, while 200 citizens are in institutional quarantine and 1,702 contacts of positive cases are under epidemiological surveillance.

Angola has 51,047 cases, of which 1,358 have died, 45,413 have recovered and 4,276 are active. Of the active ones, 29 critical, 46 serious, 151 moderate, 71 light and 3,979 asymptomatic.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – The Angola and United Arab Emirates Chamber of Commerce and Industry today invited Angolan businesspeople to take part from 13 to 15 October, of this year, in a business platform called “Global Business Forum Expo2020Dubai.

The invitation was presented by the chairman of the Angola and United Arab Emirates Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Bráulio Martins, on Tuesday in Luanda, during the launch and consultation of the Global Business Forum platform.

The “Global Business Forum Expo2020Dubai,” which takes place on the sidelines of Expo Dubai2020, running from 1 October, 2021 to 30 March, 2022, serves to boost business exchange as well as an opportunity to disclose national products in this Middle Eastern country.

On the occasion, the chairperson of the Angola and United Arab Emirates Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Bráulio Martins, said that national businesspeople should see this as a unique and opportune time to boost their presence in this market in the Arab world.

With the platform, Bráulio Martins added that Angolan businesspeople will also identify investment and export opportunities, as well as having access to information about the Arab market.

“We expect to have 27 Angolan companies at the event with activities linked to agriculture, fishing, livestock and industry which, as well as exhibiting their products, who will be able to set up new partnerships,” he said.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

An international group of vaccine experts have come out in opposition of providing booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines to the general population, an opinion that pushes back against increasing efforts in the United States and other nations battling a surge of new cases.

In an essay published Monday in The Lancet medical journal, the experts say recent studies show the current vaccines in use around the world continue to provide strong protection against the virus despite the presence of the more contagious delta variant, especially against severe illness and hospitalization.

The trend to provide booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines began after studies out of Israel suggested the two-dose Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness had significantly decreased among elderly people who were inoculated at the beginning of this year. The data prompted Israel to begin administering booster shots to people 50 years of age or older.

The authors suggest that modifying the vaccines to match the specific COVID-19 variants is a better approach than providing extra doses of the original vaccine.

The authors include two leading scientists with the World Health Organization, Ana-Maria Henao-Restrepo and Soumya Swaminathan, and Dr. Marian Gruber and Dr. Philip Krause, two key officials in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine review office who are leaving their posts before the end of the year. The New York Times recently reported that Gruber and Krause are upset over the Biden administration’s recent announcement that booster shots would be offered for some Americans beginning next month, well before the FDA had time to properly review the data.

The FDA is nearing a decision on whether to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for children under 12 years of age and booster shots of the current vaccines already approved for adult Americans.

Both the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month recommended a third shot of Pfizer or Moderna for some people with weakened immune systems.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, recently implored wealthy nations to forgo COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for the rest of the year to ensure that low- and lower-middle-income countries have more access to the vaccine. Tedros had previously asked high and upper-middle income nations not to provide boosters until September.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce Wednesday that the government will provide COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for citizens 50 years of age and older in time for the upcoming winter months.

Putin self-isolating

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin is self-isolating after several members of his entourage tested positive for COVID-19, according to a statement by the Kremlin.

President Putin has tested negative for the virus, but has decided not to travel to Tajikistan for upcoming security conferences, the statement added. He met Monday with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and held a separate public event with several members of Russia’s Paralympic team.

Putin has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 with the domestically-developed two-dose Sputnik V vaccine.

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON – Four people are set to become the world’s first all-civilian crew to fly into Earth orbit when they blast off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Wednesday as space tourism takes its biggest leap yet.

Weather conditions are 70% favorable for Wednesday night’s scheduled launch of Americans Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Chris Sembroski and Sian Proctor from the U.S. spaceport’s historic Launch Pad 39A, which was used for the Apollo moon missions during the 1960s and 70s.

The four-member crew will fly into space aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft built by SpaceX, the privately-run company which has begun sending astronauts to the International Space Station. The fully automated Crew Dragon spacecraft will take the crew to an altitude of 575 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, just above the current positions of both the ISS and the Hubble Space Telescope.

SpaceX said the four space tourists will “conduct scientific research designed to advance human health on Earth and during future long-duration spaceflights” before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean near the Florida coast three days later.

The mission, dubbed Inspiration4, will be led by the 38-year-old Isaacman, a billionaire technology entrepreneur and founder of an online payment-processing company who is said to have paid SpaceX several million dollars for the flight. The 29-year-old Arceneaux is a childhood bone cancer survivor who has a titanium rod in her leg, which makes her the first person to fly in space with a prosthesis. Sembroski is a 42-year-old retired U.S. Air Force ballistic missile maintenance engineer who now works in the aviation industry, while 51-year-old Proctor is a geoscientist and community college professor who was a NASA astronaut finalist in 2009.

Sembroski and Proctor were selected through a nationwide search contest, while Arceneaux is flying as a representative of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where she was treated during her battle with cancer and now works as a physician’s assistant. Isaacman is using the flight to raise $100 million for St. Jude, and has pledged $100 million of his own money to the hospital.

Isaacman’s flight will far exceed those of fellow billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, who each took brief non-orbital flights to the edge of space aboard their own self-financed vehicles — Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, respectively — earlier this year.  

Source: Voice of America