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TAAG opens China/Brazil route for cargo transport

Luanda – Angola’s Airlines TAAG starts operating this week on the Changsha/Luanda/São Paulo route (China, Angola and Brazil), for the exclusive transport of cargo, with an annual turnover of US$200 million.

The completion of this operation results from a commercial agreement signed between TAAG and the Chinese aviation business group Lucky Aviation on Wednesday in Luanda.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, TAAG CEO, Eduardo Fairen, explained that the route will be operated, initially, by a Boeing 777-200 ER type aircraft.

The aircraft, with a capacity of 56 tons of various goods, with stress to raw material, agricultural products, electronic material, clothing, among other goods, will make two flights a week (about 80 hours of flights).

As for the agreement, the CEO said that, later, TAAG plans to scale to other Chinese cities, focusing on Hong Kong, Chengdu Tianfu, Guangzhou, Chengdu Shuangliu, Shanghai Hongqiao and Beijing, capital of China.

The general representative of China Lucky Aviation (CLCA) in Angola, Tongxi Li, said that the agreement signed will generate 200 direct jobs at Angola’s airports.

He said the partnership between Lucky Aviation and TAAG is an example of successful economic cooperation and bringing the commercial aviation sector closer between the two countries.

Tongxi Li assured that CLCA is working, with the support of the two governments to build two international air logistics hubs for passengers and cargo, selecting Angola as a key country, in the context of supporting the improvement of the international image of Angolan airports.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

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Elections2022: CASA-CE coalition formalizes candidacy

Luanda – The political coalition CASA-CE submitted Wednesday to the Constitutional Court (TC) the process for the formalization of its candidacy, to run for the general elections to take place in August 24, in Angola.

The process was delivered by the Coalition’s delegate for candidacies, Carlos Jacinto, to the director of the Office of Political Parties of the TC, Mauro Alexandre.

With this step, the Broad Convergence for the Salvation of Angola – Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE) becomes the second political organization to formalize the candidacy at the TC, after the ruling MPLA.

There are now 10 days left to the end of the candidacies delivery process for analysis by the Constitutional Court, which started on June 6.

After all processes are assessed by the said court, the political groups will have 10 more days to correct any flaws or insufficiency detected in their respewctive processes, according to the electoral law.

Founded by politician Abel Chivukuvuku, on April 03, 2012, almost four months before the general elections of that year, CASA-CE is currently the third political force in the country, after MPLA and UNITA, with 16 MPs represented in the Parliament as a result of the general elections held in 2017.

Since February 2021, the coalition is being led by Manuel Fernandes, who replaced André Gaspar Mendes de Carvalho, that replaced the founder of the coalition Abel Chivuvukuvu.

CASA-CE is composed of the Party of Free Alliance of Angolan Majority (PALMA), the Party of Support for Democracy and Development of Angola – Patriotic Alliance (PADDA-AP), the Angolan Pacific Party (PPA), the National Party for the Salvation of Angola (PNSA) and the Democratic Party for the Progress of Angola National Alliance (PDP-ANA).

Of the four elections already held in the country, CASA-CE’s first participation in a general election was in 2012, when it obtained eight representatives in Parliament with almost six percent of the vote.

In 2017, CASA-CE won 643,961 votes (9.4 percent), corresponding to the current 16 MPs, surpassing the Social Renewal Party (PRS), until then the second largest opposition party.

These will be the first democratic elections to include the vote of Angolans living abroad, following a constitutional revision approved in 2021.

The August’s general elections will be the fifth in the country’s history, since the abandonment of the one-party system (1991), with an inaugural vote followed by a violent post-election crisis in 1992.

The September 1992 crisis degenerated into a prolonged armed conflict that interrupted the regularity of the democratic process until 2008, the year the second election took place in Angola.

With the end of the war in February 2002, the country returned to the polls successively in 2008, 2012, and 2017.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

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Sonangol reassures normal gas production and supply in Angola

Luanda – The Gas and Renewable Energy Business Unit (UNGER) of the state-owned oil company Sonangol, said Wednesday it has available enough butane to supply the domestic market.

In a press release, UNGER reacts to a fake news circulating on social networks, which “advises” families to have full reserve butane-gas as some constraints in the supply of the product are supposedly foreseen in the last week of July and early August, due to alleged maintenance at the Luanda Refinery.

According to UNGER, its production and distribution system are in full operation all over the country without any indicator or prospect of change in the near future.

The company reiterates its appeal to citizens to purchase butane in the usual manner, at official retailers and not to mind those rumours circulating in social networks, most likely with the aim to generate price hike of the product in the market.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

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UN urges WTO not to impose food export restrictions

GENEVA— The United Nations on Monday begged world trade ministers meeting at the WTO not to impose export restrictions on food for humanitarian purposes, amid a food security crisis.

The UN’s human rights chief Michelle Bachelet and its trade and development head Rebeca Grynspan said Russia’s war in Ukraine was increasing the risk of hunger and famine for tens of millions of people who are already food insecure or approaching food insecurity.

Countries meeting at the World Trade Organization’s ministerial conference in Geneva this week are trying to reach a consensus position on food security.

Mindful of less-developed countries, net food-importing developing countries and those reliant on the UN’s World Food Programme, the two UN chiefs said that in 2020, African countries imported about 80 percent of their food and 92 percent of their cereal from outside the continent.

They urged WTO members to “refrain from imposing export restrictions on essential foodstuffs purchased by LDCs and NFIDCs as well as those purchased by WFP for non-commercial humanitarian purposes”.

Russia’s invasion has heightened concerns for global food security as Ukraine’s Black Sea ports are blocked, preventing the country from exporting its produce.

Before the February invasion, Ukraine was the world’s fourth-largest supplier of wheat and maize.

India capped sugar exports to safeguard its own supplies and ease inflation, days after its ban on wheat shipments sent global prices soaring.

Immediately after the May 25 sugar announcement, WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala urged countries not to block or restrict exports of basic foodstuffs given the tensions on global food markets.

A decision on food security and export restrictions is one of the main expected outcomes at the WTO ministerial conference, which opened Sunday and runs until Wednesday.

A second text aims to ban export restrictions on WFP purchases but India and Tanzania oppose the move.

The UN leaders said they would work with WTO members to address anti-competitive and unfair business practices.

“Hoarding, excessive stockpiling of basic foodstuffs and associated speculation, especially during global food shortages, adversely affect the enjoyment of the right to food and erodes efforts to achieve food security for all,” they said.

EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis met India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal for talks at the WTO on Monday.

“We need all members to show the same level of ambition and spirit of compromise to make this WTO ministerial a success,” the EU executive vice president said afterwards.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

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China Wins Battle of Perception Among Young Africans

If it’s a battle for hearts, minds – and wallets – then according to young Africans, China is outperforming the U.S. these days.

A new survey by Johannesburg-based think tank The Ichikowitz Family Foundation, found this week that the vast majority of African youth see China as the most influential foreign player on the continent.

By contrast, U.S. influence has dropped by 12% since 2020, according to the survey of more than 4,500 Africans 18 to 24 years old and living in 15 countries across Africa.

Seventy-seven percent of young Africans said China was the “foreign actor” with the greatest impact on the continent, while giving the U.S. an influence rating of just 67%. In a follow-up question on whether that influence was positive or negative, 76% said China’s was positive, while 72% said the same of the U.S.

The top reasons those surveyed say China’s influence is positive: affordable Chinese products, Beijing’s investments in infrastructure development on the continent and China’s creation of job opportunities in African countries.

“In the first edition of the pan-African youth survey we asked young Africans which country they believed had the biggest influence on the continent and at that point it was without any doubt the United States,” said Ivor Ichikowitz, who heads the foundation that carried out the research.

“This year, two years later, post-COVID, the picture is completely different … the most influential country in Africa at the moment is China.”

Ichikowitz told VOA there are a few reasons for this change.

“(Former President) Donald Trump resonated with African youth. He was seen as a powerful, charismatic leader … and as a consequence the United States topped the list of most influential countries in Africa,” he explained.

But mostly, he said, it’s down to investment.

“Young Africans are telling us that they are seeing tangible, visible and very impactful signs of the role that China has played in the development of Africa,” Ichikowitz said.

“Albeit that there is significant criticism of Chinese investment in Africa, it’s very difficult for African governments not to value China because China is providing capital, providing expertise, providing markets at a time when Europe and the United States are not,” he added.

The African Union Commission reported more than 40% of the world’s youth is expected to reside in Africa in the next decade. The fact that China is helping to create a middle class on the continent means they will also help create one of the biggest consumer populations in the world, Ichikowtiz said.

However, the study also found some young Africans concerned over whether they are reaping enough of the benefits from China’s exploitation of their mineral wealth and natural resources.

Twenty-four percent of those interviewed said Chinese investments in their countries were a form of “economic colonialism,” with 36% of those surveyed saying the Chinese are exporting African resources without fair compensation. Yet other interviewees — 21% — said the Chinese showed a lack of respect for African values and traditions.

Among the countries surveyed was South Africa.

Woniso, a 23-year-old medical student at a busy sidewalk café in Johannesburg, told VOA she understood why China had come out on top. Chinese investment in Africa was significant, she noted.

However, she had some concerns about Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang and said she preferred Western-style democracy.

“Socially I’d probably put them (China) last because of like all the social injustices happening against the Muslim community,” said the student, who didn’t wish to give her last name.

Young South Africans, she said, are also “a very liberal sort of generation” and liked “the U.S. in terms of their liberal nature of doing things.”

However, when it comes to a Western style democracy, only 39% of the youth surveyed said it should be emulated. While the survey found African youth favoring democracy, more than half of those interviewed said a Western type of democracy “is not suitable” and African countries need a style of governance that fits them.

Chatting to a friend outside a mall a short distance away, Thandazani Nyathi, a businessman in his 30s, said he didn’t have a preference between the U.S. and China.

“They’re both looking to profit. I guess I would lean towards the country that wants to profit but on the most equitable terms,” he said.

“Which one am I particularly in favor of? The one that doesn’t come screw us,” he added, roaring with laughter.

Source: Voice of America

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Cameroonians Protest Torched Hospital as Military and Separatists Trade Blame

In Cameroon, hundreds of people have protested attacks on schools, churches, and clinics in the country’s troubled west after a hospital in the city of Mamfe was torched. Cameroon’s military and separatists traded blame for last week’s attack.

Cameroonian officials say several hundred people protested on the streets of Mamfe city on Monday against separatist attacks on civilian bodies in the southwest area.

Cameroon’s state broadcaster CRTV reported the protest was organized by community leaders after the largest hospital in Mamfe was torched on June 8.

Merchant Daniel Mbange spoke to VOA from Mamfe via a messaging application on why he took part in the protest.

“It is very very disheartening that people will attack a social infrastructure which has broad use for the entire community,” Mbange said. “Who on earth will think of destroying a hospital where women and children, men, the elderly use it?”

Similar protests have been taking place in other towns, including Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.

The military blames rebels for the attack and says its troops rescued about 50 patients from flames that injured several patients and nurses.

Capo Daniel is the self-declared deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of Cameroon’s largest rebel groups.

He denies they were responsible and voiced a common separatist claim that government troops carried out the attack to tarnish their image.

“There is a Cameroon military barracks not far from there, there was a joint Cameroon military patrol and check point close by,” Daniel said. “Ambazonia fighters could not have been able to bypass these military installations, taking the time to remove patients while shooting in the air without any intervention of the Cameroon military. It was an action [attack] carried out by Cameroon military men dressed in civilian clothing.”

Cameroonian officials rejected the rebels’ claim. Mengo Victor Arrey Nkongho is a Cameroonian minister in charge of special duties in Yaounde.

“Today, we hear them on social media accusing our defense and security forces,” Nkongho said. “They no longer want to own what their products {fighters} have committed. A hospital that had about 49 patients and nurses. These are witnesses, they know who took them out of the beds. There were not military people. They {fighters} took the patients out of their beds, out of the wards before setting the hospital on fire.”

Nkongho says federal troops rushed to the hospital and relocated patients to a nearby military hospital.

The protesters Monday called on the government and military to better protect hospitals, schools, and churches from separatist attacks.

Last week’s attack is not the first time Anglophone separatists have been accused of targeting civilian buildings in Mamfe.

In February, the Roman Catholic Church in Cameroon said armed men torched a renowned girls’ dormitory in the city.

The military blamed rebels, who vowed to investigate but are yet to publish a response.

The rebels have since 2017 been fighting for a breakaway English-speaking state from French-speaking majority Cameroon.

The United Nations says clashes between the two sides have since left at least 3,300 people dead and more than 750,000 internally displaced.

Source: Voice of America

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From DRC to NBA, Congolese Player Biyombo Gives Others a Shot at Better Life

Growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bismack Biyombo dreamed of playing professional basketball in the United States. His dream has been reality ever since he was drafted into the NBA more than a decade ago. But what he’s doing off the court gives a notable assist to his home country.

The 29-year-old center for Arizona’s Phoenix Suns calls himself “a child of Africa” who “stepped onto a basketball court at the age of 13 in Lubumbashi,” a major city in southeastern DRC. “And I was lucky enough to have, you know, parents that supported me,” he told VOA in an interview at the Suns’ practice facility earlier this spring.

Biyombo credits his father Francois Biyombo and mother Françoise Ngoy with nurturing a spirit of purpose and generosity. They sacrificed to ensure that the eldest of their seven children could play basketball, including when he went to Yemen at 16 to try out for a local team, and later when he joined a club league in Spain. After Biyombo was drafted into the NBA in 2011, they encouraged his giving back.

He has. Bismack Biyombo has donated time and millions of dollars to support education and health care in the DRC, largely through the self-named foundation he started in 2017 in Florida. (Before joining the Phoenix Suns for the 2021-22 season, he played with the Orlando Magic — also in Florida — as well as the Charlotte Hornets in North Carolina and Toronto Raptors in Canada.)

Biyombo heavily funded the Kivu International School, which opened in Goma in 2017. “Each year, we award more than 150 scholarships within the DRC and the U.S.,” he said in a video clip posted on the foundation website. The foundation has brought more than 60 DRC students to the United States to study, he told VOA. Biyombo also hosts free basketball camps each summer in the DRC, equipping youths with new skills, athletic shoes and other gear.

“My job becomes to inspire kids across Congo and make sure that we give all of them an equal opportunity,” he said in the VOA interview.

Biyombo’s foundation has supported Congolese mobile clinics and upgrades to public health facilities. It also provided hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of health care equipment, including face masks and hazmat suits, to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the DRC.

“And now we’ve set bigger goals and we’re going for it,” Biyombo said.

That includes building a Lubumbashi hospital in honor of his father, who died last August at age 61 of complications from COVID-19. Biyombo announced earlier this year that he would donate his salary for the 2021-2022 season — $1.3 million, according to his foundation’s website — toward that mission.

“I want to build my dad a hospital that will continue servicing people, because he believed in one guy, which is me,” Biyombo said. “And now we get to do it for him.”

Such humanitarian gestures are right out of the playbook of retired NBA great Dikembe Mutombo, a Congolese player who, Biyombo said, is “like a big brother.”

Mutombo, who hung up his jersey in 2009 and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame six years later, started a foundation in 1997 to aid people, especially those in his native DRC. That foundation’s projects include building the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital in his hometown of Kinshasa.

Dr. Joseph Nsambi Bulanda, health minister for Haut Katanga province where Lubumbashi is located, told VOA his government appreciated Biyombo’s offer of a new hospital. Construction has not yet begun.

“We can give him some advice,” Nsambi said, noting his government aims “to improve and to let all Congolese and all people from Haut Katanga province have a very good health system.”

Nsambi said of Biyombo, “He’s someone with very good will.” He added that the public health system in his country – one of the world’s poorest — welcomes an assist. “We need people. We need organizations.”

Biyombo’s generosity has brought him accolades. TIME named him to its 2021 list of Next Generation Leaders. The NBA and health care provider Kaiser Permanente honored him this year with a “community cares” award — and a $10,000 check for his foundation — for his efforts to aid the DRC.

The athlete wants others to benefit from basketball, as he has.

“So many young African American leaders [are] now coming into the NBA that I think the future of Africa there is great,” Biyombo said. He also talked up the Basketball Africa League, a partnership of the NBA and International Basketball Federation (FIBA).

“The reality of the league,” Biyombo said, “is that I think a lot of these kids are given an opportunity to actually stay home” and still prosper in the sport.

“You know, most of the kids want to find a way to escape what’s happening in Africa,” he said. “And you got to give them a reason to stay. I think that’s one thing that motivated me to invest so much in the younger generation. … The more tools we can give to the next generation, they’ll be able to solve more of the problems that we’re dealing with today.

“There is an opportunity to make an impact,” Biyombo said. “And I don’t want to waste it.”

Source: Voice of America

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Kabuga Fit to Stand Trial Over Rwanda Genocide: UN Tribunal

Felicien Kabuga, an alleged financier of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, is fit to stand trial, a U.N. tribunal ruled Monday, saying it must begin “as soon as possible” in The Hague.

“The Defence has not established that Kabuga is presently unfit for trial,” the ruling said, after lawyers had sought to halt proceedings on health grounds.

Kabuga was arrested on May 16, 2020, in a Paris suburb after 25 years on the run.

He is accused of helping create the Interahamwe Hutu militia, the main armed group of the 1994 genocide that claimed more than 800,000 lives, according to the United Nations.

Kabuga, 87, is currently in detention in The Hague awaiting trial before the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), which is completing the work of the disbanded International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Various experts were involved in preparing the case for the tribunal, which “unequivocally demonstrates that Kabuga is in a vulnerable and fragile state and requires intensive medical care and monitoring,” the MICT said.

The opinions of independent forensic experts differed on Kabuga’s fitness to stand trial, but they agreed that his condition could render him unfit in the future, the tribunal said.

He needs “24-hour nursing care” and as such currently resides in a prison hospital, it added.

The judges conceded that the issue of Kabuga’s fitness to stand trial had not been “easy to determine” and recommended that his condition be monitored continuously.

The MICT said it was in the interests of justice for the trial to begin as soon as possible and to proceed in the tribunal’s branch in The Hague — rather than its Arusha chamber.

Kabuga, a former president of the Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines, which broadcast calls for the killing of Tutsis, is accused by the MICT of genocide, incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.

Source: Voice of America

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South African Entrepreneur Transforms Plastic Waste into Playgrounds

Despite global efforts to curb plastic use, sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to see a six-fold increase in plastic use by 2060, said the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In South Africa, one man is trying to make a difference by creating jobs and transforming plastic waste into outdoor furniture and playgrounds.

It may look like timber, but the long, chocolate-brown planks used to construct a dining set are made of recycled plastic.

Hudson Diphofa started his business building with these planks at his home in the township of Katlehong, after he lost his job during the coronavirus pandemic.

He said it has created employment for himself and two other staff and contributes to environmental protection.

“It is safe to do the recycling so that we can save our environment because the animals, they won’t die from those plastics and everything, our dams they won’t be dirty, so I think that’s the way to save our community,” Diphofa said.

The 34-year-old now gets regular orders for outdoor furniture and playgrounds.

South Africa is one of the world’s top countries for recycling plastic, capturing about 45% of its plastic waste.

At the Tufflex Plastic Products recycling plant in Johannesburg, durable and sustainable faux timber is being made with plastics that are too low in quality to be reused for packaging or other materials.

Recyclers say it’s extending the lifespan of plastic used in everyday life.

Charles Muller is with Tufflex Plastic Products.

“When you wake up in the morning, you will touch or interact with plastic more than 100 times before you get into the office,” Muller said. “And that’s turning on the light switch to your toothpaste. The problem we have with plastic is it’s visible and it pollutes — not plastic pollutes — people pollute.”

The economic incentive for recycling plastic has given rise to an informal waste picking industry.

People gather and separate materials to sell to recyclers, providing them with income.

But the informality of the business means waste pickers don’t have access to all neighborhoods or industrial areas, so the material ends up as litter or in landfills.

Luyanda Hlatshwayo reclaims waste.

“Because South Africa is such a disposing country, there’s plastic everywhere for us to collect,” Hlatshwayo said. “There’s no proper structure that fight against the redirecting of plastic from going to the environment.”

Globally, 460 million metric tons of plastic are used annually, half of which is for packaging.

That’s set to triple by 2060, with a six-fold increase in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

And recycling is not keeping up, capturing only 9 percent of plastic waste globally.

Which is why environmentalists say reducing plastic consumption — especially non-essential packaging — is necessary.

Lorren de Kock is with the World Wildlife Fund.

“In Africa, there’s lack of financial capacity, human capacity to collect this waste efficiently, and so recycling is a problem,” de Kock said. “This needs to be looked at by businesses and government, because we need to change the default and the normalization of just offering consumers plastic continuously.”

Even with a reduction in plastic use, there would still be plenty of recycled material for creators like Diphofa to transform for new uses.

Source: Voice of America

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COVID-19 Deadlier During Pregnancy, African Study Says

Pregnancy puts women at higher risk of severe medical complications or death from COVID-19, according to a new study of more than 1,300 women in sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers argue that vaccinating pregnant women against the coronavirus should be made a priority across the region, where most countries do not yet recommend vaccination during pregnancy.

Multiple studies have already shown that COVID-19 is more dangerous to pregnant women than to those who are not pregnant. But most of the women in these studies lived in Europe, North America or Asia. Until now, little data was available from Africa.

“Africa is not Europe, is not the U.S.A.,” said Jean Nachega, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and lead author of the new study. “We should not just rely on data coming from the U.S., Europe or China to try to understand COVID on the continent.”

Populations in Africa are typically younger than those in Europe, North America and East Asia. But certain infectious diseases like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis (TB), as well as noninfectious diseases such as sickle cell anemia, are more common there. Those conditions can make it harder for the body to fight off infections.

In the study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Nachega and his colleagues from the AFREhealth research network analyzed health records from 1,315 women treated at hospitals in six countries in sub-Saharan Africa between March 2020 and March 2021. Roughly a third were pregnant and had tested positive for the coronavirus. Another third were pregnant and had tested negative, and the other third were not pregnant and had tested positive. The researchers tested how pregnancy, infection with the coronavirus, and conditions such as HIV, TB, malaria and sickle cell anemia affected a woman’s likelihood of severe disease or death.

The findings were grim. Pregnant women who were hospitalized in sub-Saharan Africa were five times more likely to die in the hospital if they tested positive for the coronavirus. And being pregnant doubled the odds that a woman admitted to a hospital with COVID-19 would die.

“We had it in both ways: pregnancy impacted COVID, and COVID impacted pregnant women,” said Nachega.

Pregnant women with COVID-19 were also at higher risk of serious complications requiring intensive care. It wasn’t possible to tell whether pregnancy made the combination of COVID-19 and TB or HIV riskier, but women with HIV, TB, malaria or sickle cell who had the coronavirus were more likely to get seriously ill.

“It’s very good that the study was conducted in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is very reassuring that the findings are consistent with the results of other studies,” said Ana Langer, a physician specializing in reproductive health and head of the Women and Health initiative at Harvard University.

Because the study considered only hospitalized women, it wasn’t possible to tell if pregnancy makes women more likely to get infected with the coronavirus or if they get sick from it in the first place. Using data collected in the past can also cause problems with the analysis, which the researchers used statistical tools to correct. But “this was the best study they could do with the availability of funding and the other circumstances,” Langer said.

Nachega hopes that his findings will convince policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa to recommend vaccination for pregnant women and women who could become pregnant.

“The bottom line is that pregnant women need to get vaccinated,” he said. “If not then, before even she gets pregnant. The most important implication of this study is to advocate for COVID vaccination in women of childbearing age.”

Multiple studies have shown that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective during pregnancy, and 110 countries recommend COVID-19 vaccination for some or all pregnant women. However, only 13 of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 countries currently do so. Lack of government support stymies efforts to make the vaccine more accessible to pregnant women and is complicated by high rates of vaccine hesitancy in sub-Saharan Africa, where only about 19% of women intend to get the vaccine.

“Women and their families are worried about their safety, they think that the vaccine could harm them, or their fetuses and babies, and it has been extensively demonstrated that that’s not the case,” said Langer. “The vaccine is safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women.”

Source: Voice of America